In the wake of Zheng He

One week after we disembarked from the Beibu Gulf Star, Meng Yanfang, a Nanning-based website editor with whom I shared the six-bed cabin aboard, says: "I went through an ordeal of waves and currents on the sea that I would never ever want again.

'2nd wave' of Chinese tourism attracts global attention

The world's biggest tourism trade fair opened to visitors last week with a workshop on Chinese outbound tourism in Berlin.

Revisiting Tokyo

By 3 am, I was dancing to Material Girl with a Japanese man in a plaid vest. We were on the crowded dance floor of a disco on the second floor of a nondescript office building tucked at the end of a little alley in Shinjuku Ni-chome, Tokyo's gay district.

Hybrid culture in a red dot

Singaporeans call their homeland "the tiny red dot on the atlas". This is true given the fact that the country is only 700 sq km. But the tiny dot is meanwhile a most inclusive place in the world as four ethnic groups reside together, peacefully - Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasians, with completely different religions, cultures and even food.

Heaven for food lovers

Singapore is a small place but it's definite worth paying a second or third visit if you are a gourmand.

Magic mike

A Beijing-based Web sensation releases an online short film in which he mimics accents of people from different parts of the world. Xu Lin reports.

Last standing Chinese eatery in downtown Nairobi holds strong

First there were four, then three, then two and finally just one.

From slum girl to silver screen: Uganda's chess prodigy

Phiona Mutesi happened upon chess as a famished 9-year-old foraging for food in the sprawling and impoverished slums of the Ugandan capital.

Looking back, moving forward

Paris Fashion Week kicks off with tributes to past giants of French fashion, and a firm eye to the future. Associated Press reports in Paris.

Chengdu Report: Robust plans for convention and expo industry

Guided by the nation's "new normal" in economic growth, the convention and exhibition industry in Chengdu is ridding itself of formalities and paying more attention to industrial restructuring, said Mu Tao, director of the city's bureau of expositions.

A sea of lanterns

Birdman to land at beijing gathering

Beijing movie fans will have a chance to see this year's biggest Academy Award winner, Birdman, on the big screen, despite a wider Chinese mainland release of the film looking unlikely.