Today is Chu Yi (初一), the first day of the lunar new year on the Chinese calendar. For those of you keeping track, it marks the beginning of the Year of the Pig. It’s “my” year, which means I’m either 12, 24, 48, 60, 72, or 84. I’ll let you guess which it is! All […]
Ba Guanr Goes Global
On Sunday night, I plopped myself down in front of the television and joined millions of people worldwide to watch some Olympic swimming events. After watching Katie Ledecky obliterate her own world record, all eyes were on Micheal Phelps and the US men’s 4X100 medley relay. Would they win, thus giving Phelps his 18th gold medal […]
Insiders and Outsiders are Different
When I first went to China many years ago, one of the things that I and my American colleagues found most annoying about living there was the difference in price between what we paid for things and what our Chinese friends had to pay. For us, a train ticket was 400 yuan; for our Chinese friends it was […]
Happy Dragon Boat Festival
Monday is Dragon Boat Festival in China. The good folks at Off the Great Wall have produced a video explaining the history and significance of the holiday: (If you receive this post by email and cannot view the video, click here.) I have a confession to make — even after 20+ years in China, I’m not a […]
Are Most Chinese Really Atheists?
It’s an interesting question, and, as the saying goes, “it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘Atheist’ is.” Earlier this month Pew released the results of survey that tried to determine people’s beliefs about the relationship between believing in God and morality. According to their results, 75% of respondents in China said that […]
A House on a Horse
Last week, after I wrote about the term “mashang” (on the horse) and how it’s being used to express the hopes and wishes for the Year of the Horse, a reader in China sent me this photo. It’s a play on the New Year’s Greeting, “mashang you fang,” which conveys the wish that this is […]
