Area of inquiry 01
China
History, society and contemporary life, read from provincial roads and county markets as much as from the archive.
- Provincial life
- Empire and script
- Statecraft
- Contemporary China
Writing
Field Note · EN
The Ginger Garden
Essay · EN
Rivers and Lakes
Essay · EN
The Humid South: Miasma, Body, and Space in Southern China
Travel Journal · EN
The Trade Cities of Western Yunnan
Essay · EN
The Windcatchers of Hyderabad
Essay · EN
The Gap in the Smile: Ritual Tooth Extraction in Ancient China
Essay · EN
The Fasting of the Heart
Essay · EN
The Eight White Yurts
Essay · EN
Cheese Between East and West
Essay · EN
The Fifth Month and the Dragon Boats
Essay · EN
Asia’s Mink Blankets
Essay · EN
The Yarkand Sarai and the Kashmir Route
Essay · EN
The Ashura She-Camel
Essay · EN
The Foundation of the Chinese Home
Travel Journal · EN
The Whole Village is Here
Essay · EN
The Eight Flavors of Beijing
Travel Journal · EN
The Walled Garden of the Chinese Market
Essay · EN
The Chinese Hamburger
Essay · EN
Sand and Tears: The Central Asian Slave Route
Essay · EN
The Coal Camels of Old Beijing
Essay · EN
The Yellow Dragon
Essay · EN
The Arrival of Botany in China
Essay · EN
The Eid al-Adha Market in Kashgar
Essay · EN
A Cabbage at the Doorstep
Essay · EN
How Food Crosses Borders
Essay · EN
Guanyin of the Dali Valley
Essay · EN
The Elm Coins of Spring Hunger
Essay · EN
The Chromium Myth of the Terracotta Army
Essay · EN
The Lychee, the Messengers, and the Scholar
Essay · EN
Yizhan: Notes from the Imperial Road
Essay · EN
Goiters on the Inner Asian Trails
Field Note · EN
The Road to Heaven
Essay · EN
The Book of Swindles
Essay · EN
The Long Road to Spice: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China
Essay · EN
Ti-Yong and the Iranian Crisis
Essay · EN
The Lidai Fabao: Memory, Lineage, and the Living Dharma
Essay · EN
Matsutake: From the Forest Floor to the Global Market
Essay · EN
Of Saffron and Strangers
Essay · EN
The Hall of Idleness
Essay · EN
The Other Incense Road
Essay · EN
Chinese Thought in a Fractured World
Essay · EN
Harmony, at Times, Comes Down to a Plate
Essay · EN
The Bone Shaker
Essay · EN
Horses, Selenium, and the Frontiers of China
Essay · EN
Not Gazing Enough at the Mountain
Essay · EN
Beyond the Five Pungent Roots
Travel Journal · EN
Immortals and Bunkers
Essay · EN
Dali’s Market Basket
Essay · EN
From a Bowl of Porridge to a Plate of Spaghetti
Essay · EN
The Lost Legion of Liqian
Essay · EN
The Last Farmers of Dali
Essay · EN
A Tangut Blessing for the Road
Essay · EN
The Seven Necessities
Essay · EN
Kingdom of the Wheat Line
Essay · EN
The Soul of the Chinese Street
Essay · EN
Flowers in the Yunnanese Kitchen
Essay · EN
The Yogurt Revolution
Essay · EN
A Memory Map of the Beijing Metro
Essay · EN
Locusts on the Sabbath Table
Essay · EN
The Double Skies of Chinese Islam
Essay · EN
My Dad, the Dragon
Essay · EN
The Myth of the Authentic Tribe
Essay · EN
Between Shawarma and Doner
Essay · EN
Today’s Bandits, Tomorrow’s Rebels
Research · EN
Spinning Gold from Straw
Essay · EN
Of Tobacco, Bottles, and Birds
Essay · EN
Feathers and Ice: The Gyrfalcon Road
Essay · EN
Light and Blood
Essay · EN
Sea Breeze: The Odyssey of the Kashkul
Research · EN
Scent and Splendor: The Way of the Citron
Research · EN
The Way of the Three Treasures: A History of the Eunuch
Essay · EN
From Egypt to Susa: The Flight of the Falcon of Shiraz
Research · EN
Turks and Poets: From Skulls to Goblets
Essay · EN
The Tea Porters of Sichuan
Essay · EN
Invaders, Braids, and Borders
Essay · EN
The Day of the Kyrgyz Kalpak
Essay · EN
“Wakhan, where the people worship Mahomet and speak a strange tongue”
Research · EN
The Cloud Binders
Essay · EN
The Hashish Eaters: Cannabis on the Silk Road
Essay · EN
The Blacksmiths of the Bonan Frontier
