Over the summer, I went to Haiti to cover the plight of restavkes, indentured servant children. The video below was aired on PBS’s Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. The following piece was published on MSNBC.com along with a multimedia compent. Kids forced into domestic servitude in Haiti ‘Restavek’ system thrives as impoverished families have little choice […]
I arrived to Port-au-Prince around 12:25, Friday, May 25, in the afternoon and met up with J.P., Conner, Tamara, Dr. Cadet and Dane. After waiting for Conner’s bags to show up (and they never did), we got into an “ambulance” and set off for Fond des Blancs. The ambulance is a Toyota 4×4, a […]
Working in Thailand a few years ago, I was constantly struck by the way Thai people glorify their king. Before a film starts, the audience stands as the national anthem plays and photos of King Bhumibol Adulyadej drift by the screen. If a Thai drops a coin, he or she will immediately pick it up; […]
Greets from Tokyo. I write from the United Airlines first class lounge at Narita International, waiting for my flight back to Taipei. I came back to Japan to cover a biz story about United Airlines, ANA and the new Tokyo airport. If you are lucky, I’ll post the story here later, after it runs. It […]
The 350-year-old document looks pretty good for its age. The real-estate contract is worn, browned and frayed on the sides, but it’s in one piece and still legible. “Legible,” that is, if you happened to know the now-dead aboriginal language of Siraya. Taiwan’s first language of business and commerce was not English, Dutch or even […]
Mozart once said that it was his love for music that enabled him to write the compositions that would continue to be adored for another two centuries. “Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius,” he said. “Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.” […]