Essay · 4 min · EN
The Ashura She-Camel
On the Shiization of Safavid Iran, the ritual camel sacrifice in Isfahan, and the nexus of religious mourning, public violence, and sovereign power.
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.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Asia’s Mink Blankets
The floral polyester blankets that traveled from East Asia to millions of homes, transforming from industrial objects into memories of warmth and abundance.
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 · 4 min · EN
The Eight White Yurts
The mobile tent-shrines of Genghis Khan, their hereditary guardians, and the modern struggle to anchor Mongolian memory.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Fasting of the Heart
Exploring the Chinese tradition of 'zhai' as a holistic preparation for the sacred, and Zhuangzi’s radical concept of internal emptiness.
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.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Windcatchers of Hyderabad
On the badgir towers of Sindh, climatic architecture, and the shared heritage of Iran, Central Asia, and the Subcontinent.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Yellow Dragon
On water management, political legitimacy, and the ancient tension between control and chaos along the Yellow River.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Coal Camels of Old Beijing
A look at the camel caravans that hauled coal from the Western Hills to the capital, and the professional world that grew up around them.
Essay · 6 min · EN
Sand and Tears: The Central Asian Slave Route
On Mirza Muhammad, the slave markets of Central Asia, and the economy built upon the subjugation of human beings.
Travel Journal · 2 min · EN
The Walled Garden of the Chinese Market
Navigating Beijing’s antique stalls, where ancient artifacts spark unexpected encounters between a Jewish traveler and the merchants of Central Asia.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Eight Flavors of Beijing
On the unique role of sweetness in Chinese cuisine and the crumbly paradise of the capital’s traditional pastry shops.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Foundation of the Chinese Home
On the domestication of the pig, the economic shift southward, and the role of pork in Chinese agriculture, cuisine, and morality.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Yizhan: Notes from the Imperial Road
The relay stations of the Chinese Empire and the strange new life the concept has found in the modern world of logistics.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Lychee, the Messengers, and the Scholar
On Yang Guifei, Cai Xiang’s agricultural treatise, and the accumulation of botanical knowledge in China.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Chromium Myth of the Terracotta Army
What actually preserved the bronze weapons in the First Emperor's tomb, and what metallurgy reveals about the first Chinese state.
Essay · 3 min · EN
How Food Crosses Borders
From the imagined Burma of Mandalay Sauce to the absorption of foreign crops into the grammar of Chinese cuisine.
Essay · 2 min · EN
A Cabbage at the Doorstep
The humble Chinese cabbage: a nutritional pillar, a migratory crop, a courtly delicacy, and a national treasure carved in jade.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Eid al-Adha Market in Kashgar
Fat-tailed sheep, desert economics, and the tension between public sacrifice and inner transformation.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Arrival of Botany in China
From Materia Medica to Genus and Species: A new scientific language, an imperial crisis, and the birth of a dual system of meaning.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Locusts on the Sabbath Table
An improvised Sabbath dish blending eggplant, shan yao, and spicy grasshopper dip in the style of southern Yunnan.
Essay · 4 min · EN
A Memory Map of the Beijing Metro
Station names serve as windows into the walls, markets, villages, and infrastructure buried beneath the modern city.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Yogurt Revolution
On fermenting bacteria, Xiaohe, and the biotechnology that transformed the steppe into a living space.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Flowers in the Yunnanese Kitchen
On pomegranate blossoms, rhododendrons, and the foraging traditions that bridge the garden, the mountain, and the stove.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Coffee and Tea at Heaven’s Gate
A brief munazara between two noble beverages and their spiritual traditions.
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
Kingdom of the Wheat Line
On Biang Biang noodles, You Po Mian, and the dough culture of Northwest China.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Seven Necessities
On fuel, rice, oil, salt, soy, vinegar, and tea—and the home as a complete network.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Last Farmers of Dali
From the view through my window to the challenges of 2026: observing the vanishing world of intensive agriculture in the Erhai Valley.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Lost Legion of Liqian
On the persistent myth linking Roman soldiers to the western fringes of China.
