Word: kingdomful
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...those after something more serene, Banna also has plenty to offer. Few people associate China with lush rain forest, Southeast Asian culture and wild jungle elephants, but Banna is more Mekong Delta than Middle Kingdom and has long been a backpackers' stopover between Laos and the "real" China. Because most of the domestic tourists can't get enough of gambling, sex and weird botany, more discerning visitors can find themselves blissfully alone on the many spectacular jungle treks and wildlife and tribal village trips on offer...
...home schooling is still growing at about 11% a year, and it's no longer confined to a conservative fringe that never believed in the idea of public education anyway. "Very different people are entering home schooling than did 20 years back," says Mitchell Stevens, author of Kingdom of Children, a history of home schooling to be published next month by Princeton University Press. According to the Federal Government, up to three-quarters of the families that home school today say they do so primarily because, like so many of us, they are worried about the quality of their children...
Unfortunately, over the centuries many people have. Conquered by Vietnamese invaders, plundered by French colonists and bombed by U.S. warplanes, My Son is now abandoned, one of the few vestiges of an empire all but forgotten. When Zheng He's ships first called on Champa, the powerful Hindu kingdom had dominated central Vietnam for more than 1,000 years. The haven described by the fleet's Chinese chronicler Ma Huan was the rough port town of Qui Nhon, where sarong-wearing, wiry-haired Cham ivory merchants and slave traders plied their wares. Yet in 1471, less than 70 years later...
...Kalarippayat is said to be the world's original martial art. More than 2,000 years old, it was developed by warriors of the Cheras kingdom in Kerala. Training followed strict rituals and guidelines. The entrance to the 14 m-by-7 m arena, or kalari, faced east and had a bare earth floor. Fighters took Shiva and Shakti, the god and goddess of power, as their deities. From unarmed kicks and punches, kalarippayat warriors would graduate to sticks, swords, spears and daggers and study the marmas - the 107 vital spots on the human body where a blow can kill...
...Chinese have little interest in how Westerners live. When the 15th century Admiral Zheng He first sailed across the oceans, he returned to China with stones, ivory and wood. But when Marco Polo traveled to the Middle Kingdom, he brought back to Italy a wealth of information and discoveries. If he were to go to China today, he would probably return with no more than a Beijing opera mask and a badly stitched cheongsam...