The unquantifiable currency of cool is elusively directed by politics, pop culture, and that one kid on the playground. But we've used it to measure the world around us since we were little things. What is its relationship with being politically correct?

When I was a kid, I didn't understand...

I tend to steer well clear of feminism.

When I was thirteen, I tentatively tried on the feminist hat. The first time I used the word, my teacher threw it right back in my face. "The problem with feminists," he said, "is that they don't even know what they...

Last summer I received a travel grant from The Gladstone Memorial Trust for a trip to Tibet. For various frustrating bureaucratic reasons, I never made it to Tibet. However, the Trust generously allowed me to keep the grant for a different trip - one to South Africa with...

I'm about to write something radical.

I'm writing this only because:
a) I am rapidly running out of time, because I've only got a few months left of being a naïve student who can afford idealism,
b) I've been bed-ridden for a few days due to some miniature...

Last summer I received a travel grant from The Gladstone Memorial Trust for a trip to Tibet. For various frustrating bureaucratic reasons, I never made it to Tibet. However, the Trust generously allowed me to keep the grant for a different trip - one to South Africa with...

Christmas was never a given for me. It's not an official holiday in China, so Chinese New Year was always the biggest winter festivity for me. It may seem odd to you, but Christmas was something alien that I've had to learn about. And it's been an interesting learning curve...

Last summer I received a travel grant from The Gladstone Memorial Trust for a trip to Tibet. For various frustrating bureaucratic reasons, I never made it to Tibet. However, the Trust generously allowed me to keep the grant for a different trip - one to South Africa with...

Given my background, you'd think I'd be familiar with the concept of class. I was born in China, after all, where the governing political party is at least nominally defined by class warfare. When I first moved to the UK for university, I felt smug about the little bit of...

This was the plan: an undergraduate degree in Britain, then head to the other side of the pond for a slice of America. But now it's my last year in the UK, and suddenly I am overwhelmed by a new sensation. For possibly the first time in my life, I...

One of the reasons many students - myself included - chose to go to university in the UK rather than elsewhere, was that most degrees here are only three years long. Back in the day, when we were filling out our UCAS applications, it seemed like such an advantage. UK...