China Expat Life

Haikou winters make me wet

As this has been our first winter in Haikou, I wanted to hold off with this rant public service announcement until I was confident it wasn’t just a passing thing. Unfortunately, I think I can confidently state, on the record, that Haikou winters suck. Crap winters aren’t something new to me. Growing up in Southern …

March 2, 2012
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Chinaversary: Seven Years in China

As of today, I’ve been in China seven years. I’m officially a 7 Year Laowai. In contemplating what having lived in China for three-quarters of the last decade means to me, I find it interesting that in a lot of ways I feel less sure or informed about this country now than I did in …

January 10, 2012
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A trip to Haikou Zoo

For the last few weeks Maggie’s been suggesting we take Casey to the Haikou zoo. I have deeply mixed feelings about zoos. Like the ROM for history, trips when I was a child to the Toronto Zoo instilled in me a great sense of wonder and a love for animals. On the same coin, I …

November 29, 2011
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Until Starbucks, Coffee World it is.

I never thought I’d be one of those people who craved a Starbucks, but the last few years in Suzhou spoiled me. Within a two kilometre radius of our place there we had four Starbucks. Four. That’s roughly on par with the number of mainland Chinese food restaurants in the same area. Haikou doesn’t have …

November 26, 2011
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Getting Canadian Citizenship in China

When we first started the process of getting Casey his Canadian citizenship here in China, I had intended to write a post about the experience. The long delay between the application and us actually picking the thing up left the post in permanent “draft” mode until I received the following comment from Cam in Xi’an …

October 19, 2011
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Oh, so this is the rainy season…

According to Wikipedia, Haikou’s rainy season falls between May and October, with the most rain in September. We knew moving down here in April that we were essentially moving into heat and wetness. We waited for the rains all summer, not out of excitement but out of curiosity regarding this new and strange climate we …

October 8, 2011
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Nesat – our first typhoon

Waking up this morning and peeking outside, you’d hardly believe 150km winds were sweeping over us just a handful of hours earlier. Actually going outside, however, was an entirely different story. The first casualty of Nesat was our papaya tree, which had fallen before dawn yesterday. I say “our” papaya tree, as it’s right outside …

September 30, 2011
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Bugs!

I realize I risk a little goblin coming in the night and stealing the essence of my manhood by saying this — but I fucking hate bugs. I’d have to be more than a bit ignorant to move to a tropical island and not expect to cohabitate with the creepy crawlies, but it doesn’t disturb …

August 26, 2011
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