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Weekly Wanderings: July 30, 2023

In recent weeks I’ve driven round-trip from Ann Arbor to both Grand Rapids and Cleveland, and I’m currently in Pittsburgh en route to Philadelphia, so I’ve had lots of time to catch up on podcasts while behind the wheel. Here are some highlights of my playlist during these road trips: Drum Tower, “The Cage,” a…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 23, 2023

I’m in Cleveland this weekend, hiking the trails of Cuyahoga Valley National Park (ahhhh) and watching the Phillies lose 1-0 to the Guardians (agggghhhh). I can say with reasonable certainty that I haven’t spotted Chinese Foreign Minister and Xi Jinping protégé Qin Gang in Ohio—so that’s one place where he isn’t. But where is Qin…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 16, 2023

Last weekend, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to China for a series of meetings. Among those Yellen talked with were a group of female economists and entrepreneurs, with whom she shared stories of being “almost the only woman in the room.” Unfortunately, the women who met with Yellen then became targets of an internet…
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Korea 2023: Daegu

The odd thing about traveling for conferences is that I often don’t see very much of the place where the conference is held. Sometimes, if the hotel and conference venue are part of the same physical structure, there will be entire days when I never even go outside. So while I can now say that…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 9, 2023

The ongoing decimation of Twitter coincides with my own desire to get back into a regular writing practice, so I’ve been slowly reviving this blog. I’m making a minimal commitment here: a photo and short gloss on Wednesdays, and a “Weekly Wanderings” round-up of stories/thoughts/recommendations each Sunday morning. If and as I can, I’ll post…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 24, 2023

Lots of self-promotion and work talk this week, but sometimes a bunch of things come together at once … Greetings from Daegu, Korea, where I’m working at the 2023 AAS-in-Asia conference, co-hosted by the Association for Asian Studies (my employer) and Kyungpook National University. For the past few months, every time I told someone from…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 10, 2023

The theme for this week’s collection of links is summer. Readers who follow me on Instagram have probably noticed that between April and October, most of my weekends involve 5K, 10K, and even half-marathon races. This is a relatively new activity of mine; as I wrote several years ago (in a post that still reliably…
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June Fourth

“Just another day.” For thirty-four years, June Fourth has not been just another day for those in China who remember the protests of 1989 and mourn those whose lives were ended or irrevocably changed in the violent crackdown that ended them. Nor is June Fourth just another day for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): it’s…
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Sleeping Bear Dunes

In my 50 Hikes in Michigan guidebook, Sleeping Bear Dunes occupies a full ten slots. This spot on Northwest Michigan’s coastline, about 40 minutes west of Traverse City, is renowned for its scenery, characterized by the stunning contrast of undulating sand dunes meeting the flat waters of Lake Michigan. A visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes…
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On the Lake

Last week I wrote about Detroit’s riverfront in Southeast Michigan. Today I’m going north—far north—to the Keeweenaw Peninsula on Lake Superior, specifically the town of Copper Harbor at its very northern end. Copper Harbor is among “The 16 Best Lake Towns in the U.S.,” according to Trips to Discover, though that wasn’t the reason I…