麻豆社

The speed and scale of China's transformation are well known - but can still catch you out even if you have plenty of local knowledge. Celia Hatton lived in Beijing for 14 years, but when she went back recently she was left stranded - because she only had cash in hand. These days, everyone from cafe baristas to rickshaw drivers prefers payment by mobile phone or card. Would she make it to a reunion dinner? And why might the Chinese state be so keen on promoting e-payment?

Pascale Harter introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world.

Covering the news from Turkey for the 麻豆社 can be hectic, exhilarating and heartbreaking. Mark Lowen, who's moving on from Istanbul after five turbulent years, looks back at the moments which have stuck with him and the people he'll never forget.

And in the extreme north-east of Russia, in the Siberian Arctic, Juliet Rix detects many echoes of the indigenous cultures she's already encountered in similar terrain in the USA and Canada. For all the lines on the map dividing one day and one superpower from another, local people have historically roamed freely over the ice for millennia - and may do so more freely again, in future.

(Image: A woman using her smartphone to pay at a supermarket in Hangzhou in China's eastern Zhejiang province. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)