Aug 19, 2021
What Cabbage Teaches Us about Care and Culture
It has been domesticated across Asia for so long, its movements have become opaque.
Taking History Personally: Tea, Selfhood, and the Story of Empire
Tea plants—and the drinks we make from them—carry so many meanings.
Jul 14, 2021
Budding History: On Nationalism and Cherry Blossoms
Through myth-making and symbolism, the natural world comes to stand in for potent human ideals.
Jul 23, 2020
The Many Meanings of the Mango
Mangoes—revered and prized by almost every culture in which they are cultivated—are a migrant fruit.
May 11, 2020
How the Literature of Empire Shaped My View of the Natural World
It took me years before I realized that I’d built my notions of beauty from the stories of a distant land.
Apr 02, 2020
My Grandfather and the Fukien Tea Tree: A Botanical History
I added it to the list of things off-limits: questions about the past, the wars, why my grandparents had fled China for Taiwan. Why eventually they left that place too.
Feb 19, 2020
