Xanadu Revisited

Once Xanadu, Now Duolun

The Urban Ghost Towns of Hohhot

Urban development in China continues at a furious pace. Visitors and residents in Beijing and Shanghai are all too familiar with the razing of old neighborhoods, some with considerable heritage and historical value. What comes next is usually another set of high rise apartment buildings. This process of hyper-rapid development is taking place in just about every city in the country.

In my wanderings around Hohhot, provincial capital of Inner Mongolia (China), I've come across some half-demolished neighborhoods in and around the older section of the city. What makes the situation all the more surreal is that among the brick heaps and toppling walls are a smattering of hobbles that are still lived in.

Travels through 'The Zone': Looking for China’s Ethnic Koreans

Here are some glimpses of the Korean Autonomous Zone in northeast China, just above the right shoulder of North Korea.

If you are interested, feel free to follow up this link to read my write up in the JoongAng Daily

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2902991

The title of the article is Cultural amnesia for Koreans in China

                                                                   Yanji Bridge

The lovely pharmacists of Hunchun (I had a cold). The woman on the left is ethnic Korean, while the woman on the right is Han Chinese.

Korean restaurants galore, in a heritage street of Tumen.

                                                                          In Tumen

In Yanji