It is not as bad as suggesting injections of disinfectant. Isaac Newton’s 17th-century prescription for plague — which blended powdered toad with toad vomit to form “lozenges” to drive away the contagion — has been revealed. Two unpublished pages of Newton’s notes on Jan Baptist van Helmont’s 1667 book on plague, De Peste, are to be auctioned online by Bonham’s this week. Newton had been a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, when the university closed as a precaution against the bubonic plague, which killed 100,000 people in London in 1665 and 1666. When the polymath returned to Cambridge in 1667, he began to study the work of Van Helmont. Newton’s analysis of De Peste is the most substantial written statement he is known to have made about the plague, according to Bonhams, who said the papers were of “profound importance to the Newton body of work, as well as deeply meaningful within the present context.” The auction house’s books specialist, Darren Sutherland, said: “Newton’s running notes represent the only significant writings on the subject by the world’s greatest scientific mind that we have been able to trace. A timely reminder, perhaps, that there is nothing new under the sun.” The notes include the case of a man who touched “pestilent papers, immediately felt a pain like a pricking needle and developed a pestilent ulcer in the forefinger, and died in two days,” and his observation that “places infected with the plague are to be avoided.” Some of Newton’s potential cures recorded are unlikely to be taken up today, however. He writes that “the best is a toad suspended by the legs in a chimney for three days, which at last vomited up earth with various insects in it, on to a dish of yellow wax, and shortly after died. Combining powdered toad with the excretions
Isabel Killick, an impoverished East End tailoress with three children and a sickly husband, appeared before a House of Lords select committee in 1888 and, on one of the rare occasions in which a working-class woman could speak for herself directly to those in power, she explained that she worked from 6am to 8pm in her home to feed her family by “trouser finishing.” Her own daily diet was a cup of tea and a herring, “as for meat, I do not expect; I get meat once in six months.” Killick was one of 4 million girls and women in paid work in Victorian Britain — 15 percent of whom were mothers. As historian Helen McCarthy explains in Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood, such women were a well-established feature but were considered a deviancy, far from the social norm. Generalizations often abound in chronicles of women’s conditions because the rich diversity of women’s lives within and between classes were either unrecorded or mediated through the views of the male upper class and middle-class females, social investigators. For instance, the sweated industries exhibition in 1906 was intended to show the plight of 450,000 homeworkers, who were often assisted by their tiny children. Visitors paid a shilling to view photographs and living exhibits with “tired faces and broken bodies” working in occupations that included making baby bonnets and industrial tools, chocolate boxes, artificial flowers and matchboxes. “As so often the case when the rich and comfortably off interpreted the lives of the poor the degradation of the nameless women (and men) on show ?was deduced not by listening to voices but by observing bodies ?testimony to hopeless defeated lives,” McCarthy writes. McCarthy’s triumph lies in listening to many voices, revealing a complexity and richness that challenges the simple narrative that the working-class female has
Dozens of fireworks displays erupted simultaneously across Japan on Monday to cheer up the public, urge the gods to end the coronavirus pandemic and provide practice for struggling pyrotechnic artisans. More than 160 manufacturers launched their displays at precisely 8pm at secret locations across the country for a five-minute display called “Cheer up Hanabi” (fireworks). In an era of social distancing, the synchronized shows were designed to be long enough for people to rush to balconies or doorsteps to see them but too short for people to race to the launch sites. With traditional summer festivals canceled due to the coronavirus, fireworks artisans said they wanted to bring light to the skies during these dark times. “Historically fireworks in Japan have been launched to pray for the eradication of plagues and to console the spirits of the deceased,” Tokyo craftsman Kouhei Ogatsu, 38, said. “In the business we have been discussing what we can do in this society that has been changed so much by the coronavirus,” and decided to hold shows nationwide to cheer up the public, he said. The pandemic has been particularly harsh for fireworks producers who spend all year making and testing their crafts and now are unable to sell them because summer festivals have been called off, said Ogatsu, whose family has run a fireworks business in Tokyo since 1864. Artisans need to keep making fireworks in order to maintain their skills. But they can only keep a certain amount of gunpowder by law, forcing them to search for ways to use their stock but avoid encouraging crowds. ‘FAR, FAR AWAY’ Even before the coronavirus spelled the end for many summer festivals, several fireworks displays had been rescheduled or canceled due to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Now that the Games have been postponed until next summer, displays could be pushed back yet another year
