Lifestyle

I do. I remember feeling inspired a lot as a kid and even as a teenager — there were all these people to aspire to be like, all these things to learn, all this world out there. The problem is, once you enter the world you have to pretend you know what you’re doing, and […]

‘Okay, now do you have a bottle opener for me?’ I asked the shop owner of the little store in the train waiting room designated for departures to Suzhou. While we waited for our train I had bought beers for the Chook and for a Kiwi friend who was coming with us, named Ben. Marion, […]

With the world markets a mess and most South Africans hopelessly loaded with debt, this Christmas season doesn’t look like it is going to be the most memorable for the retailer’s bottom lines. But I can see a definite silver lining to this dark cloud. Gift giving around Christmas time should never have become the […]

Late one Sunday evening in 1987, while still an articled clerk, I received a call from attorney Max Mosselson, who wanted to know if I knew the whereabouts of a client I had been representing for the better part of that week. Mosselson was acting for a woman who was separated and had been trying […]

Gnnaarr…nggg…kapow!….fuggoff are some of the typical sounds associated with this Irish South African as he clambers on or off the subway trains in Shanghai. The Chinese don’t queue, they just blithely surge on and off at the same time, pushing and shoving to get a seat. Hoooaaahhh…there is something surreal about the serenity with which […]

What should the courts or the state do when a 13-year-old girl refuses to undergo a heart transplant, which may or may not extend her life? Intervene and compel the operation or adhere to the wishes of the child? Before reading further bear in mind your initial answer to the question set out above, which […]

I have resisted trying to learn written Chinese for a long time. It was like trying to read a forest of wind-whistled leaves and twigs. To wit: 我的中文的名字大树. Then I gained interest as I discovered the unbelievably magnetic symbolism attached to some of the characters. Now I know 我的中文的 名字大树 means “My Chinese name is […]