The Useless Tree

Travel

  • Hong Kong Pictures

         I have been rushing around this marvelous city for the past two days.  I have always liked it here, ever since I first visited in 1983.  There something about the energy and design of the place that draws… Continue reading

  • Off to Taiwan and Hong Kong

         Tomorrow morning early (4:15!) I will get in a car that takes me to the airport from which I will fly to the "beautiful island" (Formosa), aka Taiwan.  I have been invited to join a delegation of American… Continue reading

  • Off to India (where I disagree with the Tao Te Ching once again)

          On Saturday I will hop on a plane and fly to Mumbai, to begin a two week tour of northwestern India.  I will be accompanying, and giving lectures for, a group of alumni from Williams College.  Our route… Continue reading

  • Back Home

         I am now more convinced than ever that the authors of the Tao Te Ching are wrong about traveling ("the farther you go, the less you know").  After a week in the Netherlands and France – a wonderful… Continue reading

  • Traveling

         I have long had some differences with certain sections of the Tao Te Ching.  At one point (I’m at home and all my copies are in the office), the text tells us that you do not need to… Continue reading

  • Shanghai

         Standing on the edge of the Bund, the waterfront of Shanghai, watching the very busy boat traffic on the Huangpu river, and taking in the skyline of the opposite bank, the Pudong area, it is easy to understand… Continue reading

  • Beauty versus Power in Chinese History

        The contrast of Dunhuang and Xian is stunning.  The caves at Dunhuang were beyond what I had imagined.  The paintings and sculpture, some about 1700 years old, were preserved in marvelous brightness and detail.  Walking through the caves… Continue reading

  • Dunhuang to Xian to Guilin

        I tried posting from Xian, but when I hit the "publish" button, I don’t know if some glitch in the machine crashed my efforts, or if (more ominously) I hit the limits of China’s Great Firewall.  Let me… Continue reading

  • Dunhuang

         We arrived in Dunhuang today.  It’s like a step back in time, twenty years, to the Beijing of the 1980’s.  Very few private cars on the road; some cabs; older style buses.  The city is small and neat:… Continue reading

  • A Quick Post from Beijing

         Turns out I can access Typepad in China.  Here I am, sitting in the business center of the Grand Hotel in Beijing, typing away at the blog.  I know that some of what I have written over the… Continue reading