It is a scene repeated the world over: pedestrians glued to their phones while walking, causing collisions and sometimes accidents. No more, says one Japanese city. Officials in Yamato city, near Tokyo, on Monday submitted a bill to the city assembly to stop people from using their phones while walking. “The number of people using smartphones has rapidly increased and so have the number of accidents” in the densely populated area, city official Masaaki Yasumi said. “We want to prevent that,” he said, adding if passed it would be the first such ban in Japan. But Yasumi said there will be no punishment for those unable to tear themselves away from their screens in the street. “We hope the ban will raise more awareness about the dangers,” he said. Posters and messages will inform citizens of the rule, expected to take effect from next month. In 2014, research by Japanese mobile giant NTT Docomo estimated a pedestrian’s average field of vision while staring down at a smartphone is five percent of what our eyes take in normally. The company ran a computer simulation of what would occur if 1,500 people used the hectic Shibuya pedestrian crossing in Tokyo while all looking at their smartphones. The results showed that two-thirds would not make it to the other side without incident, with 446 collisions, 103 people being knocked down and 21 dropping their phones. The number of accidents between people using phones while riding a bicycle and pedestrians is also increasing in Japan. In some cases, victims’ families demand up to ￥100 million (US$1 million) in compensation.
People returned to some of Thailand’s famed sandy beaches Monday, keeping well apart but enjoying the outdoors, as authorities eased some coronavirus restrictions for the first time in more than two months. In Pattaya, visitors marveled at the clarity of the turquoise-blue waters of the Gulf of Thailand, and pensioners eager for exercise promenaded along the beach. Social distancing rules still applied, with local authorities ordering beachgoers to stay at least a meter apart. German expatriate Heidi Glemeau was one of the first to take an early-morning dip in the water, and couldn’t believe how empty it was. “I couldn’t resist the temptation,” she said. “It’s become a paradise — just like it was 30 years ago.” Not all beaches were closed during the lockdown, and not all re-opened Monday. Phuket, in the south, is still off-limits, while Hua Hin remained open throughout. Thailand has been under various lockdown restrictions since mid-March, when authorities declared a state of emergency against the coronavirus — shuttering malls, leisure centers and public spaces, including its beaches. But the number of new infections slowed last month, and on Monday cinemas as well as tattoo and massage parlors across the kingdom were given the green light to return to business. “I think it’s been long enough,” said Nutthawut Kanasup, 29, who waited for a foot massage at a downtown Bangkok spa. Student Prayos Plodchai, who had tickets for US blockbuster Bloodshot, said he was not very confident about the hygiene standards at Central World mall’s cinema. “But I’m willing to take the risk because I’ve been stuck at home for so long,” the 19-year-old said. Official records show the kingdom escaped the worst of the disease relatively lightly, recording just over 3,000 infections and 57 deaths. Some experts, however, say a lack of testing may mask the true toll. Regardless, the exodus of foreigners and a
