I am in Hanoi. As a Sinophile (and, by extension, an Asiaphile who has travelled extensively in this part of the world) I am surprised at how much I am not enjoying the experience. I am weary. I feel I’ve been here scores of times before. It has been a shock to discover that 54…
My father died when I was 9 years old and he was just short of 56. Although my life took a very different path to his, something about the age of his passing remained with me as a significant mark on the horizon. It is hard to determine what that milestone meant for me: I…
Comment on this article on LinkedIn Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is not a new topic. The term “affirmative action” was introduced in 1961 in Executive Order 10925 [1] issued by President John F Kennedy which required government contractors to ensure that employment decisions were made without regard to race, creed, colour or national origin. …
How are we to respond to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden eating forbidden fruit having been tempted by a serpent? That the mess we are in is the result of a single choice that a couple of our ancestors made a long time ago and therefore not really our…
Pentecost (meaning “50” [days]) is an ancient Jewish festival celebrated 7 weeks after Passover. It was one of 3 times in the year that Jewish people in ancient times were required to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Pentecost was a celebration of both the wheat harvest and of the giving of the Torah, which laid…
Babel, or the Necessity of Violence by RF Kuang debuted at the first spot on The New York Times Best Seller list, and won Blackwell’s Books of the Year for Fiction in 2022 and the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel. It is a work of historical fiction that revolves around four translators from different…