I’m back in Canada now for the summer. While this should be easy for me after spending so much time in China, it’s not. This is a strange, strange place to me. What makes it worse is that I feel like I should get it, and people around me feel like I should get it …Read More
What Peter Hessler did in his memoir River Town, Tom Carter does with China: Portrait of a People. A new wave of camera-toting expats will soon come to China hoping to follow in Carter’s footsteps. I write this within a week of coming back to America after a year of teaching English at university in …Read More
I went to a wedding last weekend. I’m not sure if it was a traditional wedding, if there really is such a thing among these billion grains of loose sand. I do know it took place in the bride’s hometown, outside. In the summer. A Hubei summer, no less. The mosquitoes were on the hunt, …Read More
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.Read More
With the first of this year’s two G20 summits set to kick off tomorrow (half hour later in Newfoundland), big black shiny busloads of politicians from around the globe are descending on Toronto for a few days of intense protester dodging (it really is an under-rated sport). And just a day before Hu Jintao’s 5.0-magnitude …Read More
Welcome back one and all to the June edition of Fact or Fiction. Those of you who read any or all of the last six will know, every edition I will have a guest and we will discuss a few of the big issues in China of the day. Every answer will have a “Fact†…Read More
With no official launch announcement yet, fevered reports are popping up across the Applesphere with new photos of the “cloaked in red, and guarded by ninjas” cylindrical glass tower entrance to Apple’s new underground retail megastore in Shanghai. Set to open mid-July, the red curtains are an auspicious signal to the large Apple lovin’ community …Read More
The Lost Laowai flickr pool is full of talented photographers, but I continuely return to the photography of “Zhao Hua Xi Shi” for our featured photos. It’s cliche to say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but I can’t think of a better way to describe this image, or indeed most of the …Read More
Our friends over at Shanghai Expat asked for our help getting the news out about some access problems their visitors might be experiencing. Always happy to help out our friends in the ‘sphere, here’s more information from them:Read More
Yesterday Elaine at the Shanghaiist reported a number of sites were miraculously unblocked — Vimeo, Hootsuite, VOA News. Checking now and it appears Hootsuite has re-fallen to the mighty River Crab, but Vimeo is still powering along … for now. Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are all still unaccessible.Read More
Dying for an iPad, but feeling a bit guilty that you’d be supporting a company that drives their employees to suicide? Maybe you just don’t have the better part of a grand to drop on a new toy? Whatever your reasoning, there’s a new shanzhai iPad to the rescue. A Japanese news report announced the …Read More
Welcome back one and all to the May edition of Fact or Fiction. Those of you who read either of the last three will know, every edition I will have a guest and we will discuss a few of the big issues in China of the day. Every answer will have a “Fact†or a …Read More
Return to Top ▲
