In ‘Nikah’: An astonishing portrait of Uyghur life on the edge of erasure, Darren Byler introduces a film about a traditional Uyghur wedding rite that has been banned in Xinjiang:  The story on the surface is a simple one. Two daughters in their twenties, Dilber and Rena, are caught between their own ambitions — careers ..read more

In A Disappearance in Xinjiang, Financial Times‘ Edward White profiles Uyghur female ethnographer Rahile Dawut, who disappeared into China’s Xinjiang Gulag in 2017: Rahile’s life was devoted to the preservation of cultural diversity across the vast Xinjiang region, nearly three times the size of France and covering about one-sixth of modern China. For centuries, ancient Silk ..read more

Once you’re Chinese, you’re always Chinese. They put a mark on you . . . And I don’t want to be owned. (Writer Yiyun Li, speaking in Mother Tongues at China Books Review ..read more

The story of Fan Jinshi, female graduate of New China’s first four-year program in archaeology, who went on to spend 50-plus years in the desert overseeing the study, restoration and preservation of Buddhist cave-temples in Gansu Province, is now available in English — via my translation — as Daughter of Dunhuang: Memoir of a Mogao Grottoes ..read more

Premiere screening of Waiting for the End in the US. Date: Saturday, February 10 2024 6:00 pm Venue: Washington DC AMC Courthouse Plaza 8 Following the mass detention of Uyghurs by the Chinese authorities since 2017, the shadow of terror ripples throughout the Uyghur diaspora, reaching Shirzat, a university student in the US. One day he learns that his family members have also became victims of the crackdown against Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. Overnight ..read more

HK Event: 6:45 pm, Wed 31 Jan. Venue change due to overwhelming response. Click here to register. Thomas Bird, a popular 3-time speaker at RGS-HK, set out on a daunting year to explore all of China by train.  The country was in the midst of a railway building boom the likes of which the world ..read more

By H K Chang Translated by Bruce Humes in collaboration with the author Now available for purchase online   Miniature Painting Guide: My Name Is Red In the summer of 2003, I accidentally came into possession of an English translation of Benim Adım Kırmızı (My Name is Red), a novel by the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk ..read more

Launching March 3. Hope to post an excerpt soon ..read more

Le chamanisme a été interdit en Mongolie durant la période socialiste au même titre que l’écriture et les costumes traditionnels. Il était alors perçu comme une pratique arriérée, néfaste et manipulatrice. Quand j’ai lu La Légende du Chaman pour la première fois au tournant des années 2010, il connaissait un regain d’intérêt important dans un ..read more

Jan 25: In person talk at HK Royal Asiatic Society Jan 26: Bookazine book signing Thomas Bird is an author and journalist who has lived and travelled throughout East Asia over the past 18 years. He is the author of Harmony Express: Travel by Train Through China, a travelogue that recounts a five-year period from 2014–2019 ..read more