I stopped dead in my tracks when I spotted this sign at a Beijing bus stop. Wait a minute, I thought…that can’t mean what I think it means. I read the Chinese and sure enough, it was a poor translation. The wording made it clear that the hospital specializes in treating those who are having […]
A Tribute to My Father, 2016
Fifteen 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 […]
Please Don’t Ask
Once I began studying Chinese, I fairly quickly became fluent at answering the following questions: Where are you from? Why are you here? Are you married? Why not? I can’t say that I dreaded the questions (OK, maybe I dreaded #3 and #4 a little), but I certainly knew that they were going to be asked […]
An Ode to Minnesota
On a morning when the (real) temperature is Minus 11 (or 11 below, or negative 11, or however you want to say it), this poem pretty much sums up life in Minnesota in January. (I do not know the origin of the poem. It seems to have been published in a local city newspaper, then […]
Friday Photo: Mao Selling Stuff
In 2005, on my second trip to the far western city of Kashgar, I spotted this odd sight in my hotel lobby. There he was, the Great Helmsman himself, sitting behind a counter of trinkets. I’m still not sure if he was for sale, or if the proprietor of the little hotel shop thought his placement there […]
Where Are the Liu Mei?
In the late 1990’s, I had the chance to study Chinese one-on-one with a professor in Beijing. At the beginning of my very first lesson, in a small classroom at the college where he taught, Professor Y’s first words to me were, “I’m not a member of the Party, and so we can discuss any […]