Tom Watson, the former deputy leader of the Labour party, has been having a busy lockdown. Signed up to write a political thriller called The House, he and his co-author Imogen Robertson have been rapidly rejigging their novel to reflect a post-COVID-19 world. Their near-future setting now includes a national inquiry “about what’s going on in the background,” where characters — if they meet socially — “choose not to drink out of glasses and they wipe the bottle before they drink,” and undergo temperature checks when entering public buildings, “which everyone is used to by then,” says Watson, who is finding life away from politics as a newly minted thriller author “a relief.” Watson and Robertson have had to decide: will there be a vaccine, in their vision of the future? “To be honest, we still haven’t quite worked out whether we’re going to have one or not,” he says. “But whatever happens, people are not yet safe in that near future, but they’re kind of over the worst. It’s not a dystopian, post-civilization world — we’re in a slightly weird world, where things have changed, but not completely.” While there have already been numerous announcements of novels purposefully set during the lockdown — Avon has already snapped up Love in Lockdown, about two neighbors who meet on their balconies, while Hodder & Stoughton has acquired Stay Home, in which a married woman breaks lockdown to find her lover murdered in his living room — many more writers are in Watson and Robertson’s boat, making tweaks and adjustments to reflect our current situation, rather than big changes to plot or character. After all, who among us knows what our future will look like? ‘MASSIVE ELEPHANT’ IN THE ROOM “I’m finding it incredibly difficult to work out what to do,” says Holly Watt, author of To
With listicles of local attractions including Costco and numerous children’s playgrounds, I was not expecting much. Opened on Jan. 31, the Taipei MRT’s Circular Line, or Yellow Line, made life in the nation’s capital even more convenient. But judging from Internet search results, it hasn’t opened up many new tourism opportunities, unsurprising as the route mostly crosses densely populated areas and industrial parks. Places like a sports stadium with rainbow colored bleachers perfect for Instagram selfies wouldn’t do it for me either, and it’s pointless to list attractions at the connecting stops that have existed for years. As a history nerd, there was just one place that I really wanted to check out: the Jing-Mei White Terror Memorial Park (白色恐怖景美紀念園區), about a 10-minute walk from Shisizhang MRT Station (十四張). A gray, gloomy afternoon the day after attending my friend’s noise music performance seemed like the ideal time to visit this former detention center for political prisoners during Taiwan’s White Terror era. But to end the day on a lighter mood, I took the train crosstown to Xingfu (“happiness” in Chinese) MRT Station (幸福) in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊) to take a stroll along the Zhonggang Main Drainage (中港大排) park, a once heavily polluted canal turned pleasant riverside walkway that struck me as being similar to, though on a far smaller scale, Seoul’s Cheonggyecheon. I like exploring random neighborhoods, and I can make a day out of even the most dull, industrial neighborhoods of sheet metal shacks. And these parts of New Taipei City, which seem half stuck in the 1980s but also dotted with futuristic upscale residence towers and malls, make for some fun urban photography. DETAINED FOR SEDITION The bright yellow-colored train pierces the gray monotony of the day. I disembark at Shisizhang station, which has an expansive outdoor plaza with a perfect
June 1 to June 7 In February 1988, Robert Wu (吳清友) set aside NT$17.5 million to purchase two Henry Moore sculptures from London’s Marlborough Gallery. He never bought the pieces. Feeling slighted that the gallery manager initially looked down on him as a Taiwanese, he decided that night to use the money to open his own art space back home. “Without selling any art, that money could support the gallery for four years. If I feature one artist per month, that provides a stage for at least 100 artists,” Wu said in the book Eslite Time (誠品時光) by Lin Ching-yi (林靜宜). The businessman had many friends in Taiwan’s art scene, and knew how hard it was for them to shine internationally. “I felt that Taiwan was lacking in the arts and humanities,” Wu continued. “Businessmen always meet at hostess clubs or hotels, while ordinary citizens have few places to visit besides movie theaters or parks.” Despite unexpectedly striking gold in Taiwan’s surging real estate market and becoming a billionaire by the age of 35, Wu remained unfulfilled. Several months after returning home from London, Wu was diagnosed with Marfan’s syndrome and almost died during surgery. After recovery, he knew what he needed to do. On March 12, 1989, Eslite’s Dunnan store opened its doors with a concert by the Taipei String Quartet. “The store’s decor, displays and products are all highly artistic, and naturally, it chose an artistic performance for its opening,” reported the Minsheng Daily (民生報), one of the few media outlets to cover the event. Eslite Dunnan moved to its current location in 1995 and became the world’s first 24-hour-bookstore in 1999. It closes its doors for good today, with the Xinyi location carrying on the mantle of Taiwan’s “sleepless bookstore.” FIRST INCARNATION It was a good time for Taiwanese
