I was in a taxi yesterday afternoon on the way downtown to meet a friend for supper. The radio was on, and I was just half listening. But during the commercial breaks, my ears locked in to the background music of some of the ads. For one of them, it was "Jingle Bells." For another […]
Second Hand Smoke
If you were to pop in to my place for a visit tonight, you’d imagine that I was secretly indulging in cigarette smoking. The smell of cigarette smoke in my place is quite strong. Problem is, I haven’t been home all day, so it can’t be me! Here’s the problem. The apartment next door has […]
Hillary!
This is another of those "conversations from the twilight zone" that I occasionally have with Beijing taxi drivers. On Sunday morning I hailed a cab to go to church. I told the driver where I wanted to go and gave him detailed instructions on the best way to get there. This always throws them off […]
Toothpaste With Chinese Characteristics
Recently I needed some toothpaste, so I headed across the street to the Hypermarket. Now I normally try to avoid any store or enterprise that has the name “hyper” in it, but it is so convenient that it’s hard not to go there. Being someone who was raised on Crest toothpaste, I’m happy that they […]
An Ocean and A World
I spent the past two days flying back to Beijing from the Twin Cities. I say two days because, due to that bizarre thing we call the International Date Line, it takes 32 hours to travel 18 hours. So I left the Twins on Monday afternoon and arrived in Beijing late Tuesday night. Of course, […]
A Funny Sign
When I was leaving Beijing for the States a couple of weeks ago, I spotted this sign in the women’s loo: To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what it was all about, since it was hanging on a wall all by itself. Recently, the government of Beijing announced a campaign to clean up […]
