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Weekly Wanderings: January 20, 2025
A raw wind swept down Baton Rouge’s North 4th Street, threatening to wrench the baseball cap off my head as I waited with 3,500 other people for the Louisiana Marathon to get underway. Wearing ankle-length leggings, a tank top, and a long-sleeved t-shirt, I wished I had brought gloves and a knit hat with me…
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Bookshelf: The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom
Longtime China journalist John Pomfret regards the relationship between the United States and China as a grand, sweeping epic marked by many highs and lows. “If there is a pattern to this baffling complexity,” Pomfret writes in his 2016 history,* The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present, “it…
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Weekly Wanderings: January 12, 2025
Thanks for joining me this week. Recommendations China Stories Chinese leaders often proclaim that “the East is rising and the West is declining”; some U.S. leaders now also seem to accept this forecast as inevitable. Arriving at such a broad conclusion, however, would be a grave mistake. China’s progress and power are substantial. But it…
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Jakarta and Yogyakarta: A Trip Told Through Photos
The biggest trip I took in 2024, in terms of distance traveled, was to Indonesia, where I spent a week in July. Since I traveled there for work, however, I didn’t have much of a chance to play tourist—I flew in a day early at the beginning, then took off a few hours one afternoon.…
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Bookshelf: After the Last Border
Books published in 2020 often didn’t get the attention they deserved. Kept at home by Covid-19 restrictions, authors weren’t able to tour and promote their new books in person; instead, they tried their best to reach readers through Zoom, podcasts, and social media. Unfortunately, a lot of wonderful and important titles fell through the cracks.…
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Weekly Wanderings: January 5, 2025
Two weeks without recommendations meant I saved up a bumper crop for today—I hope everyone can find a story or two in the links below to read with their coffee on a cold winter Sunday. Thanks for joining me this week. Recommendations China Stories The recent shift in exile rhetoric suggests a realization by the…
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Niagara Falls from (Almost) Every Angle
Eight years after moving to Southeast Michigan, I finally made the four-hour drive to Niagara Falls, Ontario last June. During our five days there, my brother and I saw the falls from virtually every vantage point available on the Canadian side. We started off on our first morning there by walking down Clifton Hill to…
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Out With the Old, In With the New
Happy New Year! I decided to ring in 2025 by signing up for a New Year’s 5K duo: Out With the Old (December 31) and In With the New (January 1). The course loops around Bloomer Park in Rochester, MI; the first day’s race goes counter-clockwise, the next one clockwise. While it was cold both…
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Weekly Wanderings: December 29, 2024
These past few weeks have been filled with year-end “best of” lists and assessments of 2024. I thought about putting together that kind of post for today, then decided … eh, I’d rather not. As this year draws to a close, I’ll simply say: I appreciate everyone who reads, shares, and comments on my work,…
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Weekly Wanderings: December 22, 2024
In lieu of musings and reading recommendations, this week I’m sharing photos from an August 2021 visit I made to the house from A Christmas Story in Cleveland, Ohio. Open for tours (you can also stay the night!), the house is dressed for Christmas year-round and features all the iconic props from the movie—including, of…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 