On my recent visit to Taiwan, I had the honour of visiting Houjia Junior High School in Tainan as a guest of my friend Yi-Hsiang, a high school English teacher. I had a wonderful time meeting Yi-Hsiang’s students to discuss…
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Cyril Birnie: From Melbourne to Meiji Japan
Note: This article is a brief overview of a wider research project I am undertaking on the life of Cyril Montague Birnie and the history of Australia-Japan relations. I welcome any contacts from those with direct or indirect knowledge of…
Meeting Sefton High: In Praise of The Children’s Bookshop in Beecroft
I recently had the honour of meeting 40 wonderful students from Sefton High School and their teachers at The Children’s Bookshop in Beecroft. I spoke for about an hour about Empire of the Waves, the history of myth and fantasy…
Tagged with: Children's Bookshop Beecroft
Reading In Review: January to May 2018
Looking back on the first half of 2018, a turbulent year in world politics – and in my field of Korean Studies in particular – I see how much my reading habits remain an anchor. Having quit Facebook in March,…
A Valediction: Forbidding Posting
Recently I passed my ten year anniversary on Facebook and five year anniversary on Twitter. Both sent notes to celebrate the milestone. At first, it felt a little strange to receive such affirmations from the algorithms of addiction. But soon…
Round the Twist on Rainy Days: In Praise of Paul Jennings
When I was in primary school, there was no day so dreaded as wet-weather day. It troubled me perhaps less than some, as I spent much of the break time in the playground or school library debating or creating fantasy…
From Lunch With The Stars to One Book One Pen
The second half of 2017 brought more highlights in this writer’s life. On the 12th of September, I attended the uniquely wonderful CBCA Lunch With The Stars at the ICMS in Manly (as often commented, a more serendipitously Hogwartsian locale…
Why I’m Voting Yes
(Note: Updated on 10 October, 2017) As the rector of my church drew attention to the words of Anglican Archbishop Glenn Davies exhorting us to vote NO in the Same-Sex Marriage postal plebiscite, one of my friends turned to me…
Jaipur
My journey overland from West Bengal to Rajasthan has been intense, exhausting, beguiling, terrifying, wonderful. As the train rolls into Jaipur I am, if truth be told, running low. Not quite recovered from my fever in Allahabad, I surrender to…
Udaipur
After departing Bundi on a rickshaw ride through sheets of wafer-bodied midges, I board a clanking train for Udaipur, a city famed as one of the most beautiful in Rajasthan. But before I reach my destination, I have a stopover…
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