A couple years ago I wrote about how absent trust is in day-to-day living in China. With food scare after food scare, unfortunately nothing seems to be improving. So, it’s little surprise to read that Greenpeace is reporting, “Banned pesticides detected on vegetables in Tesco and other supermarkets in China.” The following sums up the …Read More
Wha?! Mandarin Monday on a Wednesday? What the hell is going on. Yeah, I screwed up and totally forgot. Hopefully a bit of mid-week mandarin is just as good though. For the third installment in our weekly Mandarin Monday series that discusses Chinese learning we’ve hit up David Flynn. Dave is originally from the UK, …Read More
I realize I’m about a decade late posting a review of Peter Hessler’s River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, but it was only recently that I finally took the time to read it. I can’t be certain why it took me so long to pick up Hessler’s seminal work, but I think it was …Read More
Since the first Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its doors in Beijing in 1987, the chain has dominated China’s fast food market, establishing a presence that dwarfs its profile back home in the US. And so it’s not surprising that aspiring fast food entrepreneurs have been eager to hitch a ride on the Colonel’s coattails. While …Read More
Keith, already suspicious of John, is doubly suspicious now that John missed their dinner appointment. On a rainy Friday, he wonders about John’s motives for being in China, as he implements a fresh idea into the classroom: a poetry exercise, where the students go outside, and use English to write a poem about what they …Read More
Home & garden Television (HGTV) is hunting for some Shanghai-based American expats to feature on a new international series profiling what it’s like to live abroad. HGTV Producers want to hear from fun, outgoing, enthusiastic Americans Expats who are living in Shanghai RIGHT NOW! In each episode, our host will experience Shanghai through the eyes …Read More
What follows is the second in our weekly Mandarin Monday series, that discusses Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques. This week we speak to Kellen Parker, co-founder of Sinoglot, an organisation of Chinese linguistics researchers. Kellen is an American linguistics researcher who’s …Read More
From the always amazing photostream of Michael Steverson. In his words: “Sugar Rush performs at The Terrace in Shenzhen, China. First image of a photo documentary on rock music in China. I’ve been working on the project for a while now and I’m hoping to wrap it up by the fall. I’ll be dropping some …Read More
Not long ago I went out to dinner with some friends who had just recently arrived in China. Since this was their first time in Beijing, we naturally went for the city’s signature dish at Quanjude. Just as any religious pilgrimage is accompanied by certain obligatory rituals and prayers, so too does the Beijing visitor’s …Read More
This is the first in a new series of posts, called Mandarin Monday, that will discuss Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques. Our first guest in the series is John Biesnecker. John is an American software developer who has been in China …Read More
Two Italians, a Chinese and a Japanese walk into a hospital… This would be the start to a joke, if it didn’t end with a perforated ear drum, a smashed monitor, some dead fish and perpetuation of the stereotype that foreigners in China all view themselves as overly-entitled drunken douchebags.Read More
Our hero is John, who is wandering through life without purpose. This wandering led him to a humanities degree, then to unemployment, and finally, to the great refuge of unemployed humanities majors: ESL in China. Though Wuhan later becomes an existential swamp for John, here at the beginning, everything is new and exciting. This is …Read More
Return to Top ▲
