Li Xueying

1 week ago | straitstimes.com | Li Xueying

The Straits Times’ Indonesia bureau chief Arlina Arshad has lived in Jakarta for 16 years - and moved five times. What are the lessons that she’s picked up in searching for the right apartment in Indonesia’s capital city? In this city of contrasts, private-sector developers are on a tearing streak to build high-end condominiums for an expanding middle class. At the same time, graveyards and slums are just round the block from these homes.

1 month ago | straitstimes.com | Li Xueying

Synopsis: Every first Friday of the month, The Straits Times catches up with its foreign correspondents about life and trends in the countries they’re based in. In six of the 10 years between 2014 and 2023, Xi’an had the poorest air quality among China’s new top-tier cities, which are the most commercially attractive cities after Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

2 months ago | straitstimes.com | Li Xueying

Synopsis: Every first Friday of the month, The Straits Times catches up with its foreign correspondents about life and trends in the countries they’re based in. Talk about what’s new with Johor nowadays and one usually ends up with a five-letter acronym - JSSEZ, or the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone. But all the excitement about rising opportunities has also hastened the demise of what traditionally has juiced up Johor’s economy - pineapple farms.

2 months ago | straitstimes.com | Li Xueying

The woods are Maia Sandu’s sanctuary. On the rare weekends when she can get away from the unceasing work of running a country, she heads out into the countryside of Moldova – to feel the soil beneath her, and to breathe. Sometimes, she is with her sister Veronica; at other times, with her dog, a rescue stray aptly called Codrut – “Little Forest” in Romanian, the main language used in the eastern European nation of some 2.5 million wedged between Ukraine and Romania.

Feb 7, 2025 | straitstimes.com | Li Xueying

Synopsis: Every first Friday of the month, The Straits Times catches up with its foreign correspondents about life and trends in the countries they’re based in. Trichy in southern India has no direct flights to the capital city New Delhi, but it has five daily flights to Singapore. The planes are packed, underscoring the rich flows of people both ways. It is a relationship that stretched back to the early 19th century, when migrants from Tamil Nadu settled down in Singapore.