Call it the Davos of nose, the olfactory Olympics, the Sundance of Scent. On June 5, representatives of more than 50 top fragrance-and-flavor companies will converge at the World Perfumery Congress in Cannes, France, to charm potential customers and herald their latest innovations. Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan, the industry leader, will speak on "The Noses of Tomorrow." The latest robotic smell mixers will be on display. International Flavors and Fragrances , Givaudan's closest rival, will fly in most of ...

When the Beijing LGBT Center screened a prerecorded lecture on gay-themed movies last year, the venue was so packed that latecomers had to jostle for a spot on the windowsills of the rented classroom doubling as their makeshift theater. This year, however, a similar event attracted only a handful of people, leaving much of the same room empty. The organizers soon realized their online announcements never reached the community. Soon after, other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ...

"Exchange the role of guest for that of host." That's one of the so-called 36 Strategies, a collection of ancient Chinese proverbs whose provenance is uncertain. The saying means that in order to gain the upper hand, you should put yourself in a position of action, not reaction, and reverse your fortunes. This aphorism once applied to infiltrating and outmaneuvering your foe during war. But Beijing can use it today to fight the world's common enemy: global warming. During last December's ...

In the province of Szechwan in China lived until last week Li Ching-yun. In China where Age means something he was a great man. By his own story he was born in 1736, had lived 197 years. By the time he was ten years old he had traveled in Kansu, Shansi, Tibet, Annam, Siam and Manchuria gathering herbs. He continued to gather herbs for the rest of his first 100 years. He lived on herbs and plenty of rice wine. ...

One month after a traffic fatality touched off widespread protests in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, a court has sentenced a coal truck driver to death for running over and killing an ethnic Mongolian herder. The rapid trial and sentencing showed the speed with which Chinese authorities have moved to tamp down unrest in the region. On Wednesday the Intermediate People's Court of Xilin Gol league found driver Li Lindong guilty of murder immediately after a ...

Thirty years ago, Vietnamese soldiers waged a final, furious battle in the hills of Lang Son near the country's northern border to push back enemy troops. Both sides suffered horrific losses, but Vietnam eventually proclaimed victory. Decades later, diplomatic relations have been restored and the two nations, at least in public, call each other friend. Vietnam's former foe is a major investor in the country, bilateral trade is at an all-time high, and tourists, not troops, are ...

Mao Zedong loved to swim. In his youth, he advocated swimming as a way of strengthening the bodies of Chinese citizens, and one of his earliest poems celebrated the joys of beating a wake through the waves. As a young man, he and his close friends would often swim in local streams before they debated together the myriad challenges that faced their nation. But especially after 1955, when he was in his early 60s and at the height of his ...

In the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, the character of Austrian mountaineer Peter Aufschnaiter escapes an Indian POW camp and declares that he is heading for China to find work. His compatriot-in-arms, Heinrich Harrer, played by a sun-kissed, blue-eyed Brad Pitt, says he's skipping China and going to mountains of Tibet. Harrer goes on to cross the line that separates India from Tibet, where he makes a silver-screen connection with the Dalai Lama among the Chinese ...

In Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, the fortuneteller unfurls her skirts, hoists her bodice, strolls downstage and heckles the audience. Oh, she can tell the future, all right. "Nothing easier," she says. "But who can tell your past, eh? Nobody! You lie awake nights trying to know your past. What did it mean? What was it trying to say to you? Think! Think!" Think, indeed. The only action one can take toward the past is to think about ...