ReportageLIKE A HINDU goddess, the scrawny old cook seems to have multiple arms. In no time flat, she's fried the prawns and the orange curry paste and is hurling noodles into her enormous wok. She splashes in a dark-coloured...

MemoirTHE SYNAGOGUE WAS still there: an inconspicuous brick building in a poor part of Shanghai where tower blocks had not yet risen, on the far side of Suzhou Creek. The narrow houses were two storeys at most, with the...