For those of you who are studying or have studied Chinese (in China at least), were it not for this man, Zhouo Youguang, you would be learning the language without the benefit of Pinyin.This is the guy who decided that the letter q would represent a ch sound, x an sh sound, and an i […]
Insider, Outsider, and a Dying Toddler
You may have heard the news this week about a toddler in southern China who was run over by a small van (twice) and left unattended in the road while at least 18 people walked by without offering any assistance. The entire incident, from the girl first being run over to the arrival of a […]
Beijing Erhu Player
Back in the day (late 1990’s) I used to ride my bike downtown a lot. From where I live out on the west side of Beijing ‘downtown’ meant the area around Tiananmen Squre and the Forbidden City — the center of the center of the universe, so to speak. At that time there was still […]
Insiders and Outsiders are Different
Last week, as I was riding the train across Manchuria on my way to/from Changchun, I read a fantastic novel called “Snowflower and the Secret Fan.” Set against the backdrop of the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-19th century, the story is about the ‘inner’ life of women in Jiangyong County, in southern Hunan Province. […]
Ma Taitai
Last week I made a quick trip up to Changchun to visit some friends and do a workshop for some folks studying Chinese. Since I lived in Changchun for 8 years in the 1990’s, trips there always have a bit of a ‘going home’ feel for me. My time in the city was very short, […]
How Bad is the Smog in Beijing?
This bad: (Photo source: http://weibo.com/xueyong) These pictures were posted on the Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo this week. They were not actually taken this past weekend, but this is pretty much what it looked like here on Sunday. I think that for about the tenth time this year I made the statement “this is the […]