Travel Journal · 3 min · EN
The Afghan Walk
On walking, breathing, and the distance between presumed tradition and practical exercise.
Travel Journal · 3 min · EN
Immortals and Bunkers
A journey up Mount Fu Shan, where ancient Chinese mountain traditions collide with the concrete ruins of German fortifications.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Beyond the Five Pungent Roots
A vegetarian kitchen on practice days: navigating Buddhist tradition through the raw abundance of the market.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Not Gazing Enough at the Mountain
On observation, landscape painting, and the mountain as a site for the practice of thought.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Bone Shaker
The mule carts that connected Beijing, North China, and the trade networks of the late Empire.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Harmony, at Times, Comes Down to a Plate
Lake Erhai, the Bai people, and the delicate link between solo garlic, water flowers, and ecological restoration.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Chinese Thought in a Fractured World
On Confucius, Han Fei, the Daoists, and the possibility of contemplating the present outside the political din.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Lidai Fabao: Memory, Lineage, and the Living Dharma
A look at the Dunhuang Buddhist chronicles, the radical Bao Tang school, and the collision of faiths in Tang-era China.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Ti-Yong and the Iranian Crisis
Viewing the structural collapse of the Islamic Republic through the lens of Chinese political philosophy.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Book of Swindles
Deception, commerce, and the erosion of social trust in late Ming China.
Field Note · 3 min · EN
The Road to Heaven
Modern recluses in the Zhongnan Mountains and the ancient promise of freedom found in the high peaks.
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 · 3 min · EN
Between Shawarma and Doner
On the Hui, the Dungans, and the etymological circles of a diaspora without shawarma.
Essay · 4 min · EN
My Dad, the Dragon
From the cosmic Long of the imperial court to a weary dragon riding the subway.
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Double Skies of Chinese Islam
A meditation on the life of Ma Dexin, the resilience of faith, and the delicate art of belonging to two worlds at once.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Rivers and Lakes
“When the springs dry up, the fish huddle together, gasping to keep one another moist; it would be better if they could forget each other in the rivers and lakes.” (Zhuangzi)
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 · 3 min · EN
Of Tobacco, Bottles, and Birds
Tobacco, a New World nightshade, arrived late to Chinese shores. Yet its appearance at the end of the 16th century sparked a quiet revolution, reshaping the consumption habits of every social stratum in the Middle Kingdom.
Essay · 7 min · EN
Feathers and Ice: The Gyrfalcon Road
A few months ago, a subtle Russian diplomatic maneuver made headlines: Vladimir Putin presented a large, white-feathered falcon to the King of Saudi Arabia.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Listen to the Reed!
Marking 746 winters since the wedding of Jalal ad-Din Rumi and the return of his shell to the dust, we recall his immense contribution to the spirit that moves through those who fill their lungs with it and exhale its essence in the proper direction.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Light and Blood
It is hard to say exactly when gemstones first cast their spell over the human heart, or when we first learned to recognize that fine, shimmering line between transparency and color.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Faces of Eternity
Plaster is famously suited for mending what is broken, but in the hands of the Tashtyk, it served a more permanent purpose: fixing the dead in place for the afterlife.
Essay · 1 min · EN
Sea Breeze: The Odyssey of the Kashkul
Tracing the dervish’s begging bowl from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the courts of Qajar Iran and the markets of Kashgar.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Invaders, Braids, and Borders
From the streets of Kingston to the alleys of Mea Shearim, human hair is never a trivial matter.
Essay · 1 min · EN
Khoja Nasreddin: The Art of the Border Crossing
Beyond his flirtations with the sublime, the legendary Khoja Nasreddin was a master of the science of smuggling.
Research · 4 min · EN
Turks and Poets: From Skulls to Goblets
Shah Ismail, the first Safavid King of Iran, dragged Persia by its dusty neck across the threshold of the Shiite faith. He was also a man of elegant taste and, evidently, a wicked sense of humor.
