Happy Niu Year To All

Well, once again it is Chinese New Year’s Eve (this’ll be my forth – and I’ve still yet to find a good pair of earplugs). We should be celebrating tonight with some newcommers to China, and that’s always fun. Maggie’s got pots a bubblin’, cooking up some good dongbei food and we’ll be heading downtown …

Mac’in it up with a fruity new computer

I’ve officially joined the club. You know, that pretentious group that hangs out in cafes with their white Apple-logo lit, doing little other than subliminally pointing to the branding and winking. Those that are quick to tell you how amazing a Mac is, and how super better it compares to a PC, while barely having …

Optima Dog Food Saga: It’s Done

Most often I feel time is moving much faster than I expect it to. This last month, however, is an exception. It’s hard to believe that it was just over four weeks ago that we got the news about our Optima dog food being contaminated with aflatoxin. Only a month ago that we began to …

No-bull tech for the Niu Year

Chinese New Year is only a few short days away, and as China gears up to light off enough explosives to slightly shift the earth’s orbit, let’s look at what’s ahead for the country’s tech sector in the Year of the Ox. There’s little doubt that the global economic downturn (or the slightly friendlier Geddie, …

Skritter – Chinese character learning for the skittish

As a full-time expatriate in China, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make learning Chinese easier. There is no shortage of options when it comes to Mandarin learning; whether it be in books, at university, with a tutor, or–my personal favourite–online. I’ve sampled many of the online options for Chinese learning–from once free …

Shanghai Daily-late and dollar short

The Shanghai Daily finally got around to reporting on the emergency recall of dog food after pets poisoned and seem just as confused as the rest of the net on where the Optima dog food comes from and how it ended up killing dogs in China (including my baby). The site reports: Since the end …

3G arrives in China–now where’s my iPhone?

The wait is over. Nary 24 hours ago, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT, as in “got their MIITs in everything”, for short) issued China’s first 3G licenses. China’s largest provider, China Mobile, received its license for the made-in-China TD-SCDMA network, while China Unicom got it for the Japanese-built W-CDMA. China Telecom, like …