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Lessons from China's history
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Reflections
Wee Kek Koon

A Polish priest’s perilous mission to save a doomed Chinese dynasty with Catholic links

In 1651, the embattled Ming court, which included several Christian converts, sent Michal Boym to seek the Pope’s aid. It never came

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Michal Boym, also known as Bu Mige, was a 17th century Jesuit missionary dispatched to Europe to seek papal aid for the struggling Qing dynasty. Although his diplomatic endeavour failed, the knowledge he spread helped demystify China for European audiences. Photo: Wikipedia
Having lived his whole life in the modern cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, Wee Kek Koon has an inexplicable fascination with the past.
I spent a week in Warsaw and ate more pierogi than I could shake a stick at.
These beloved traditional Polish dumplings come filled with potatoes, cheese, meat, mushrooms and even fruit. Boiled or fried, they may look familiar to anyone acquainted with jiaozi, the Chinese dumpling, although their flavours are distinctly Polish.

This is not to suggest that dumplings travelled directly from China to Poland. One theory posits that dumpling-like foods – from Nepalese momo and Central Asian and Turkish manti to Georgian khinkali – spread westwards from their origin in East Asia through Central and South Asia, the Middle East and, eventually, Europe. Another posits that filled dumplings emerged in multiple places independently rather than from a single source.

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