Essay · EN
Between Tavern and Mosque: The Path of Coffee
Essay · EN
The Noodle Kingdom
Essay · EN
The Long Shadows of the Poppy
Essay · EN
The Tamed Wild: Control and Artifice in the Classical Chinese Garden
Essay · EN
Empires and Teacups
Essay · EN
Silk, Strings, and Sacred Wood
Essay · EN
The Fate of the Copper Monastery
Essay · EN
Nomads: The Jews of the Silk Road
Essay · EN
Back to the Steppe: The Geography of Central Asia
Essay · EN
Architecture: Fortresses of the Soul
Essay · EN
Lotus from the West: The Iranian Roots of Buddhism
Essay · EN
Whispers of Paradise: A Journey into Sufi Music
Essay · EN
The Way of Khoja Nasreddin
Essay · EN
Seeking Figs, Even in China
Essay · EN
The Purple Apples of the Tian Shan
Essay · EN
To the Valley of Unity: The Sufi Path
Essay · EN
The Pichok: Central Asia’s Living Blade
Essay · EN
To the Sufis of China
Essay · EN
The King of Cuisines: Central Asian Plov
Essay · EN
The Last Refuge of the Silk Road Kings
Essay · EN
The Teahouses and Sufis of Kashgar
Essay · EN
Camels, Turks, and Climate Change
Essay · EN
Dumplings on the Silk Road
Essay · EN
Frontier Poetry
Essay · EN
Bones of Fortune
Research · EN
God’s Bonsai
Research · EN
The Light-Bearing Melons of Samarkand
Research · EN
The Exiles of Samarkand
Research · EN
Exiles, Part II
Research · EN
The Caspian Tiger: A Ghost of Central Asia
Research · EN
Exiles #3: The Black Khitans
Research · EN
Rebels of the Black Tent
Research · EN
A Strange Beast at the Song Court
Research · EN
Fragments of Iranian Buddhism
Research · EN
A Requiem for a Donkey
Research · EN
Nowruz: The Dawn of a New Day
Research · EN
Taming the Snow Leopard: A Central Asian Mystery
Research · EN
The Tarim Mummies
Essay · EN
A Mouthless Crow and Crazy Clouds
Essay · EN
China in Central Asia: Nomads, Greeks, and Blood-Sweating Horses
Essay · EN
China and the Steppe: The Rise of the Xiongnu
Essay · EN
Demons, Ascetics, and the Black Pen
Essay · EN
The Scent of Tibet: Along the Musk Road
Essay · EN
The Rose of Heresy: The Life and Death of Sarmad Kashani
Essay · EN
Visions of Central Asia: Part I
Essay · EN
Outlines of the Heart
Essay · EN
Architecture #3: Gates, Domes, and Eternal Tears
Essay · EN
Horses for Tea
Essay · EN
Mongols, Cheetahs, and Slaves on Horseback
Essay · EN
Verses from Cold Mountain
Essay · EN
Zen Stones
Essay · EN
Toxic Trees and Human Lacquerware
Essay · EN
German Trenches and Parthian Shots
Essay · EN
Architecture #1: The Science of Mud
Essay · EN
A Sufi Imam at Chabad House
Essay · EN
Architecture II: Fire, Wind, and Silence
Essay · EN
Iranians, Turanians, and the Art of the Raid
Essay · EN
When Asia Was the World
Essay · EN
Under Open Skies
Essay · EN
Trees in Trays
Essay · EN
Moonlight Over the Brothel
Essay · EN
Leaves of Grass
Essay · EN
A Very Short History of Eccentricity in China
Essay · EN
Jewish Traders on the Silk Roads
Essay · EN
Which Sky Would I Choose?
Research · EN
The Lotus in the Sands
Essay · EN
Wandering: Jews of the Silk Road
Essay · EN
Out of the Mist: The Old Tea Horse Road
Fieldwork
Study Journey · Yunnan · Southwest China · 2027 · In planning
Yunnan Culinary Cultures 2027Kitchens, markets and mountain agriculture in southwest China
Study Journey · Beijing to Dunhuang · West China · Spring 2026 · Completed
Buddhist Roads — West China 2026A traveling seminar between text and place in the making of Mahayana Buddhism
Study Journey · Yunnan · Southwest China · 2025 · Completed
Tea Roads — Yunnan 2025Leaf, kettle and market along the old tea routes of Yunnan
Projects
Product · Open
Dali Infusion
A week-long retreat in Dali, Yunnan, combining mind-body practice, traditional tea culture, Bai minority heritage and sacred mountain time — designed as an inward journey in a place where ancient and contemporary life still overlap.
Other areas