Views: 20 The tea and coffee odyssey. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 23/03/2026 Tea and coffee at Hengshan Garden hotel in Shanghai on 28.10.2025 From the ancient tea houses of China to the coffee-houses of Vienna, these two beverages have traversed the globe, shaping economies and defining cult ...

Views: 66 A study in civilisational grief Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 16/03/2026 Photo credit: tearsofdeepgrief Symptoms A French veteran shouts at a Beijing waitress in a language she does not understand. Young Americans drift through Shanghai, certain the world owes them a living, and th ...

Views: 11 How Chinese scientists embody a different value Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 09/03/2026 A confronting image When I first travelled to China many decades ago, the internet did not exist. I remember writing on a postcard to my parents: “Everything is different here.” ...

Views: 11 From active ingredients to finished pills, the cost gap explained. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 02/03/2026 Contentious, complicated, controlled A medicine is a chain: feedstocks processed into key starting materials, synthesised into an active ingredient, combined with excipient ...

Views: 43 From grammar to global power Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 26/01/2026 The capital ‘I’ The capital ‘I’ emerged in England over 600 years ago. Although legibility played an initial role, the rule was ultimately cemented by powerful cultural forces that increa ...

Views: 102 Divergent paths of control and acceptance.   Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波   05/01/2026 Shadow economies, street vendors and the state’s relationship with ordinary commerce: a comparison of China and the EU The informal economy occupies a peculiar space in mo ...

Views: 88 Europe’s financial surveillance has made ordinary family support a matter for the state. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波   16/12/2025 There is a curious paradox in how the world’s major powers approach financial support within families. In the European Union, a gr ...

Views: 43 Reflecting on articles that challenged comfortable narratives. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波   29/12/2026 The year 2025 stripped away our last illusions as European mirrors reflected only a diminished and unflattering truth. Global events have forced us to acknowledge our f ...

Views: 77 Ideology in the west and the search for analytical rigour in China Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波  17.12.2025 Sociology in crisis: China’s alternative paradigm. This article examines the profound crisis in Western sociological and liberal art education and the vigorous d ...

Views: 138 Freedom, democracy and truth. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波  10.12.2025 For the fainthearted: In this article, I will invite you to some self-reflection. I will challenge you with some uncomfortable observations about common patterns in our society. For those who prefer not ...

Views: 111 Beyond confrontation: How China unveils the West’s imperative to adapt Gordon Dumoulin 22/07/2025 Puji Temple in Putuo Mountain This article is reproduced with the permission of Gordon Dumoulin, the author(s) of “China21 Journal” The gloves of ...

Views: 84 Final reflections on an extraordinary travel. Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波   25/11/2025 Koh Samui Our journey home took us from Koh Samui to Singapore, then Zurich, and finally to Brussels. The airport on Koh Samui features a simple single landing strip, with its te ...

Views: 199 Shanghai Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 14/10/2025 ALDI in China The German ALDI supermarket giant opened its first stores in China in June 2019. Today in October 2025, there are some 80 ALDI stores, most in Shanghai. Only since April they started to expand to Suzhou and Wuxi. ALDI ha ...

Views: 103 Beijing, Shenyang, Dandong Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 07/10/2025 Westerners in China Walking along the streets of Beijing, Shenyang, Dandong and Shanghai, compared to 10 years ago, it is remarkable how few young Europeans or Americans are left in China. These days, there are m ...

Views: 106 Beijing Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 30/09/2025 The barbarians in Beijing The Old Summer Palace, the Yuanmingyuan “圆明园” in Chinese, located in the Haidian district of Beijing, was a large imperial garden that the emperors of the Qing Dynasty operated for over 150 years. It was k ...