Halal Industry Beyond Religion and Borders——Ningxia＇s Prospects Expand on Intra-Islamic Trade

IN an economic downturn, friends like to help out friends. In the world of international trade that means ,buying and selling where you feelat home, where a kind of brotherhood makes borders a small matter. Globalization means communities worldwide - ethnic and religious communities, and even just ＂communities of interest＂ - are looking forward to more trade based on whatever defines them.     

The Tastemakers

JIM Boyce granted me an interview in a bar at 6 p.m.,in between tasting a flight of 13 liquors at 4 p.m.and getting ready for yet another interview at 8 p.m.The first thing he did was recommend I try a white bourbon.Like they say,it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.Boyce sips and scribbles for Beijing Boyce,his nightlife blog,and Grape Wall of China,a website he runs with a host of other contributors from the wine industry.His real work is brand consulting and market research however,with a specialty in natural resources,but wine takes up much of his spare time.My sense is that for Boyce the landscape of Chinese wine seems to be many things - a national coming-of-age drama for an industry,an international cast of characters,a struggle of market forces,treasure rediscovered,and a plot begging for the emergence of heroes.That would explain why readers like his style of sharing what he’s learned,as he learns it.     

Bite of the Drama Queen

WHERE the amateurs go head to head with the professionals Anna Grace seems to be proving less is indeed more,at least in China.Grace,the theatrical equivalent of a Swiss Army knife didn’t intend to get to New York! New York! from Beijing!     

Moveable Feasts

WHETHER you are nostalgic for your own culture or keen to experience another, food,it seems,is the sensual conduit to the comforts of home or to irresistible adventures abroad.Two Beijing-based culinary entrepreneurs are remarkable just for their longevity in the art of providing taste bud tours.     

Second Wind

EVERYTHING old is new again and this is especially the case in China everything from the industrial revolution to the individual career is a renewable phenomenon. Many retired or semi-retired Westerners have pulled up stakes and headed here, a move that blew fresh air into their professional lives, provided a chance to do new but related work, or offered the challenge of doing something entirely different. Barry Cunningham is one American that fits this category of China-lover. The double Emmy Award-winning TV reporter and television news producer (1991 and 1996) stuck with his profession, but in other ways his whole life got its second wind.     

Muse,Music,Musings

EMBER Swift seems to be a walking collection of improbabilities and contradictions, which probably means she blends seamlessly into modern China. She is a white, foreign female singing original lyrics in both Chinese and English     

Class Act

IT＇S perhaps the most common assumption made： tell a Westerner you are working in China and the .response will be ＂Oh, teaching？＂In many cases it will be the right assumption （cliches exist for good reason）, but this column has been looking at anything Westerners are doing here that isn＇t teaching. It remains a fact though, that the educational sector is a huge employer of native English speakers.     

Putting on the Dog

IF the term had been coined here, the "cat walk" of the West would have been a "dog walk" in the Middle Kingdom. The Chinese are "putting on the dog," but the old expression for dressing up in one’s     

Club, Sweat and Gears

HAYDEN Opie, Sam Callaghan and Tom Lanhove are ama-teurs – amateur sportsmen that is, who are the kingpins in three clubs helping to make after-hours life in China fun and healthy. Dug in Beijing, they have re-created for them-selves, and everyone else who shares their interests, a little bit of "home," whether that’s Belgium, South Africa or New Zealand. Sport takes the edge off the