An ancient, superstitious ritual to ward off evil spirits, or the search for a subaqueous poet?

People snap their fingers for a host of reasons in the West: to punctuate a conversation, to mark the beat in a piece of music, or any number of other reasons.

The color red is a particularly important one in Chinese culture.

The first time I got off the plane in China, the woman who met me at the airport was in a great hurry. She walked very quickly, some 3 or 4 meters in front of me, and turned every 30 seconds or so to wave good-bye at me. I was thoroughly confused.

Neighborhood trash collection is a breeze, but on the national level, China’s solid waste reaching a dangerous state of crisis. China’s trash problem is piling up.

All over Asia custom dictates that people don’t wear shoes in the house. In some places, such as Japan and China, people wear exclusive indoor-use only slippers or flip-flops in the house, particularly during the winter.