Had they not, there might have been more casualties. (The government, plausibly, says 13 people were killed by rioters, mostly in fires.) Some of those who remained, in flats above their shops, kept the lights off to avoid detection and spoke in hushed tones lest their Mandarin dialect be heard on the streets by Tibetans.

ECONOMIST: A week in Tibet

In Mandarin and Sichuan dialect.

NEWYORKER: (director: Du Haibin; 2010)

In Mandarin and Shanxi dialect.

NEWYORKER: Useless

As Dodington speaks the Shanghai dialect with a Southern drawl and Lee chats in Mandarin with a Californian twist, Fu, too, has discovered the connection between his musical notes and the city that effortlessly blends East and West.

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