TAIPEI, Taiwan—On a sweltering summer day with a heat index of 110 degrees Fahrenheit, a man and a woman in formal attire posed on the steps of Shan-Chih Hall in Tatung University. The train of the young woman’s blue gown fanned behind her as her fiancé—perhaps near heat exhaustion in his three-piece suit—held her waist, obeying the direction of the photographer.

Thanksgiving at bars: On Thanksgiving night, I tucked into the holiday staples: turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies, and pumpkin pie. Yet instead of eating with extended family on a long wooden table in the warmth of home, I was at On Tap, an expat bar in Taipei, with my husband and a friend, as a rerun of Monday Night Football played on a large TV. The food was mediocre at best, but it’s hard to complain: Turkeys are hard to find in Asia since they need to be imported from America, so getting to eat the foreign bird at all was nostalgic enough. 

Ian Johnson is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the persecution of Falun Gong adherents in China. His new book is The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon, 2017).

On the surface, Japan is the miracle of Asia. Recovering from the destruction of World War II, the country rebuilt itself into the third-largest economy in the world, known for its high-quality products and vibrant and influential culture. Bright signs light up the busy city centers, the antiseptically clean subways are always punctual, and the Japanese people politely welcome foreigners.

TAIPEI, Taiwan—In a dark suit and clerical collar, pastor Peter Wu stood at the pulpit and motioned for 50 congregants gathered in a basement sanctuary to join him in prayer. He prayed for wisdom and boldness for anyone returning to their hometowns that weekend to celebrate Tomb Sweeping festival, a Chinese holiday venerating one’s ancestors.

Plumes of smoke now regularly rise above the coastal town of Marawi in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao as ISIS-linked gunmen clash with the Philippine army in an attempt to establish a wilayah or province of the Islamic State. For the past month, the sound of machine-gun fire and explosions from Philippine air force bombers rang out in the nearly empty streets, as most of the city’s 200,000 residents have fled.

Growing up, visits to the Chinese medicine doctor were as familiar to me as trips to the orthodontist or pediatrician. The office in a Chinese-majority suburb of Los Angeles reeked of pungent herbal curatives, and the wheelchair-bound doctor would check my tongue, feel my pulse, and ask a strangely specific question like, “Did you wake up with a runny nose last Wednesday?” Somehow, he’d always be right.