Mar 31, 2011 0
Mar 22, 2011 0
What’s Your Workout: How a Rugby Star Preps for Play
by Christopher Shay
The Exec
Ant Haynes was the youngest player on Hong Kong’s rugby sevens team when he joined at age 16. Five years later, he’s still the youngest player — and a veteran star. After scoring winning tries at last year’s Hong Kong Sevens tournament, along with the winner against China at the 2010 Asian Games, he was named captain of the squad ahead of this weekend’s Hong Kong Sevens competition. Read the rest of this entry »
Feb 21, 2011 0
Hong Kong’s Waning Influence on the Luxury Car Market
by Christopher Shay
A crowd of shoppers gathered, eagerly snapping photos with their cell phones and cameras at the Hong Kong Ocean Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. But it wasn’t a celebrity they were trying capture.
Over the weekend, Mercedes-Benz parked in the middle of the pier a cherry-red and white 1934 500K Special Roadster, one of only 29 models ever built. Sports Car Market, an automobile-collecting magazine, described the classic car as “sexy, slinky, the Jean Harlow of 1930s motor cars.” In 2001, a 500K Special Roadster sold at auction in Florida for nearly $3 million. Read the rest of this entry »
Feb 20, 2011 0
Hong Kong’s Hidden Cafes
by Christopher Shay
As Starbucks and Pacific Coffee Company continue to make their move into the Hong Kong market, dozens of small, independently owned coffee shops lie hidden on the upper floors of the city’s buildings, hoping to sneak by rising rents and increased competition. Read the rest of this entry »
Jan 25, 2011 0
Sometimes a Grape Notion
by Christopher Shay
Three years ago, Lysanne Tusar walked into a sea of wine. Her new company, the 8th Estate Winery, had purchased 50 tons of premium flash-frozen grapes from Washington’s Columbia River valley to make the first-ever vintage produced in Hong Kong. But while the grapes were thawing over night, a seam in one of the crates burst, flooding Ms. Tusar’s third-floor winery with Merlot. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 2, 2010 0
The Marina Life
by Christopher Shay
David Godfrey and his wife, Tracey, used to live in an apartment overlooking Discovery Bay. But years of watching boats from their balcony gave them a longing for life on the water—and in 2008, they moved into the 70-foot-long Strangely Brown, docked in a marina on the Gold Coast. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov 30, 2010 0
A Brief History of the Playboy Club
by Christopher Shay / Macau
My slideshow on the history of Playboy Clubs accompanied my article on Playboy’s new business strategy.
Published on TIME.com on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010
Oct 29, 2010 0
How I got that shot: JR’s photographer tells the story
by Christopher Shay
The iconic portrait of 2011 TED Prize winner JR, jumping in front of a bold pair of eyes, was shot by the photographer and writer Christopher Shay. The story of how this photo came to be is an interesting one — and we asked Shay to tell it: Read the rest of this entry »
May 13, 2010 0
Best Way to Fend Off a Lion
by Christopher Shay
Though there is no evidence that lions ever populated Southeast Asia, the Cambodians certainly took no chances. According to their legends, lions once roamed the countryside, attacking villagers and their precious buffalo, and long before the great Khmer Empire began in the 9th century, farmers developed a ferocious martial art to defend themselves against the predator. These techniques became bokator (sometimes written as boxkator). Read the rest of this entry »
May 6, 2010 0
‘Gigolos’ on the Beach: Cracking Down on Bali’s Kuta Cowboys
by Christopher Shay
Muscular, bronzed Indonesian men with big smiles and long, wavy hair have been seducing foreign women along the white-sand beaches of Bali for more than three decades now. Known as “Kuta cowboys,” after Bali’s popular Kuta Beach, these men often hold low-paying beach jobs renting snorkeling gear or selling sodas, but what they are really peddling is romance. Many call them gigolos — a term they reject — but for years, they’ve been flirting with foreigners without causing a fuss. That is, until now. Local police raided the beach on April 26 after the trailer for a new documentary on the Kuta cowboys went viral on the Internet. Indonesian authorities detained 28 men — described by the head of Kuta’s beach security as “young, fit-looking and tanned” — on suspicion of selling sex. Could this be the beginning of the end for Bali’s famed Kuta cowboys? Read the rest of this entry »