Tashkent and Samarkand: fabled cities of the Silk Road
If it weren’t for the travel disruptions due to Covid-19, I would have been in Tashkent yesterday (on my birthday) and Samarkand today. I'm feeling sad that I can't be there, but someday we'll travel again! Tashkent is now the modern, sprawling capital of Uzbekistan, but it was once a major...
An adventure trip not taken
Ten years ago, I researched Issyk-Kul, a beautiful lake in the Heavenly Mountains of Central Asia, where I set a dramatic scene, the climax of the story of Daughter of Xanadu and Son of Venice. Today, May 8, I was supposed to visit that lake, at long last, as part of a three-week Silk Road...
Reading this book might give humility and sympathy
This book is a tour de force. Starting with a single, stunning revelation from her mother, author Helen Zia embarked on years of research, including more than 100 personal talks with survivors and their offspring, interviews with scholars, and deep dives into archives, vintage newspapers,...
Next Stop: Shenzhen, then and now
After a good few days in Hong Kong, visiting friends and reminiscing about my life there in the 1980s, I planned to cross the border by land and visit Shenzhen, the city just inside the China border. It was little more than a fishing village until August 1980, when Deng Xiaoping designated it to...
Travel in the Time of Covid-19
Okay, so I was planning a trip to China April 1-19 this year—and had to cancel for obvious reasons. I really wanted to go this spring because my memoir about China is coming out this fall, and I was hoping to see what the latest trends are in China. Well, the latest trend is the coronavirus...
An outside-the-box mother, a thoughtful daughter
A review of Saturday’s Child: A Daughter’s Memoir by Deborah Burns Although my mother was totally unlike this author’s, I found this memoir irresistible. Burns’s mother, Dotty, was a stunningly beautiful, buxom redhead who dressed to the nines with glittery baubles, went out on the town several...
