With the end of the semester upon us, I know there are thousands out there who are completing a course of Chinese language learning. Maybe it was a semester; maybe a year; maybe two years. It doesn’t matter. The hard slog is nearing an end ( or perhaps already over for you), and you’re ready […]
Where did the Wall Go?
Well, it seemed like a reasonable idea. Due to time constraints, we would take our group of 60+ new teachers to the Great Wall at Badaling instead of Mutyianyu in the afternoon. Since it is closer, we could get up, climb a bit, then make it back into town before the dreaded Friday evening rush […]
The Smoke is Nothing New
A big story in the news in China this week was a yellow haze that enveloped the central city of Wuhan. A couple of netizens went online and suggested that it was the result of a chlorine leak, which stirred up the masses, which forced the government to declare that there was no leak; the […]
Becoming Normal
Living cross-cultural living means living with a nearly constant barrage of surprises. Particularly for those of us who have been abroad for a long time, it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we’ve got the place figured out, that we know what’s up and what’s down, what’s in and what’s out. Sometimes we even […]
A Square Peg in a Round Hole
Raise your hand if…. A. you feel like a square foreign peg trying to fit into a round Chinese hole; B. you think that this is all it takes to live well where you don’t belong! (image source: allpostersimages.com) […]
Sneaking a Piano into a Labor Camp
During the Cultural Revolution, Zhu Xiao-mei, a budding pianist at the Beijing Music Conservatory was sent (along with some of her classmates) to a labor camp near Zhangjiakou, a small city about 100 miles northwest of Beijing. She would remain there for five years. Life in the camp was brutal, but security was lax enough […]
