Caroline Kwok

An English construction worker has found a valuable Chinese artifact initially thought to be a “teapot” while clearing out family belongings from a garage during lockdowns to fight the spread of Covid-19. The 51-year-old from Derbyshire in the UK said he was about to send the item to a charity shop before discovering it was an 18th-century imperial wine ewer. It fetched a life-changing sum at an auction this week. 

Statues depicting Taiwan’s former leader Chiang Kai-shek continue to generate controversy. Chiang fled to Taiwan after his Nationalist troops lost a civil war on the Chinese mainland to Communist forces in 1949. While some revere him for his anti-communist stance, others recall Chiang’s brutal imposition of martial law and purge of thousands of opponents. More than 70 years later, there is intense debate about Chiang’s legacy, as statues are being removed under a law meant to address issues of the island’s authoritarian past.   

The coronavirus pandemic has directly threatened the survival of one of Taiwan's best-known cultural scenes, the night market. Some hawker stalls at the Ningxia Night Market in Taipei are finding a way to stay in business by teaming up with food delivery services.

As deaths from the coronavirus mount in New York City, a temporary field hospital has been built in Central Park to help ease the burden on local hospitals. Covid-19 cases continue to surge in the city, with the death toll surpassing 900 on Monday, March 30. Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has estimated that about 200,000 Americans could die from the pandemic. US President Donald Trump has extended stay-at-home guidelines for the nation to the end of April. 

Animal rescuers are bringing food and water to thousands of pets separated from their owners after the Chinese authorities locked down a city to contain the coronavirus outbreak. Read more about efforts to save the unattended pets in the central city of Wuhan here.

Any visitor to Hong Kong will notice that the iconic skyscrapers are built using bamboo scaffolding. It's a technique that has been used across China for at least 1,000 years. At first, it may appear to be dangerous, but in reality, it is just as safe as any other scaffolding technique. This video from 1963 shows how the city used bamboo as it was expanding, and westernizing, its infrastructure.  Let’s take a look back at workers erecting intricate webs of sky-high bamboo scaffolding.

You Wenfeng is one of only a few people who know how to create clothing from fish skin, a skill of the ethnic Hezhen people – who were once so skilled plying the waters of the nearby Heilong River that they are said to be “descended from mermaids.” The 68-year-old woman from Tongjiang, a city in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province near the border with Russia, fears the loss of the ancient tradition. But that may start to change. She has started teaching others her craft. The exotic aquatic leather has also caught the eye of international fashion designers working for the likes of Dior and Prada.

With the Lunar New Year just days away, holiday activities and celebrations are getting underway in cities across China. People reuniting with families and friends will make about 3 billion trips by road, air and rail during what is also known as the Spring Festival in China. The highlight of the festivities will be the start of the Year of the Rat on Saturday, January 25, 2020, although fears of an outbreak of a new coronavirus have prompted travel restrictions and led to cancellations of public events in parts of the country.

China will ban non-degradable plastic bags in supermarkets and shopping malls in major cities by the end of 2020, according to the country’s state planner. The National Development and Reform Commission announced on January 19 that the plan will also include phasing out disposable plastic containers, utensils and courier packages from the country’s ubiquitous online shopping and food delivery industry.

Chinese state media released video showing a spectacular “New Year’s Eve drone show” along Shanghai’s famous riverfront, the Bund. But while the video was dated December 31, 2019, spectators who were on the Bund at the time of the countdown to 2020 said there were no drones in sight. EHang, one of China's largest drone makers that managed the display, said the video was filmed earlier on December 28, 2019, for a show to be broadcast on a Shanghai TV station on New Year’s Eve.