The Higher Order of Things
Architectural domes in Bulgaria and Cuba! Who says that spirituality does not exist in the Communist world?
Bubble World
Are we living in a bubble world? Bangalore, India seems to have the answer.
Landscapes of Resentment
Recently, in re-reading Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, I came across this disturbing passage that succinctly sums up the current toxic political environment in a growing number of liberal democracies: “In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at
A Site of Struggles
Zhangjiakou (张家口) has always been a strategic military pass that separates the Mongolian Gobi Desert and the North China Plain. Not surprisingly, dynastic regimes in the past always paid special attention to the sections of the Great Wall passing through the region, rebuilding and upgrading them frequently. Then, during the Sino-Japanese War, the Civil War, and the Cold War, new fortresses and bunkers were added alongside with the ancient war
Dispatches from a Heterotopia
Cuba did not turn into a socialist utopia. But whatever it has become, it is certainly not a time capsule as it has often been suggested. Instead, the Caribbean nation represents an alternative reality, one that is surreally augmented by vivid color hues and the sound of crowing roosters. This is a place where humans can once again be in touch with their inner senses. In this place, the color
Eisenhüttenstadt’s Second Coming
Once the pride of the East German state, the steel plant in Eisenhüttenstadt has been downsized and privatized. The former East Germany city Eisenhüttenstadt (Ironworks City)–also known as Stalinstadt (Stalin City) prior to the de-Stalinization movement in the early 1960s–was designed to be one of the socialist model cities in the Eastern Bloc. The end of East Germany, however, has unexpectedly turned the city into another kind of model, one that could
Japan Lost and Found
We like to imagine Japan as a clean and technologically savvy society. Yet, little known to the outside world is a burgeoning subculture of visiting abandoned factories, mines, theme parks, and resorts that have been left behind by Japan’s bubble economy or the so-called “Lost Decade” of the 1990s. How do we make sense of this “haikyo mania” (ruin mania) practiced by Japanese ruins aficionados? My book chapter, “Japan Lost and
The Last Picture Show
History was made (and buried) here. Without this secret uranium mine in Hunan Province, China would not be able to develope its first atomic and hydrogen bombs in the 1960s. Unsurprisingly, hundreds of workers sacrificed their lives due to industrial accidents and radioactive illness over the decades. Yet, their stories were little known to the outside world. When I finally visited the site after months of delay and procrastination, construction
The Nature of Xiongan
My encounter with “nature” in a recent visit to the Xiongan New District, which has been slated to become China’s latest hightech zone.