Essay · 4 min · EN
From Egypt to Susa: The Flight of the Falcon of Shiraz
We know little of the life and times of our master, Mawlana Shahin of Shiraz, yet his verse remains a bridge between two worlds.
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.
Research · 5 min · EN
Scent and Splendor: The Way of the Citron
“And she’ll feed you tea and oranges that brought all the way from China”
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Day of the Kyrgyz Kalpak
Today marks the anniversary of the death of Comrade Stalin, the "Sun of Nations," and the legendary revelry that followed. But in Kyrgyzstan, the date also honors a more enduring icon: the Kalpak.
Essay · 1 min · EN
The Skeptic of Khorasan
One late summer afternoon, Mullah Nasreddin paused to rest beneath a walnut tree on the outskirts of Bukhara.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Tulip Cult of the Turks
Many flowers once graced the gardens of Islam, but above the fragrant rose, the sapphire hyacinth, and the heady narcissus, one stood alone: humble, low-lipped, and divine.
Research · 6 min · EN
The Cloud Binders
“One day, the Khan of Kokand set out to do what Khans of his sort usually do.”
Essay · 8 min · EN
The Hashish Eaters: Cannabis on the Silk Road
“In the district of Tyre, there is a people who hold ten strong fortresses. They appoint a leader based on skill alone, and out of contempt for any other title, they call him ‘The Old Man’...”
Essay · 6 min · EN
Between Tavern and Mosque: The Path of Coffee
“Which is the way to the tavern, and which to the mosque? For both are forbidden to a wretch like me...”
Essay · 1 min · EN
Doomsday Raki
A certain Sufi sat in the town square at midnight, pondering the things Sufis ponder at such hours, seasoning his thoughts with a bottle of raki.
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
The Tamed Wild: Control and Artifice in the Classical Chinese Garden
Chinese culture is celebrated for its affinity for the raw and natural, yet its famous gardens reveal a sophisticated effort to neutralize the dangers of the wild.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Empires and Teacups
The roads carved through soaring mountains and dust-swept deserts would be meaningless without the junctions that connect them.
Essay · 6 min · EN
Silk, Strings, and Sacred Wood
A Chinese legend tells of a lonely farmhouse, a faithful horse, and the tragic origin of the mulberry tree.
Essay · 7 min · EN
Nomads: The Jews of the Silk Road
Ai Tian was expectant.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Fate of the Copper Monastery
Mes Aynak, south of Kabul, is home to a cluster of Buddhist monasteries from the ancient Gandhara culture. Sitting atop a massive copper mine, the site stands as a final, fragile testament to the vanished world of Iranian Buddhism.
Essay · 8 min · EN
Architecture: Fortresses of the Soul
Building a home is not the way of the caravan
Essay · 1 min · EN
Vipassanā Vespers
With back withered, search / where is Lake Biwa / the crow's cry.
Essay · 4 min · EN
The Way of Khoja Nasreddin
“One night, a knock was heard at Khoja Nasreddin’s door.”
Essay · 8 min · EN
Whispers of Paradise: A Journey into Sufi Music
From Sassanid legends to the ecstatic rituals of the Mevlevi and Qawwali traditions, music has long served as the bridge between the human soul and the Divine.
Essay · 6 min · EN
The King of Cuisines: Central Asian Plov
When the sun dips below the mountains and the cold begins to bite, nothing warms the soul like a steaming bowl of something rich and fatty.
Essay · 3 min · EN
To the Sufis of China
The Menhuan is the Chinese expression of the Sufi Tariqa—a spiritual lineage tracing back to the Arab and Persian sheikhs who first brought Islam to the Middle Kingdom.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Pichok: Central Asia’s Living Blade
For generations, the heart of the Silk Road was a world-renowned center of blacksmithing and blade-making.
Essay · 4 min · EN
Thus Spoke the Old Camel Owner
Zoroastrianism, the ancient faith of the Iranian peoples, shaped the moral landscape of the East and left an indelible mark on the monotheistic world.
