A 95-minute bidding war would have made headlines even when the Hong Kong auction market was at its frothiest a decade ago, so a recent protracted battle over a 14th century Chinese calligraphy scroll was all the more remarkable for coming four years into a market downturn. Rao Jie’s 700-year-old, six-metre long, cursive-script calligraphy of…
Beijing will not recognise the Dalai Lama’s proposal for a foreign successor and will deal with reincarnation according to Chinese law, according to an official scholar on Tibetan Buddhism. “If the next Dalai Lama is declared to have been reincarnated abroad, I think it is illegal,” Li Decheng, deputy director general of the official China…
In the streets of a subtropical city like Hong Kong, the start of sweater weather is not announced by flashes of red foliage, but by the smoky scent of chestnuts being raked in roadside woks by hawkers. Around the corner from where I live, sweaty weather ends officially, if not actually, when the public outdoor…
Today in History Today is Thursday, Jan. 23, the 23rd day of 2025. There are 342 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History: On Jan. 23, 1368, China’s Ming dynasty, which lasted nearly three centuries, began as Zhu Yuanzhang (zhoo whan-zhahng) was formally acclaimed Hongwu Emperor, following the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. …
A city of 9.6 million people roughly 130km (80 miles) from Hong Kong, Foshan is full of cultural heritage and culinary delights. The city is already known for having one of China’s best private art museums. The He Art Museum, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, is owned by the family behind electrical appliance giant…
On November 9, a parish priest was stabbed with a knife as he presided over mass at a Catholic church in Singapore. While the priest survived, and the attacker was subdued at the scene and subsequently handed over to the police, the vicious act shocked the city state, which is unaccustomed to such high-profile acts…