Bilingual cartoonist MandMX explains the 13 stages of using chopsticks: I learned how to use chopsticks when I spent a summer working as an intern in Hong Kong in 1979. On my first day I joined some of my local co-workers at a restaurant. I told them I didn’t know how to use chopsticks. “When […]
When the Smoke Clears
A number of folks have emailed me asking what exactly that “explosion of color” in the last post was. Just colored smoke, which slowly drifted away….
An Explosion of Color
Literally! I joined some friends this morning at the Olympic Water Park (rowing venues) in Shunyi for some activities to celebrate Dragon Boat Festival. As we were standing along the shore waiting for the interminable opening ceremonies to end and the dragon boat races to begin, there was a huge explosion from the opposite side […]
Red Hats
This is my first ever guest post, written by a colleague who travelled to Chongqing last week to visit some teachers at a university. When she came back she told me about an interesting ‘civilization’ campaign the school is waging to try to improve the behavior of the students. It was such a great story […]
Port-a-Potties at the Wall
This is a photo of the toilets perched atop a terrace at the Mutianyu Section of the Great Wall, north of Beijing. I remember the first time I saw them– back when they were first installed in the 1990’s. I had taken some friends to the Wall and of course as we got off the […]
Get Me to the Church On Time…Or Not
Forgetting that the Beijing Marathon was skirting my neighborhood this morning, I set out at 9:45 on my way to a 10:30 church service downtown. Big mistake. By the time I exited my housing estate and hit Bei Wa Road, it had become a parking lot, thanks to so many area roads being closed down. […]
