Archan Chan recalls her first experience working in a Chinese restaurant more than 14 years ago. Employed as an apprentice (学徒) chef, she was one of just two women in the kitchen – the other's sole job was to beat eggs. "She was unbelievably fast at beating eggs. I guess for a woman to survive in a traditional Chinese kitchen back then, you had to be the best in something," she says.

Today, Chan leads the kitchen of Ho Lee Fook, one of Hong Kong's most popular restaurants. After spending more than a decade working in fine dining restaurants in Australia and Singapore, she is one of a few female chefs who have risen to the top of a high-end Chinese restaurant. That's an impressive feat, given how incredibly challenging it has been for women to soar in high-profile Chinese kitchens.

Female chefs have long been a minority in professional kitchens around the world. But the situation is even bleaker in Chinese kitchens. There's no denying the work is physically demanding – an empty pot weighs about 2. 2 kilograms – but there are other factors at play.

In the past, masters of many Chinese kitchens would recruit apprentices and pass their skills to them. Few chefs would risk recruiting a female trainee into that harsh environment.

Given all of these barriers, not many women would even consider this male-dominated industry as an attractive career path. Thankfully, there are signs of a shift in mindset – the number of female Chinese head chefs has been rising in recent years.

"Even if it's a male-dominant kitchen, all everyone cares about is food – the cooking. They don't care if you're a male or female. Gender shouldn't matter," Chan says.

"Yes, there is a physical barrier but I think the mental barrier may be more obstructive (阻碍的) to the increase of women in Chinese kitchens," Chan adds. "It isn't just about how much you want it but how much hard work you're willing to put into it. There are days when you feel like your arms are falling apart and you can't move them anymore, but the next day, you're stronger and may be able to work a heavier work.

I'd always been active-I was an aerobics(有氧运动)instructor for 30 years and was also a keen runner-but from the age of 40, I began having problems with my hip and knees and started getting joint and lower back pains. The pain became too much. I couldn't do the exercise that I was used to,and I started putting on weight. By my 50th birthday, I was nearly 90kg and felt so miserable. I was struggling with body confidence, and had lost my direction.

Fiends suggested I try Qigong classes, a Chinese form of yoga. I felt the benefits after the first class. I loved the slow movement, the connection back to breath and the emphasis on mindfulness-it was the focus I needed.

The general principle of Qigong -which is connected to Chinese medicine - is that you have to find balance in the body to allow the energy to flow around. Stress and injury cause blockages and lead to health problems.

For most of my life I'd always eaten healthily, but had fallen into bad habits of loving sugary carbs(碳水化合物食物), which led to my weight gain. Starting Qigong helped me go back to my healthy diet. The combination of the improved diet and exercise improved my mood. I'm even finally free of the joint pain that was troubling me.

It is ironic that I was a high-paced aerobics instructor for most of my life, who now does very slow,mindful movements. If you'd told me years ago that you can lose weight by doing this kind of practice,I wouldn't have believed you, but it makes sense to me now, that at this stage of my life, removing the stress from my body is really what it needs. Two years on I feel so much younger than I did the day I turned 50; I have more energy and I feel much happier in myself.

In Jakarta, apart from the narrow, unpaved road, the two-meter-high concrete coastal wall is the only thing that separates Susan's small restaurant from the sea. Her family depends on that wall. Growing up here, Susan used to play on the beach in front of her house. But by the 2000s the beach had disappeared, and the sea frequently flooded the neighborhood.

In 2002, the government built the coastal wall, to give the residents peace of mind and time-a respite（暂缓） from the steady sinking of the land under the city and the steady rising of the sea. But just five years later, in 2007, the wall proved no match for the worst floods in Jakarta's modern history.

Jakarta is now sinking at a truly alarming rate-a rate that varies around the city but is up to 11 inches a year in the northern areas. About 40 percent of Jakarta is below sea level. By comparison, climate change is raising sea level by only less than an inch a year. But sinking land and rising sea both point toward the same outcome: regular flooding in Jakarta. "Jakarta is the center of administration, economy, culture, and entertainment. Over the years Jakarta has grown into a big city with no environmental support system. " says Andy, a lecturer at the University of Indonesia. Ultimately that's why it is sinking today.

The situation is one reason the government announced that the nation's capital would be moved away to a new city to be built on Borneo, which is now forest. But local communities aren't so happy with the plan. They fear the project would destroy their land, forest, and livelihoods. In Jakarta, on the other hand, those who welcome the decision arguing that it will ease Jakarta's burdens of crowding and pollution.

But as the government leaves the sinking capital, what is to become of the 10 million people like Susan who still live there?