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.
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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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.