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Edwin Arthur Norbury (1849 - 1918) was the Director of the Royal School of Art, Bangkok, in what was then known as Siam.
Throughout China, cylindrical briquettes, called 'feng wo mei' (beehive coal) are used in purpose-built cookers.<br/><br/> These briquettes were invented in Japan in the 19th century, and spread to Manchukuo, Korea and China in the first half of the 20th century. Although they went out of use in Japan after the 1970s, they are still popular in China, Korea and Vietnam.<br/><br/> Each cylinder lasts for over an hour. The cylinders are delivered, usually by cart, to businesses, and are very inexpensive.
The Hakka (Kejia in Mandarin; literally 'guest people') are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language. Their distinctive earthen houses or tulou can be found in the borderland counties where Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian provinces meet.<br/><br/> Communal entities, tulou are fortified against marauding bandits and generally made of compacted earth, bamboo, wood and stone. They contain many rooms on several storeys, so that several families can live together. The small, self-contained design is a common characteristic of Hakka dwellings (eg the Hakka walled villages at Kam Tin in Hong Kong’s New Territories).<br/><br/> Tulou come in a variety of styles, and can be circular, triangular, rectangular, octagonal or other shapes. The extraordinary round earth houses range in size from the small scale (around 12 rooms) to the large (up to 72 rooms). Most are three storeys high, but the largest have up to five storeys. Some tulou stand independently, while others cluster into groups. The tulou located in Hukeng include the circular Zhenchenglou and a Five Phoenix House (Wufenglou), among others. Five Phoenix buildings tended to belong to Hakka officials and are more palatial than typical tulou.
The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة ('Maintenance of Health'), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad.<br/><br/> Ibn Butlân was a Christian physician born in Baghdad and who died in 1068. He sets forth the six elements necessary to maintain daily health: food and drink, air and the environment, activity and rest, sleep and wakefulness, secretions and excretions of humours, changes or states of mind (happiness, anger, shame, etc). According to Ibn Butlân, illnesses are the result of changes in the balance of some of these elements, therefore he recommended a life in harmony with nature in order to maintain or recover one’s health.<br/><br/> Ibn Butlân also teaches us to enjoy each season of the year, the consequences of each type of climate, wind and snow. He points out the importance of spiritual wellbeing and mentions, for example, the benefits of listening to music, dancing or having a pleasant conversation.<br/><br/> Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically profusely illustrated. The short paragraphs of the treatise were freely translated into Latin in mid-thirteenth-century Palermo or Naples, continuing an Italo-Norman tradition as one of the prime sites for peaceable inter-cultural contact between the Islamic and European worlds.<br/><br/> Four handsomely illustrated complete late fourteenth-century manuscripts of the Taccuinum, all produced in Lombardy, survive, in Vienna, Paris, Liège and Rome, as well as scattered illustrations from others, as well as fifteenth-century codices.
Rural Tibetans often collect yak dung on a daily basis from the trails to dry out and use as fuel for fires. The Sherpa people rely on small iron stoves to heat their homes and for cooking in their kitchens. Above a certain elevation there just is no wood to be found, and the Chinese government has placed tight restrictions on logging in the protected Himalayan forests.
The Spanish Civil War was fought from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 between the Republicans, who were loyal to the democratically elected Spanish Republic, and the Nationalists, a rebel group led by General Francisco Franco. The Nationalists prevailed, and Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from 1939 until his death in 1975.<br/><br/> The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937. They also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. Capturing large parts of Catalonia in 1938 and 1939, the war ended with the victory of the Nationalists and the exile of thousands of leftist Spaniards, many of whom fled to refugee camps in southern France.
In a country blessed with a plethora of beautiful islands, Ko Chang stands out as one of the loveliest. It’s also Thailand’s second largest island (after Phuket), but what makes it so appealing is its rugged aspect, and the way it rises suddenly from the sea, the usual lovely white sand Thai beaches, but backed by a solid hilly interior covered in wild jungle that seems to shelter the coast from the sea.<br/><br/> People visit Ko Chang for these pristine beaches, but also for the jungled interior with its many trails and waterfalls, birds, mammals and of course coral reefs. People also seek out Ko Chang because, despite its increasing popularity, it remains a world away from the commercial development of Pattaya, Phuket and Ko Samui – at least for the present.<br/><br/> The main beaches are scattered along the western and southern coasts of the island, with the east coast both less accessible and more suited to trekking and bird-watching than swimming and sunbathing. Some of the best coral reefs are to be found around smaller offshore islands, especially to the south and west of the main island.<br/><br/> As a general rule, the resort beaches are more developed to the north of the island, and this too is where the most sophisticated restaurants and more up-market accommodations are to be found.