TABLE OF CONTENTS What’s That You’re Wearing? A Guide to Muslim Veils Airport Near Everest Is Its Own Perilous Adventure Hong Kong’s Murder Mystery: Who Is Poisoning the Dogs? Fear Descends Over Australia as Magpie Swooping Season Begins In Senegal, Absolution Comes With a Wing and a Prayer A Traveler’s Guide to Customs: When to Shake Hands, Hug or Kiss South Koreans, Seeking New Zest for Life, Experience Their Own Funerals Canada and Denmark Fight Over Island With Whisky and Schnapps Jerusalem’s Latest Argument Over History Is About Fried Innards Divorce, India Style: It’s All Up to the Judge Tools to Help Japanese Schoolchildren Find Balance: Unicycles Brazil’s Surfers Lament Demise of Amazon’s Mighty Waves On an Island Named for Ice, the Poets Are Just Getting Warmed Up For Mexico’s ‘Beatlemaniacos,’ All You Need Is Nostalgia Who Haunts U.K. Ghost Trains? Railway Enthusiasts Nazi Grave in Brazil Endures as Marker of Secret Plan to Colonize If the Pool Is Warm in Paris, Thank the Washing Machine Napping in Public? In Japan, That’s a Sign of Diligence The Christmas Pickle: A Tradition With a Pinch of Salt Six Feet Across and Full of Peril: England’s Killer Creek Berlin Attraction Reveals an Uneasy Phenomenon: Hitler Sells To Fight Smog, How About Rooftop Bus Gardens? Talking to In-Laws Can Be Hard. In Some Languages, It’s Impossible Newfoundland Is Big on Bologna: Fried, Stewed and Layered Like a Cake When an Airline Suffered Misfortune, Some Looked for a Goat For a Modest Price, the Streets of Paris Can Be Yours Polish City to Give Tom Hanks the Car That Put It on the Auto Map WHAT’S THAT YOU’RE WEARING? A GUIDE TO MUSLIM VEILS BY RUSSELL GOLDMAN MAY 3, 2016 THEY ARE BANNED IN FRANCE, mandated in Saudi Arabia and a fashion statement in Indonesia. Veils for Muslim women come in all sizes, shapes and colors — and with terminology that can mean different things in different places. The Quran is oblique in its references to “hijab,” which is described not as an article of clothing but something akin to a curtain or “separation” that allows for privacy. Here’s a guide to how that looks around the Muslim world. Abaya: The ubiquitous (and requisite) covering for women in Saudi Arabia is seen throughout the Arabian Peninsula and parts of North Africa. Typically black, the garment is constructed like a loose robe or caftan and covers everything but the face, hands and feet. Burqa: The Taliban-required garment is worn mainly in Afghanistan, and covers the entire face, with a crocheted mesh grill over the eyes. When first mentioned in The New York Times, in 1988, it was described as “tentlike.” In Kabul, most burqas are blue, but in other parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan they’re brown, green or white. Chador: For centuries, women in Iran have worn these semicircles of fabric draped over the head like a shawl. The chador has no fasteners; it is held in place under the neck by hand. Black is the preferred color in public, but women often wear colorful versions at home or at the mosque. Hijab: The term has become a catchall, particularly in the West, for all Islamic veils, but is mainly used to mean a head scarf. Styles vary not only by geography, but also fashion trends. Jilbab: Also mentioned in the Quran, the term generally refers to a protective article of clothing, not a specific garment. In Indonesia, jilbab refers to any head-to- toe style of modest dress, especially a head scarf, but in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula it typically means a long dress or tunic. Khimar: This is the third term, along with hijab and jilbab, that is mentioned in the Quran; cumulatively, they make up the religious justification for veiling. Historically, khimar refers to any article of clothing that promotes modesty, covering the genitals and breasts of a woman and protecting her from the gaze of unrelated men. In some countries, the term is used to describe any veil or head scarf, similar to a hijab. Niqab: A veil that covers a woman’s face with a slit left for the eyes. Though not required in Saudi Arabia, it is almost always worn, with an abaya, by women in public. In much of the world, including South Asia and North Africa, women often don a half-niqab, a square of fabric tied or held with a band below the eyes. AIRPORT NEAR EVEREST IS ITS OWN PERILOUS ADVENTURE BY KAI SCHULTZ MAY 31, 2016 IF YOU WANT TO VISIT Mount Everest, you had better be pretty adventurous — and not just for the climb. Getting to the mountain usually means flying into Lukla, Nepal, home of Tenzing-Hillary Airport, one of the scariest airstrips in the world. It’s just a short flight