Category Archives: Blog

Descendants of the Maharajas of Jaipur still reside in the city’s 18th century City Palace. In fact, Kumar Padmanabh Singh, the current holder of the title “Maharaja,” is just a teenager–caught in the middle of a heated family feud over property, titles, and legacies…

Iran has launched a smartphone app to make all of the speeches delivered by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the past quarter of a century available to cell phone users around the world. Khamenei.ir is available (in Persian) for mobile devices powered by Android or Apple’s operating system.

To read this week’s interview with Altangerel Bulgaa, Mongolia’s Ambassador to the U.S., please click here.

My students in Beirut have been making history this semester as the first students in Lebanon to learn and translate Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic)–the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Some students have even started writing in Ge’ez on Facebook–and comparing Ge’ez and Amharic vocabularly with Ethiopian migrant workers in Beirut. My students and I are definitely gaga for Ge’ez…

When I was in Mongolia, I had the chance to photograph a number of impressive museum collections. In upcoming blog posts, I’ll share some of my favorite museum pieces from Mongolia…

While strolling through Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, I was surprised to find hieroglyphs decorating the wall of this police station. When I taught a seminar on Egyptomania at Harvard University, I included many samples from Asia–but none from Mongolia. Now I can include this Mongolian example the next time I teach my seminar on Egyptomania around the world…

Every Sunday, I have the joy and pleasure of teaching English to Sudanese migrant workers in Beirut. To read more about the recent attempt of migrant workers in Lebanon to form a union, please click here.

When I was last in Mongolia, I attended the Ulaanbaatar Marathon to cheer on athletes in the disabled division. James Busacca, an American Peace Corps volunteer, is currently helping to raise public awareness in Mongolia about intellectual and physical disabilities. He recently organized Mongolia’s inaugural Special Olympics National Competition for more than 150 children and adults with intellectual disabilities—14 of whom will represent Mongolia at the upcoming 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles.

When I was staying in a yurt in Mongolia (far from the capital), I woke up early one morning to take photographs of animals grazing on the steppe. To my surprise, one of the horses broke away from the crowd, and began trotting in my direction. Stopping a foot from where I was standing, the horse bowed forward, and stared directly into my camera. After taking several photographs, I put my camera down and took a step closer to commune with my new friend–without the mediation of a lens…