Captain Wynn Gale — a fifth-generation Georgia shrimper — is on the side of the road on an April morning, selling shrimp at the same street corner where his dad sold shrimp. “How’s the pandemic treating you?” I ask. “Sales have dropped off by about two-thirds. No out-of-towners coming through on the I-95. No local traffic.” He sighs. “I’m going to tough it out. I can survive with what I’m selling. But that’s all I’m doing. Most shrimpers don’t have 401k retirement plans, you know?” Gale would rather be out on his boat, a 1953 trawler he had for nine years but recently sold to a man in North Carolina. “It made me good money, but I couldn’t find a crew! You just can’t find anyone who wants to work shrimp boats any more. Most of ‘em are on drugs. Give ‘em a check and they’re gone.” He has a small boat he can run himself now. In the past, shrimping was an admirable vocation. Gale first got out on a shrimp boat when he was 12. “Mama wouldn’t let me go any earlier, but from 12 years on out — every weekend I wasn’t in school or summer vacation I was on a shrimp boat.” He spent the next 20 years learning from his dad, who shrimped for 45 years. “What was an average day like?” “I’d leave about 4:30 in the morning and get to the dragging grounds about 6:30, maybe 7am. I’d put out in daylight, make three or four drags that day. The latest I’d be out would be 4pm,” he says. “Look,” he tells me. “What I’m doing right here, right now, selling shrimp on this corner — it sucks. It’s way better out there on the water. It’s where I’ve lived all my life. If I wasn’t in the ocean, I
For more than a century, Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) has been connecting the north and south of the nation. Between 1912 and 1926, the rail network was expanded to the eastern counties of Hualien and Taitung. Even though the number of people living in Taiwan has grown massively — it has more than tripled since World War II — a combination of population outflow in certain places, and a greater range of transportation options, has led to the closure of several TRA stations. One of the most-visited retired stations is in, and named for, Kaohsiung’s Cishan District (旗山). Until the late 1970s, it was a key stop on the 39.4km-long Ciwei Branch Line (旗尾線), which was built between 1910 and 1912 to link Jioucyutang (九曲堂) on the Western Trunk Line with Ciwei Sugar Factory (旗尾糖廠) and neighboring Meinong District (美濃). The line, which carried rice and bananas as well as sugar and people, was dismantled in 1982. The station at Cishan was left to decay until 2005, when the Kaohsiung County Government listed it as a relic and funded renovation work. Like many of the railway buildings that date from the period of Japanese rule, Cishan Station (旗山火車站) is single story and mostly made of wood. Yet its resemblance to Taiwan’s most famous colonial-era retired station, at Shengsing (勝興) in Miaoli, isn’t strong. On account of its Tudor-influenced shape, it looks more like the former Chiayi Forest Management Club (營林俱樂部) in downtown Chiayi. There are frequent buses between Cishan and downtown Kaohsiung, and some from Tainan to Cishan. Between 1903 and 1998, what’s since become known as the Old Mountain Line (舊山線) was the highest stretch of the main north-south railroad. Shengsing Station (勝興火車站), at an altitude of 402m, is an authentic if often crowded tourist attraction. Thanks to its popularity, there’s always plenty
It’s difficult to watch Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, a four-hour Netflix series on the now-deceased convicted sex offender without a choking sense of outrage. How many girls had to suffer to get attention? How perversely twisted is the American justice system that a Gatsby-esque billionaire, friends with such powerful figures as Bill Clinton , Prince Andrew and Donald Trump, a longstanding donor to Harvard and MIT, could buy his way out of an almost certain life sentence for child sex abuse and trafficking? Filthy Rich arrives, of course, less than a year after Epstein, 66, died, officially by suicide, in a New York jail last August. “There’s no justice in this,” Shawna Rivera, speaking publicly for the first time about Epstein’s alleged abuse starting when she was 14, says in the final episode. “There was just so much more to be said that will never be said.” There is, however, much to be learned from the sordid, winding, thwarted path to Epstein’s eventual arrest on sex trafficking charges in July last year. Filthy Rich doesn’t so much break new ground as synthesize the abundance of information with the visceral impact of first-person testimony on Epstein’s crimes — stories of predation, self-doubt and shame by numerous survivors betrayed by the justice system supposed to protect them. Epstein’s decades-long legal saga is “the biggest example I’ve ever seen of somebody using their money and influence to thwart reporting on the subject and to work out an outrageous deal,” Joe Berlinger, an executive producer, told the Guardian. Production on Filthy Rich began before Epstein became a household name — before his death, before his shock arrest, before a 2018 Pulitzer-winning investigation by the Miami Times-Herald into the sweetheart plea deal negotiated by federal prosecutors to keep Epstein out of prison. “The level of incompetence and back-door dealing
