ISHAM COOK CHINA
Question everything 切問而近思 – Confucius
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Isham Cook
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The Taiwan massage scene
A Taipei masseuse’s rare combination of expert technique and open-mindedness makes for the most intense of massages.
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Yangtze River cargo ship, bats, Agricultural Bank of China (video)
Hypnotic video of cargo ship passing down the Yangtze River in Wuhan at night.
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The ventriloquist’s dilemma: Asexual Anglo travelogues of China
The jostling voices and fraught sexual ambivalence of Anglo-Americans writing about China.
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Philip Glass and Tan Dun
The two most prominent American composers of our time have more in common than it would seem.
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The Chinese art of noise
Putting a song on repeat is as logical to the Chinese as decorating the walls of a room with the same wallpaper.
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How to have fun in China’s disposable cities
Chinese cities happily gut their historical districts to rebuild them into cheesy simulacra which in turn will soon see the bulldozer.
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The Chinese university: A primer for prospective foreign teachers
When I asked students what they learned in their politics classes, they couldn’t even remember the names of the courses.
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The poverty of the institutional imagination: The case of Beijing’s moats and canals
If it reclaimed its water system, Beijing could become a great city of canals.
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Questioning China’s “5,000 years” master trope
When measured against other ancient civilizations, China is not 5,000 years old but more like 3,000-3,500 years old.
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A modest proposal regarding sex work: Why all sex should be paid for
The sexual fees levied on hubby would compensate working wives for the housework they do on top of their day job.
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On harpsichords and white pianos: The challenge of music in China
Our distaste for the white piano stems from certain associated stars of the Easy Listening school (Liberace, Clayderman, etc.): music for people who don’t like music.
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The Chinese-Japanese cultural chasm on display at Starbucks
Profound cultural differences epitomized by Chinese and Japanese Starbucks.
ISHAM COOK CHINA 