Short Reads

The Italian city of Genoa and the French city of Nîmes are responsible for giving the world jeans and denim, respectively, which were later exported to northern Europe, Britain and North America.

Tourists to Hong Kong have long been fed rote-learned clichés about its history by uninspiring and uninspired guides. In today’s new normal, who would dare risk offering them anything different?

Among Japanese origin added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2024 is katsu, a ‘boomerang word’ – one the Japanese borrowed from English in the first place.

(Spoiler alert) A character in Netflix’s 3 Body Problem brings to mind a Chinese military leader who has been vilified as a traitor for nearly 400 years for allowing Manchu troops to overrun China.

Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly, Shaftesbury Avenue: names given to the tunnels of Hong Kong’s Shing Mun Redoubt. Yet their occupants in 1941 were Scots for whom London was in a foreign land.

Passports issued by Singapore and Malaysia don’t separate first and last names, confusing airline computers and online apps. Why the constant demands to state a surname when none is defined?

From bees and butterflies to birds and badgers, much of Britain’s wildlife is in disturbing decline resulting from development, climate change, pesticides and pollution. And then there’s the roadkill.

Chiang Mai’s foreign cemetery not only contains Hong Kong-made tombstones, but also bear testament to the educational ties that once bound northern Thailand to Hong Kong.

Soba and soumen wheat noodles are my preferred Japanese varieties, but after eating udon on a visit to Kagawa in Shikoku, especially the local Sanuki udon, I was won over by their chewiness.