Essay · 2 min · EN
The Fifth Month and the Dragon Boats
On the most perilous month of the Chinese calendar, protective rites, Qu Yuan, and the pendulum swinging between sickness and health, order and chaos.
Writing
Essays and field notes
Essays, field notes and research by Noam Backner on China, Inner Asia, Buddhism, the Silk Roads, food, agriculture and the lived experience of place.
History & Civilization (34)All writing
Essay · 2 min · EN
Cheese Between East and West
From the Tibetan Plateau to the European dairy, the history of cheesemaking is a story of enzymes, acids, and the culinary boundaries of Eurasia.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Iranian Jews and the Baha'i Option
On the historical encounter between Iranian Jews and the Baha'i movement, and the possibilities for identity, equality, and modernity in the late Qajar period.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Gap in the Smile: Ritual Tooth Extraction in Ancient China
Once a marker of identity and marriage in the Neolithic heartland, the custom of tooth ablation migrated south, eventually becoming a mark of the 'barbarian' other in later Chinese history.
Travel Journal · 2 min · EN
The Whole Village is Here
A Naxi wedding feast reveals the village as it truly is: a web of intimacy, authority, and the makeshift rhythms of a rural kitchen.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Soul of the Chinese Street
A journey through the history, regional migrations, and economic grit of China’s vibrant night markets.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Dali’s Market Basket
A seasonal dispatch on wild mushrooms, orchid tubers, and the art of the market find.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Hall of Idleness
A return to Yunnan and reflections on the labor of sloth, the weight of purpose, and a poem by Bai Yuchan.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Matsutake: From the Forest Floor to the Global Market
The wild mushrooms of Yunnan sit at the center of a vast network connecting foragers, traders, and high-end restaurants across East Asia.
Essay · 11 min · EN
Jewish Traders on the Silk Roads
An eighth-century Judeo-Persian letter from Khotan offers a rare view of Jewish trade and daily life amid war in the heart of Asia.
Essay · 5 min · EN
A Very Short History of Eccentricity in China
On refusal, cultivated wildness and the enduring place of the eccentric in Chinese culture.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Today’s Bandits, Tomorrow’s Rebels
On highway robbery as a barometer of dynastic power—and the arteries of sovereignty in Imperial China.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Between Mysticism and Revolution: The Poetry of Khomeini
On Persian verse, mystical insight, and the fine line between spiritual transcendence and political authority.
Essay · 8 min · EN
Which Sky Would I Choose?
‘My heart was asked: Which heaven would you choose? It replied: The wise do not speak.’ — Omar Khayyam
Essay · 9 min · EN
Demons, Saints and Black Pens
Muhammad Siyah Qalam and the Eurasian world the Mongols left behind.
Research · 1 min · EN
Journey to the Pamir Mountains: A Guided Tour (September 2021)
It is no secret that this creaky blog is updated sporadically and is due for a facelift, but I would still like to use this modest platform to announce a tour I will be leading this September to the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan.
Research · 6 min · EN
The Way of the Three Treasures: A History of the Eunuch
The second time Sun Yaoting lost his three most precious treasures, it was forever. Until his dying day, his heart ached for their destruction at the hands of family members seized by the terror of the Red Guards.
Essay · 6 min · EN
“Wakhan, where the people worship Mahomet and speak a strange tongue”
Tracing the high-altitude history of the Wakhan Corridor, where Scythian roots, Ismaili mysticism, and the ghosts of the Great Game converge.
Essay · 7 min · EN
The Long Shadows of the Poppy
For nearly twenty years, the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty ruled from the shadows—a seclusion fueled by a secret addiction.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Dumplings on the Silk Road
Zhang Zhongjing, a father of Chinese medicine and a Han Dynasty scholar, was a loyal civil servant who never strayed from his duties—even in retirement.
Research · 1 min · EN
A Requiem for a Donkey
The great poet Wang Can found a strange beauty in the braying of donkeys.
Research · 1 min · EN
A Strange Beast at the Song Court
“On July 21, 1058, the state of Jiaozi presented a beast to the imperial court, claiming it was a qilin.”
Research · 4 min · EN
Exiles #3: The Black Khitans
In recent years, a remote nation across the sea chose a leader who would guide it toward a cultural wasteland. History offers a counterpoint in Yelü Dashi.
Research · 9 min · EN
Heaven in the Rock: The Lapis Road
One mine in the Hindu Kush supplied the blue of Ur and of Tutankhamun's mask. What that tells us about the first world trade network.
Research · 1 min · EN
We’ve Moved
Dear readers, this blog has relocated and changed its primary language. While Hebrew updates may return in the future, you can find the new site at the link below.
Essay · 15 min · EN
Out of the Mist: The Old Tea Horse Road
Chinese soil lacks selenium, and Tibet had horses. A conversation with a former caravan leader about what that trade actually was.
Essay · 16 min · EN
Wandering: Jews of the Silk Road
Radanite merchants, a Jewish steppe empire, and a Mandarin in Kaifeng who mistook four apostles for four sons of Jacob.
Research · 15 min · EN
The Lotus in the Sands
How Buddhism travelled the trade routes into China — and how a Daoist caretaker at Dunhuang found the record of it behind a cracked mural.
Travel Journal · 9 min · EN
A Thousand Celestial Meadows: Kyrgyzstan
A nation of Siberian nomads on a trans-civilisational frontier, and the summer pastures that still hold its identity.
Essay · 8 min · EN
Caravanserais: The Strongholds of the Soul
From frontier ribat forts to Safavid road inns — the architecture that made long-distance trade possible, and the metaphor it became.
Essay · 6 min · EN
In the Gates of Turan
Why the Shahnameh's oldest quarrel is an ecological one: the sown land against the sea of grass.
Essay · 8 min · EN
China in Central Asia: Nomads, Greeks, and Blood-Sweating Horses
From the Han Dynasty’s quest for 'heavenly horses' to the birth of the Silk Road, China’s deep ties to Central Asia are being renewed in the modern age.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Visions of Central Asia: Part I
We document our lives so incessantly that reality is recorded at the very pace it unfolds. When future historians reconstruct our world, they will sift through a mountain of digital debris—from global crises to the mundane lunch photos of a short-lived bistro.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Under Open Skies
Asia is the largest landmass on Earth and the historical engine of humanity. From the British Isles to Japan, the seeds of the processes that brought us from hunter-gathering to nuclear energy and reality TV were sown in this vast stretch of land.