Art has come together with activism in the shape of face masks created by Ai Weiwei (艾未未) which show images of sunflower seeds, mythical beasts and perhaps most appropriately of all, a defiant middle finger. The Chinese artist and activist has printed an initial batch of 10,000 face masks to be sold for charity through eBay. All the takings will go to coronavirus humanitarian efforts led by Human Rights Watch , Refugees International and Medecins Sans Frontiers . Ai was at home in Cambridge when he began getting angry about face mask news stories including the US being accused of “modern piracy,” accused of taking masks meant for Germany. It was almost laughable, he said. “It is such a waste. There is so much argument around the mask. A face mask weighs only three grams but it carries so much state argument about global safety and who has it and who doesn’t have it.” He printed a wood carving on to a mask and put it on Instagram. People loved it and asked how they could get hold of one. From that came his new art project. The art works will be sold singly for US$50, US$300 for a series of four and US$1,500 for a collection of 20. They will have images familiar to fans of the artist’s work, including sunflower seeds based on his Tate Modern installation in which he filled the gallery’s Turbine Hall with 100 million individually crafted sunflower seeds. Some of the images will include his middle finger gesture of defiance. Ai said the pandemic was a humanitarian crisis. “It challenges our understanding of the 21st century and warns of dangers ahead. It requires each individual to act, both alone and collectively.” He likened each purchase to an act of hope and social awareness. The images have been silk-screened by hand
The Lunar New Year vacation had just ended when Alice Wu began to worry about COVID-19. Not long after, on Feb. 10, Wu — who didn’t give her Chinese name to speak freely for this story — received the first of several coronavirus-related sales messages through her smartphone. The pitch came from an acquaintance who represents Amway, an American multi-level marketing (MLM) company that’s been active in Taiwan since 1982. “I’ve only met her once, and I’ve never bought from her. If her sister wasn’t one of my daughter’s teachers, I’d probably block her,” says Wu, who lives in Taichung. MLM, sometimes called direct selling or network marketing, is usually presented as a two-in-one business opportunity. Distributors can make money by selling the firm’s products, and also by getting other people to sign up. Every sale made by a “downline” you enlisted adds to your income; if your “downline” goes on to introduce someone to the MLM, you’ll also get a cut of that new recruit’s sales. To protect the public from pyramid schemes, Article 18 of Taiwan’s Multi-Level Marketing Supervision Act states that representatives’ major income should come from “promoting and selling goods or services… instead of earning mainly by introducing new participants.” ‘THE CURRENT DANGER’ Amway, Taiwan’s number one MLM firm in terms of total sales, is best known for nutritional and home-care products. The message sent to Wu, however, promoted an air-treatment machine priced at NT$41,000. “While it didn’t mention COVID-19 by name, it did claim that the air purifier could help protect my family from ‘the current danger,’” she says. Salespeople in other countries have been less subtle, some even promising potential buyers that machines of this kind are effective against coronaviruses. According to experts, air purifiers won’t help much against a virus that isn’t airborne as such, but spread through
