Respect To The 中国人

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” – Chinese Proverb (because THEY know how to eat the bastards!) Just finished trying to put down a 1/2 mug of this instant oatmeal beverage that my co-worker …

vLog.02: A Chinese Wedding

It’s hard to accurately describe what it is to attend a “Chinese” wedding. Sitting on a surreal plane, precariously balanced between old school Chinese customs and nouveau bridal magazines. The bride goes through no less than three changes of dresses, your attending gift is a pack of smokes, and forget that ‘one plate of food’ …

Why I Live In China

I realized today that though I've been along for this bloggin' adventure the whole way, some have not and they may be a little unclear as to my current motivations and reasons for living in a country that can often be rather crazy and confusing. So… People come to China for a bazillion reasons. Some …

Got Bumped

Well, life in China is finally catching up with me. Most days it’s easy to forget that there is an entire collection of lives being lived by people very dear to me in a country that I still call “home” though it isn’t in any functional sense. That I’m not there living it with them …

Earth Day, And Other Fictions

Earth Day and Easter seem to have a lot in common. 1) they both happen in April, 2) they both were forgotten by me, 3) they are also both largely ignored or unknown to the 1.3-1.5 billion people residing in the rooster-shaped beauty of the PRoC. My friend Eric posted this in its entirety at …

ChinesePod: One Smokin’ Pod

Hey, so I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to mention the wonder that is ChinesePod, but well, here we are. If you are at all interested in learning Chinese, this is the place to start, linger and finish. The term “pod”, for those that don’t know, is from Apple’s amazing ability to …

5 Reasons Why I Love My Job

Here are just a few reasons why I love my job (with a little help from my camera phone): 1. Cute Kids Ok, sometimes they piss me off, but mostly they are just completely adorable and it’s hard to stay mad at them long, even if it’s the 12th class and they still can’t remember …

Is It Easter?

Wow, so it hit me last night. Today’s Easter. Totally didn’t see that coming. I mean, you take away the massive amounts of chocolate company marketing, the dinners with family, and the childhood hope of searching the couch cracks in May for un-found eggs and there’s really nothing here in China to indicate that today …

Back To The Future

I have to admit that 90% of my motivation to write an entry comes from the fact that I have a legitimate reason for using that title. Hehe. Well into using a couple bottles of China’s finest pijiu to wash away the week’s hardships last night I got a phone call from my old manager …

China Rises: 坐下中国

So, has anyone in Canada, or the US caught any of this China Rises special? I’m not sure about dates or times, but it’s a combo project of the NY Times and CBC.ca (and some other guys – Germans I think). You can check out some information here and if you dislike commercials or don’t …

Soapbox: Smokers

Always one to step on my little soapbox here, I just read an article on CBC entitled “Anti-smoking crusader takes on final campaign” and if you’re a smoker and feel it is your ‘right’ to be able to smoke in public places, please read this and educate yourself. This is not an issue of civil …

Lights, Camera…

Ok, so the YouTube thing didn’t work out for my vBlog idea. However, having already strung together the first entry, I’ve decided to go ahead with it anyway, bandwidth limits be damned. Take a lot of meat, a lot of beer, a few friends and a rather steep video-editing learning curve and you get… The …