Essay · 8 min · EN
To the Valley of Unity: The Sufi Path
Sufism is often regarded as a third branch or a parallel current to the two main streams of Islam, Sunni and Shia, with its expressions moving in and out of the boundaries of orthodoxy depending on time and place.
Essay · 2 min · EN
The Purple Apples of the Tian Shan
Central Asia is more than a cradle of religion and art; it is the ancestral home of the species that built the human economy.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Camels, Turks, and Climate Change
What happens when you cross an Arabian camel with a two-humped Bactrian?
Essay · 3 min · EN
The Last Refuge of the Silk Road Kings
A journey to the remote Yaghnob Valley, where the language of the ancient Sogdian merchants still echoes.
Research · 3 min · EN
The Mosaics of Soviet Central Asia
To many, Soviet art is a gray dinosaur dragging a tail of obsolete symbols—superficial propaganda masking a regime's horrors. Yet perhaps we should judge its language no differently than we do the religious art of a Mayan temple or a Gothic cathedral.
Research · 3 min · EN
Central Asia in Photos: The Lens of Max Penson
In our age of digital noise and constant documentation, it is easy to forget the transformative power photography wielded during its first century, and how profoundly it shaped the modern world.
Research · 2 min · EN
The Tarim Mummies
The "Tocharian" mummies are Bronze Age human remains found across the Tarim Basin, sparking a long-standing debate over Indo-European origins and modern ethnic identity.
Research · 3 min · EN
Taming the Snow Leopard: A Central Asian Mystery
With the Asiatic lion and Caspian tiger long gone, and the Persian leopard clinging to the margins, the snow leopard now reigns as the undisputed, if elusive, king of the Central Asian mountains.
Research · 2 min · EN
Nowruz: The Dawn of a New Day
Originally published: March 17, 2018.
Research · 3 min · EN
Fragments of Iranian Buddhism
Centuries of a living Buddhist tradition among the Iranian peoples of Central Asia, and their role in planting the Dharma in China.
Research · 2 min · EN
The Archers of Islam
For a millennium, the art of mounted archery was the defining military discipline of the Islamic world, especially across its eastern frontiers.
Research · 3 min · EN
Forbidden Apricots in Xinjiang
Kashgar is quiet this year.
Research · 3 min · EN
Rebels of the Black Tent
Five days of searching, ridge by ridge and town by town, as the silence of the grasslands closes in.
Research · 3 min · EN
Qurut: The Salty Soul of Central Asia
In the high pastures of the East, preserving the summer milk surplus isn't just a tradition—it's a matter of survival.
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 · 3 min · EN
The Caspian Tiger: A Ghost of Central Asia
Anyone who has seen the Disney classic Aladdin—a tale likely grafted onto the Arabian Nights by the French orientalist Antoine Galland—surely remembers Princess Jasmine’s oversized feline companion.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Of Rebels and Black Pots
The kazan is the quintessential vessel of Central Asia. Long before the modern kitchen and its discontents, this cauldron served every culinary need of the nomadic steppe and the farming villages to the south.
Research · 3 min · EN
Exiles, Part II
Wander through the markets of Tashkent, Dushanbe, Khujand, or Bishkek, and you will inevitably stumble upon vibrant piles of “Korean pickles”: tiny marinated shiitakes, white-vinegar carrot salads, and, most strikingly, glowing mounds of red kimchi.
Research · 4 min · EN
The Exiles of Samarkand
In a year long lost to memory, a lone Turkic tribe set out from the outskirts of Samarkand to find a new home.
Research · 5 min · EN
The Light-Bearing Melons of Samarkand
“Why do you look upon the melon as a divine treasury?”
Research · 3 min · EN
God’s Bonsai
He Long lives near the Great Mosque of Xining, the capital of Qinghai Province, but spends his days running a small food stall on the city's southern edge.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Bones of Fortune
Since the dawn of humanity, we have loved to play—a testament to our nature as social beings driven by imagination, learning, and the thrill of luck.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Song of the Mad Lark
Moments before he breathed his last, Amin plucked out the melody of “The Lark’s Song.” When he was gone, his mother hung his dutar on the mud wall facing his deathbed.