One poet wrote about a stroll around a Taitung park. Another reminisced about her hometown in rural South Africa. And a third looked back on a love affair of long ago. These were some of the poems shared over morning coffee by members of the Taichung Poetry Collective one recent weekend. The group of budding and seasoned poets gathers routinely to critique each other’s work. And while the talk was of metaphors and rhyming couplets, looming in the back of these poets’ minds was the COVID-19 crisis that has left much of the world reeling in lockdowns, unemployment and death. “I should write because of it, but I can’t,” said the poetry group’s co-founder, Michelle Strydom, whose writing has admittedly become deeper and darker. “I feel guilty for being able to drive to work.” Drawing from the feeling of entrapment, her poem Dreams of Dying Birds details the perils of the world outside the nation’s relative safety. Here is an excerpt: These dreams I remember The birds always die Bloody feathers scattered carried away by wind’s tide The Taichung group, which hopes to publish a collection of poetry in the near future, has held workshops while maintaining social distance. First they tried poetry in the park with members spaced out. Then virtual poetry workshops, which proved to be awkward. Computer lag time created a stuttered flow to the conversation, losing the feeling of the poem, Strydom said. Yet poets need an outlet, members said, with anxiety either paralyzing the creative process or driving writers to become more prolific. “Meaningful memories need to come out,” said Matt Martini, a member of the Taichung poets’ group. “There’s pressure of sorts, but at the same time you can’t write on demand.” For inspiration, Martini has recently turned to American poet and musician, Saul Williams, whose work has
While engineering professor Liu Jen-sen (劉振森) manually took the temperature of hundreds of students entering the building, he was sure there was a more efficient way to complete the annoying task. With hundreds of students entering National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Electrical Engineering Building every period, the exercise put faculty in close proximity with visitors when social distancing was crucial to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Liu immediately had a eureka moment, headed to his basement workshop and cobbled together a prototype for Prevention No 1 (防疫一號), an automated temperature measuring station. With infrared thermal camera systems costing up to NT$500,000, Liu’s was a steal at NT$6,000. Prevention No 1 is now used across campus and in other institutions. The latest version at NTU’s main entrances, which costs about NT$12,000, can even scan visitor’s ID cards and transmit the information to a central database. BATTLING COVID-19 Liu is one of several Taiwanese who have gained attention for their inventions to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. Lai Hsien-yung (賴賢勇), an anesthesiologist with Mennonite Christian Hospital developed a simple protective device for use when intubating patients, and Soochow University physics professor Chen Chiu-min (陳秋民) made aN ultraviolet disinfection device for masks using common household goods. Both Lai and Chen have shared their designs with the public. Liu had planned to keep Prevention No 1 for campus use only, but his department head Wu Chung-chih (吳忠幟) and college dean Chang Yao-wen (張耀文) convinced him to publicize the blueprints and hold a press conference to promote them. “I was just responding to a problem caused by the pandemic,” Liu says. “I wasn’t thinking of making a big deal out of it; I just wanted to make things more convenient for everyone.” Since then, public institutions and private companies have built their own versions of the apparatus, and a group
Vicki Friedman always wanted to play golf with her adult sons but until this spring couldn’t find time to learn the game and practice. Shaun Warkentin was looking for a diversion when his young sons tired of jumping on the backyard trampoline and being indoors. He discovered the joy of taking them fishing. Neighborhood and park trails across the country have been getting higher-than-usual use by runners, walkers and bicyclists as people find ways to get fresh air while maintaining social distancing during the coronavirus outbreak. Golf courses are welcoming more beginners and people returning to the game, states have seen robust sales of fishing licenses since the coronavirus hit full force in the US in March and fitness tracking technology has shown a surge in the number of steps recorded. Friedman, who lives in Chesapeake, Virginia, took up golf at age 54 after the community college where she works ordered employees to do their jobs from home. That gave her more than an extra hour a day she otherwise would spend commuting. “When you see what’s happening around the world, you prioritize and ask yourself what are some of the things you want to do,” she said. “I’ve always been geared toward work. Right now you want to invest in yourself. What else do I want to do that is fun?” Friedman goes to the driving range a couple of times a week, hits plastic wiffle golf balls in her backyard and, as a Mother’s Day gift from her son, went to a course for the first time and was treated to nine holes. She said on a recent afternoon she was about to play her fourth round in three weeks with the set of used clubs she bought for US$30. “This is a way we can spend time together outside,” she said. “It’s something new.
