Ah, it’s Laowai Crackdown season again. Time to cringe as we watch the latest laowai misbehavior on viral video and self-righteously point out that we would never ever think of acting like that. Time to feel a bit indignant about getting stopped and asked for our passports outside the bar because he didn’t stop anybody …Read More
Seven years of my life are gone. Looking back, it doesn’t seem that long, but I guess it was a long time. I always find myself nagged by a single, ugly feeling: that I wasted my time. That no matter what I did, I never used it wisely enough. For all the stress my rebirth in China brought, there was a lot it did away with. I had time plenty to write a novel, to learn a programming language, hell to learn a real language. What did I do?
The ‘what ifs’, those are the worst feelings. Those are the ones that haunt you. I read somewhere that you will regret your virtues more than your vices. I can’t say that I disagree with that. There are things I did when I was younger that I felt horrible about at the time, but as I grow older, I don’t feel so bad anymore. Maybe it’s the positive you can draw out of even the worst situations…or hell, maybe it is just getting older. Wondering what more you could have done.
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We took the 412 bus across the Han Jiang River and then the 26 电 down to a long wall. She led me off the bus and behind the wall. Two men sat playing cards, smoking, their puffs fast and panicky like a beached steamboat. They were sitting in the light and she took me …Read More
I came to China on August 26, 2008. Before then, I took an inventory of what I’d packed. Clothes: 7 pairs of jeans, 14 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of shoes, 9 pairs of underwear, 11 shirts total, and 1 pair of glasses, no spare, no contacts. Toiletries: comb, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, …Read More
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