麻豆社

Personal stories, insights and experiences from 麻豆社 correspondents, journalists and writers around the world. This edition looks at the way cities change, and the countryside reacts, with stories from Africa, Asia, Europe and the UK. Alex Duval Smith's got some noisy new neighbours in Bamako: they're rural cousins who've fled fighting in the north of Mali. But are they ready to fit in to urban life? Mick Webb witnesses the sprucing-up of Marseille - from drug and crime hotspot to European City of Culture - but finds its old character still bubbling away underneath. Jennifer Pak explains why in Hong Kong, not only the living but even the dead must struggle (and pay plenty) to find a space to rest. Boating and walking along England's River Trent, Tom Fort finds the residue of the filthy cities of the industrial past is increasingly covered over by nature. And on the Swiss-French border, John Laurenson meets a man who knows the Jura forest by heart - and knows where to find the best possible tree to make a violin from.