I am in some doubt as to where I stand on taking the train for long-distance journeys in China. I have in the past found myself admiring the rail networks ability to transport you to the farthest corners of the country, provided with food, water, and a place to lie down and sleep. On other …Read More
The #1 reason I don’t ride the bus (actually #1 is over-crowding – but fuck). Warning: Probably not best to watch this if you are sensitive to rather terrifying images and people screaming. Update June 7, 2009 Here are a few links putting the video in context. What Lessons Can We Learn from the Chengdu …Read More
I’ve been debating with myself today about putting together a post on that topic which has the brass in Beijing with their gitch in a twitch. In truth, I’m a bit muddled on where I sit with the issue. On one side we seem to have Western activists shaking their fists and demanding action, recognition, …Read More
Tweets are filling my screen with reports that Twitter.com and Flickr.com are both inaccessible in Mainland China. They join YouTube, as well as WordPress and Blogger blogs as the latest casualties in the Great Firewall of China’s war against free speech. Undoubtedly the blocks are in an effort to curb online commentary and the dissemination …Read More
People always worry able how they’ll be able to survive in China without being able to speak the language. Simple tasks like ordering food can be a challenge, especially in areas with few foreigners. This shouldn’t be discouraging though. You may get a little hungry, you may order some unexpected things, but you will survive …Read More
I was away at college when my family first got into sushi, but I remember the story well. During one of our weekly Sunday night telephone conversations, my mother drolly recounted to me how she and my sister had been sneaking take-out from a new local restaurant into the house behind my grandmother’s back. While …Read More
There is currently a sense in China that a Damoclesian sword is hovering ethereally over the head of the nation. The fear is palpable; it can be read in all the newspapers, heard in daily conversations and glimpsed in the growing proliferation of facemasks. With the gradual spread of Swine Flu across the mainland, the …Read More
With the fateful anniversary just less than two weeks away, it’s not surprising that the sino-blogsphere is filling up with posts about [*TAM*]. It’s difficult not to comment on it. It’s hard to not feel a bit like there is a necessity to address what has now lain silent for two decades. The tragedy of …Read More
I like to think of myself as an adventurous eater, a game one. I tend to follow a monkey see monkey do policy when it comes to food; if I see someone else eat, and they’re not asphyxiated by disgust moments afterwards, I’ll give it a go. Still, I would be lying to say that …Read More
One of the many things that is a bit of a change of pace for people new to China is the concept of bargaining. In the West we are used to relatively simple and painless transactions, someone asks for a price, we pay, both parties leave satisfied. However, in much of the rest of the …Read More
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since tragedy struck Sichuan — killing nearly 90,000 people and displacing millions. And while time can’t pass fast enough in putting that horrible day firmly behind us all, today is a good day to remember that its survivors are still in need. Working hard to remind …Read More
I spent all of last weekend in Shanghai with my girlfriend, with two main purposes: to do some shopping for summer clothes; and to visit Shanghai Zoo, as my girlfriend has never seen any wild animals in the flesh, despite being quite expert on them from being addicted to CCTV-10’s nature shows and BBC natural …Read More
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