Ron Gluckman is an American journalist who has been roaming widely around Asia since 1991. After working for a decade at daily newspapers in the USA, (San Francisco, Sacramento, Ukiah and northern California, and Alaska) Ron spent most of the 1990s in Hong Kong, roaming around Asia for various international publications.
He focused more on China and North Asia while based in Beijing from 2000-2004. He next moved to Bangkok in late 2004, and then from mid-2005 until mid-2009, divided his time between Thailand and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He was based in Beijing from mid-2009 until the beginning of 2013.
Since 2013, he has been based in Bangkok, but continues to cover the wide stretch of Asia.
Since late 2019, he’s also been spending more time in Indonesia, still based in Bangkok, but with a second home in Jakarta.
Gluckman.com is currently in the midst of a long-overdue revamp.
New stories are in section “Latest Stories” in the menu to the upper right, or click https://www.gluckman.com/latest-stories/.
You can see over 25 years of my coverage across Asia-Pacific at www.gluckman.com/index.htm
Articles on this site appeared in varying form (generally with better photos; except as noted, these are Ron’s snaps) in such periodicals as Time, Forbes, Fortune, CNN Traveler, CNBC, Travel + Leisure, Newsweek, Discovery, Departures, Town and Country, Conde Nast Traveler, Business Traveller, Popular Science, Geo, Geographical, Monocle, Seed, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, Sydney Morning Herald, South China Morning Post, Toronto Globe and Mail, Nikkei Asian Review, USA Today, Dwell, Tokyo Journal, Los Angeles Weekly, Mother Jones, Dwell, Far Eastern Economic Review, Asiaweek, Asia Magazine, Asia, Inc., Winds, Business Traveller, Budget Travel, Power, Winds, Prestige, Scanorama, Destinasian, Going Places, Good Weekend, Mode, Morning Calm, MSNBC, Volvo, Lexus, Cadillac, Sawasdee, Silk Road, Gulf Air, Voyeur (Virgin Australia), Four Seasons, Urban Land Institute, Centurion, Closer, Expression, Hotelier International and many others. So many RIP. Sad.
Thanks to all the editors and readers, the photographers, sources, and helpers, translators, fixers. Thanks for the explanations, the hospitality and support. It’s been a great, long, wonderful ride!
And it just keeps going…
photos, from top, left to right: hanging with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala (by Gerhard Joren) 1995; at DMZ, first visit North Korea 1991; Covering revival of polo in Mongolia, on Orkhon River, 2007; Naadam Festival in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 1992; interview with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for Forbes, 2011 https://www.forbes.com/global/2011/0411/companies-abhisit-vejjajiva-thaksin-shinawatra-up-for-vote.html; Maldives 2011 (by Paul Mooney); Mongolia in chaos after collapse Soviet Union 1991, roundtrip from Ulaanbaatar-Erdene Zuu cost US$3.76 – by bullet-ridden Russian helicopter!; Vietnam, traveling top to bottom by train, covering 20th anniversary of end of the war in 1995 (by Ira Chaplain); Cambodia, Angkor 1993 (by David Paul Morris); just arrived in Beijing, by Trans-Siberian Railway from Berlin, with balalaika, in 1990; on the Great Wall outside Beijing, during first residency, about 2003; interviewing former President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed in 2011, soon after deposed in coup (by Paul Mooney); Holland Town, outside Shanghai, story on copy cities in China, 2012; elephant polo in Bangkok 2016; King’s Day, Amsterdam, 2016; Interview with Yao Ming, yes, that tall!, Chengdu, China 2016; Mrauk U, amazing ancient city outside Sittwe, in northern Myanmar, 2017, (before outbreak of worst violence against the Rohingya people); by train to China, the start of my life in Asia, 1990; first visit Cambodia, 1993 (by David Paul Morris); Angkor while living in Cambodia 2005-2009; Chengdu, China 2016; first interview with Aung San Suu Kyi in her house 1995 (by Stuart Isett); Bagan, Myanmar 2014; Shanghai 2004; last meet Dalai Lama, 1995 (by Gerhard Joren).
Friends – Photographers: Thanks for all the photos, and sorry if I missed your credit – let me know…