to Lukla from Kathmandu, the capital, but it’s plenty challenging for pilots, who have to guide 19-passenger turboprops through rugged mountain terrain where the wind often swirls at 30 to 40 miles per hour and thick fogs can form. Not much weather data is available for conditions along the way, so pilots have to rely on reports from previous flights before deciding whether to take off. Midway through a recent flight, as passengers fumbled to take photographs of the Himalayas, the plane ran into turbulence, dropped sharply and pivoted left. The pilot told passengers not to worry, and one trekker laughed through his teeth. “You can’t train on weather,” said Capt. Pawan Singh Nagarkoti, 31, who flies the route regularly. “You can fly the aircraft, you can master the aircraft, you can be one hell of a good pilot in the aircraft, but weather, it has always been a problem.” Then you get to the airport itself. The runway is short, about 1,700 feet, or just one-fifth the shortest runway at Kennedy International Airport in New York. And it isn’t level: It was built on a mountainside with a slope of about 12 percent, making one end about 200 feet higher than the other. Planes land headed uphill, so the slope helps them brake in the short space available. But it also creates an illusion of distance for pilots. Clouds often appear suddenly and impair visibility (the cause of a 2008 crash), and guesthouses cluster close to the runway. Pilots have just one chance to get it right. For takeoff, planes barrel downhill toward the edge of a cliff, with the slope helping them pick up the necessary speed. But the margin for error is no better: There are boulders on one side, a 2,000-foot drop on the other. “If you lose your engine on Lukla, you will not come out of that,” Captain Nagarkoti said. “We are told in those moments, if anything happens, apply brakes, apply max power, try to stop on the runway, use whatever means to stop on the runway.” HONG KONG’S MURDER MYSTERY: WHO IS POISONING THE DOGS? An older sign on Bowen Road, a popular dog-walking path, cautioned owners to be vigilant. (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times) BY AUSTIN RAMZY JUNE 6, 2016 GRIM REMINDERS OF SOME OF Hong Kong’s most gruesome murders line Bowen Road: signs posted every few hundred steps that warn, “Beware of Dog Poisoning.” The Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has recorded 66 cases of suspected dog poisoning on Bowen Road and nearby Black’s Link since 2003, including 14 dogs that have died. The group says that since the killings began in the late 1980s, the number of dogs killed may total 200 or more. Dogs have been poisoned all over Hong Kong, but Bowen Road’s central location — on a hillside lined with parks, shrines and elegant mansions that offers sweeping views of the city’s skyline — has meant that the cases there have attracted the most attention. Chris Patten, Hong Kong’s last colonial governor, almost lost his Norfolk terrier Whisky after the dog ate poisoned bait left along the road in 1997. A man walking his dogs in May along Bowen Road in Hong Kong, the site of dozens of dog poisonings. (Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times) Officials still don’t know who is responsible. Some investigators believe that whoever is behind the poisonings gets a disturbed thrill from taking a life. “There’s only been one successful prosecution, because this is done in a covert way,” said Danielle Baber, the deputy chief officer for the Hong Kong S.P.C.A.’s inspectorate. “Unless there’s a witness to something, particularly somebody putting bait out, it’s difficult to find a suspect. And whether it’s the same person or copycats, that’s difficult to say.” The motives are not clear. Theories include fear or hatred of dogs, or annoyance at owners who don’t clean up after their pets. Part of Bowen Road is car-free, and people often walk or run with their dogs there. The bait is usually a piece of chicken or pork laced with commonly available pesticides, which the S.P.C.A. warns can cause “vomiting, diarrhea, trembling, breathing difficulty, convulsions, collapse and, in some cases, death.” Warnings and greater surveillance seem to have helped reduce the frequency of the poisonings, but they have not stopped: Another pet dog’s body was found on Bowen Road in mid-May. Poisoning is suspected. FEAR DESCENDS OVER AUSTRALIA AS MAGPIE SWOOPING SEASON BEGINS BY SERENA SOLOMON SEPTEMBER 13, 2016 THERE ARE THE SNAKES, THE sharks and the spiders, but no one told you about the magpies, did they? In September and October, Australians band together as if motivated by a national war effort.