Disturbing Dubai

It’s rare that I hit on topics here that don’t involve myself, my adoptive country of China or my homeland of Canada. However, I just finished a long investigative report in The Independent about Dubai, and felt the need to share. The article, written by Johann Hari, shocked me. I had never really put much …

A few changes around here

For a few months now I’ve wanted to change the look of this site, but never seem to have the time to do it. So, in an effort to at least get the site partly doing what I want it to, I’ve started making some changes. I’ll be tweaking some design elements over the next …

China Two Point Oh Yeah!

As anyone following me on Twitter no doubt knows, I hit up the Shanghai leg of the China 2.0 tour this past Thursday and Friday. I’m a bit behind in posting about it, as it took me a few days to process the massive amount of brain-feed I crammed into those 48 hours. Though I’m …

Using Skype in China?

Just a quick note that if you’re using Skype in China, or more importantly, using a TOM-Skype (from skype.tom.com) download of the software, you should check out my most recent post on Lost Laowai: Chinese Skype privacy breech. If you are, or have chatted to anyone using the Chinese-version of Skype, there’s a good chance …

Farrago: Water, Chrome, Money and Ass

I’ve been super busy as late – first with my usual workload, but also spending much of my free time edumacating myself on personal finance. It’s amazing I’ve passed my 31st year on this planet and know next to nothing about saving and investing. Anyway, time being tight I still wanted to jot down and …

Danwei.TV: My latest project

Just want to take a moment and brag about a cool new project I’ve been hard at work on: Danwei.TV. Most foreign folks living in China, or with any interest in China, are bound to know Danwei.org, possibly the most widely-read English-language blog about China, and many of you have also likely watched Danwei-produced and …

#080808 – Everybody Ba Ba Ba

So the day is upon us. 08/08/08 is here – the Olympics have arrived. And in good Web meme fashion, the China Twitterati have come up with the #080808 campaign. I first read about it from David Feng over at CNReviews after having seen everyone on my Twitter list 080808’ing their avatars. It was started …

Panda Meat Consultant

Well, the cat’s out of the bag. Professor Lonnie B. Hodge, a dear “friend” of mine has outed me and my matchmaker ambitions on his blog. As he’s helping me get my new Bag A Canuck!™ e-book business off the ground, I figured I should return the favour and officially announce his latest endeavor – …

Upgrade for Dao By Design

If ever in the future this blog dies or simply fades into obscurity it’ll be for one simple reason – Dao By Design. The bastard. As long-time readers might be aware, my full-time gig isn’t witty Chinese commentary (some would argue it’s not even my part-time gig). To keep the lights on, I run a …