A few months ago I wrote about Beijing being one of the finalist cities in the bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. Today, during an afternoon walk around the Olympic Park to clear some of the jet-lag induced fog out of my brain, I came upon this make-shift ski hill that has been…
Month: January 2015
Friday Photo: Abandoned Minivan
Spotted on a street corner in Beijing, this abandoned minivan seems to have become a part of the neighborhood. Since it is full of stuff, someone is obviously using it as a storage space. I also like the bowl of instant noodles that someone obviously carefully set down on the tire. If only the minivan could talk!
Those Strange Americans!
I might as well join everyone else writing about and linking to this article that appeared in Chinese state media this week. Titled Top 10 Strange American Habits Incomprehensible to Chinese, it’s a quirky glimpse at a few American peculiarities. To be sure, some of them have a feeling of “I saw an American do…
Friday Photo: Reading the Bible
In March of 2012, I travelled with Noel Piper in Sichuan province on a research trip. On the second Sunday of our journey, we found ourselves in the Protestant Church in Huili, Sichuan. Even though the church is in the heart of a city, most of the parishioners were peasants from the countryside, many of them…
A Tribute to My Father, 2015
Fourteen years ago today, my father died. Below are the words that I spoke in farewell and tribute to my dad at his memorial service on January 25, 2001, in Roseville, Minnesota. Standing before a crowd of 600 people to deliver these remarks was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The first part of…
In Democracy We Trust
A friend recently posted this photo to Twitter and asked me about the translation. Apparently it’s part of a campaign going on in China to promote “socialist core values.” Setting aside the mildly disturbing nature of the photo, it is an interesting look at contemporary political discourse in China. The main question my friend had was…