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The Hot Spots and Storied Plots of Laurel Hill Cemetery
“The Cemetery Gift Shop Is Open” wasn’t the first thing I expected to see as my mother, brother, and I approached the main office at Laurel Hill Cemetery last Saturday morning. A gift shop at a cemetery? But indeed, we walked into the room and found a small store selling books and postcards of historic…
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Up, Up, and Away: Yangshuo, 2005
Like many other things I did during my first trip to China, the hot-air balloon ride wasn’t my idea. I had gone on what was meant to be a two-week tour of Hong Kong and southern China with Elaine (not her real name), an American classmate of mine from Beijing. After several days in Hong…
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China: Through the Looking Glass
When I worked at a hospital during college, I had a co-worker whom I will call Mike. Mike was not Asian, but he had two Chinese characters tattooed on his arm. Whenever someone asked what they meant, Mike responded “mysterious,” which I’m pretty sure he meant in the film noir-ish sense of “handsome, mysterious, and…
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Nightscape at Longwood Gardens
I’ve written here before about how much I love suburban Philadelphia’s Longwood Gardens: the park is beautiful, it’s elegant, it’s timeless. My grandparents took my mother and her sisters there, just as my mother took my brother and me there when we were little, and while some elements changed in little ways over the decades,…
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LA Review of Books: There Be Dragons
I have said here previously how much I enjoyed Dragon Day, the final volume in Lisa Brackmann’s Ellie McEnroe crime thriller trilogy. This week at the LA Review of Books China Blog, I review the book in more detail: Dragon Day sees Ellie attempting to stay in the good graces of her biggest — and scariest —…
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Getting Things Done: Knitting Box Edition
Last Saturday, I looked in my knitting box and realized two things: (1) the same three projects had been sitting in it for at least six months, and (2) all three were thisclose to being finished. If I just sat down and did the simple work that each needed (but which I’d been putting off…
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LA Review of Books: “Expat Identities”
Following up on my recent LA Review of Books China Blog interview with Shannon Young, I have a new post at the site reviewing How Does One Dress to Buy Dragonfruit? True Stories of Expat Women in Asia, which Young edited: Many of the anthology’s contributors speak of being changed for the better by their time abroad,…
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LA Review of Books: Q&A with Shannon Young, Author of “Year of Fire Dragons”
I have a new post up at the LA Review of Books China Blog, in which I interview Hong Kong-based author Shannon Young: Young, however, didn’t originally plan to spend her life writing; she wanted to be an editor. But after graduating from college in 2009, she found many of her plans upended. Publishing jobs…
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Shanghai Snapshots
What did I do with ten days of vacation in Shanghai? Well, I spent a lot of that time recharging my batteries—drinking multiple cups of instant coffee and writing or reading in my cozy attic room at the Astor House, marking the passage of hours by the chiming of “The East Is Red” from the…
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“Home” Again in Shanghai
The work portion of my China trip over, I flew to Shanghai on Sunday morning for a week-plus of vacation. The minute I walked out of Hongqiao Airport, everything clicked: I was back in familiar territory—my territory. I jumped into a cab and smoothly gave the driver instructions to get to my hotel, knowing exactly…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 