Green, spiky and with a strong, sweet smell, the bulky jackfruit has morphed from a backyard nuisance in India’s south coast into the meat-substitute darling of vegans and vegetarians in the West. Part of the South Asia’s diet for centuries, jackfruit was so abundant that tonnes of it went to waste every year. But now India, the world’s biggest producer of jackfruit, is capitalizing on its growing popularity as a “superfood” meat alternative — touted by chefs from San Francisco to London and Delhi for its pork-like texture when unripe. “There are a lot of inquiries from abroad... At the international level, the interest in jackfruit has grown manifold,” Varghese Tharakkan says from his orchard in Kerala’s Thrissur district. The fruit, which weighs five kilograms on average, has a waxy yellow flesh when ripe and is eaten fresh, or used to make cakes, juices, ice creams and crisps. When unripe, it is added to curries or fried, minced and sauted. In the West, shredded jackfruit has become a popular alternative to pulled pork and is even used as a pizza topping. “People love it,” Anu Bhambri, who owns a chain of restaurants in the US and India, says. “The jackfruit tacos have been a hit at each and every location. The jackfruit cutlet — every table orders it, it’s one of my favorites!” James Joseph quit his job as a director at Microsoft after spotting Western interest in jackfruit “gaining momentum as a vegan alternative to meat.” JACK OF ALL FRUITS The COVID-19 crisis, Joseph says, has created two spikes in consumer interest. “Coronavirus caused a fear for chicken and people switched to tender jackfruit. In Kerala, lockdown caused a surge in demand for mature green jackfruit and seeds due to shortage of vegetables due to border restrictions,” he says. Global interest in veganism was already soaring
In a steamy Tokyo kitchen, a roasted scent wafts through the air as Yuto Shinohara prepares soup stock for ramen, derived not from pork or chicken, but crickets. “In this pan, we have 10,000 crickets, making stock for 100 bowls,” Shinohara said, as he stirred a large silver pot. The bowls of ramen produced by Shinohara and his team look and smell like those at restaurants across Japan: fine white noodles sit in a savory soup, topped with a juicy slice of pork and fat pieces of pickled bamboo shoots. There’s little to give away the fact that 26-year-old Shinohara uses crickets in the broth, oil, soy sauce and even noodles. Except, that is, for the deep-fried insect perched next to a mitsuba leaf garnish on the soup’s surface. Shinohara isn’t a professional chef, in fact his preferred description of himself is “earth boy.” And it’s his love of all things nature-related that led to him insect-based food. “I want to introduce the joy of insect eating, so that insects will be respected equally to animals and plants,” he said. Shinohara’s love affair with insects began as a child, when he spent most of his time in fields and bushes, catching grasshoppers and cicadas. He was so fascinated by creepy-crawlies that he eventually even tasted them — but only secretly. “I couldn’t tell anyone that I love insects or I eat insects until I was about 20 years old,” he says shyly. “I was afraid of becoming the odd one out or being bullied for it.” ‘LIKE A DELICATE SWEET’ Humans have been eating insects for thousands of years and they remain a common food in many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania. But for many in the West and elsewhere, a cultural bias against insects as food remains strong. Environmental and agriculture experts have been trying to break
In troubled times, people have been known to hoard currency at home — a financial security blanket against deep uncertainty. But in this crisis, things are different. This time cash itself, passed from hand to hand across neighborhoods, cities and societies just like the coronavirus, is a source of suspicion rather than reassurance. No longer a thing to be shoved mindlessly into a pocket, tucked into a worn wallet or thrown casually on a kitchen counter, money’s status has changed during the virus era — perhaps irrevocably. The pandemic has also reawakened debate about the continued viability of what has been the physical lifeblood of global economies: paper money and coins. From the supermarkets of the US and Japan to the shantytowns of Africa to the gas stations of Tehran, a growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using banknotes in fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over their useful life, could be a vector for the spreading coronavirus. Public officials and health experts have said that the risk of transferring the virus from person to person through the use of money is minimal. That hasn’t stopped businesses from refusing to accept currency, and some countries from urging citizens to stop using banknotes altogether. In the midst of the coronavirus era, a thousand calculations are made before cash is handled — mostly with gloved hands. Some leave the money laid out on surfaces for days, for the virus to die. Others disinfect banknotes with spray. Some even microwave them in the belief it kills the virus. In China, banks are now required to sterilize cash with ultraviolet light or heat, then store notes for at least a week before they are given to customers. “In many areas, cash was already beginning to disappear due the increased risk of
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