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.
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.
Travel Journal · 17 min · EN
The Jewels of Badakhshan
Ismaili Islam, four-layered ceilings and dying luthiers in the river valleys of the Pamirs.
Essay · 12 min · EN
A Mouthless Crow and Crazy Clouds
“Conceal your path / with fallen pine needles / so that no one may discover / your true dwelling.”
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 · 10 min · EN
China and the Steppe: The Rise of the Xiongnu
“They follow their herds... moving in search of water and pasture, possessing no walled cities and knowing nothing of the plow.”
Essay · 6 min · EN
Demons, Ascetics, and the Black Pen
Anyone who read 'Where the Wild Things Are' as a child will recognize the kindred spirits in the work of Mehmed Siyah Qalam—the mysterious 14th-century artist known as "Mehmed of the Black Pen."
Essay · 7 min · EN
The Rose of Heresy: The Life and Death of Sarmad Kashani
The human mind craves distinctions, sorting reality into neat categories like products on a shelf. But the life of this naked, Jewish-Persian mystic defied every boundary.
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 · 4 min · EN
Outlines of the Heart
The art of writing as a spiritual discipline.
Essay · 8 min · EN
Architecture #3: Gates, Domes, and Eternal Tears
The Muslim conquest of Iran and Central Asia (633–751) fundamentally transformed the region's social order, yet its architectural legacy remained deeply rooted in the past.
Essay · 11 min · EN
Mongols, Cheetahs, and Slaves on Horseback
In September 1260, the Mongol general Kitbugha clashed in the Jezreel Valley with the Mamluk regiments of Sultan Qutuz—a collision that would reshape the medieval world.
Essay · 2 min · EN
Verses from Cold Mountain
猪吃死人肉，人吃死猪肠。猪不嫌人臭，人反道猪香 猪死抛水内，人死掘土藏。彼此莫相啖，莲花生沸汤
Essay · 2 min · EN
Blind Justice
“You are deficient in understanding and religion”
Essay · 8 min · EN
Zen Stones
If you break open the cherry tree, / Where are the flowers? / But in the spring time, see how they bloom!
Essay · 4 min · EN
Toxic Trees and Human Lacquerware
Mummification is usually a post-mortem affair, but for a select few Japanese monks, the process of becoming an incorruptible icon began while they were still breathing.
Essay · 5 min · EN
German Trenches and Parthian Shots
On July 1, 1916, one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War broke out.
Essay · 7 min · EN
Architecture II: Fire, Wind, and Silence
Asia is the cradle of the great faiths—Buddhism and Brahmanism, Islam, Christianity, and Confucianism.
Essay · 3 min · EN
A Sufi Imam at Chabad House
Readers of Russian literature may know Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat, but few realize the story’s protagonist was a Sufi warrior whose legacy lives on in a famous Hasidic melody.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Architecture #1: The Science of Mud
Buildings are the mold of their native landscape—the product of its climate, geography, and geology.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Iranians, Turanians, and the Art of the Raid
The epic rivalry between Iran and Turan began with a fratricide, setting the stage for a thousand-year clash between the plow and the saddle.
Essay · 3 min · EN
Leaves of Grass
The leaves and buds of Camellia sinensis produce the world’s most popular beverage, fueling empires and comforting poets for centuries.
Essay · 6 min · EN
Moonlight Over the Brothel
In the humid summer of 1950, a musicological delegation from Beijing’s Central Conservatory arrived in Wuxi to document the folk traditions of eastern China.
Essay · 5 min · EN
Trees in Trays
When I was fourteen, my grandmother gave me a small olive tree, a few shallow pots, and a strange pair of shears she had brought back from Japan.
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.
Essay · 3 min · EN
When Asia Was the World
Let’s take the Joker out of the deck, shall we?