Suzhou Archives - Ryan McLaughlin

Goodbye Suzhou; Hello Hainan

After more than four and a half years, we’re leaving Suzhou.

March 8, 2011

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Tom Carter, author of CHINA: Portrait of a People @ Suzhou Bookworm

For all the Suzhou folks that have weathered my blog’s migration from “Suzhou/China commentary” to “all about the baby”, here’s one for you — head down to the Suzhou Bookworm tomorrow night for a talk by photojournalist Tom Carter, author of CHINA: Portrait of a People, an amazing book of photography capturing every corner of …

May 28, 2010

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Suzhou’s Mr. Softee mentioned in NYT

Just ran across this New York Times article about Mr. Softee in China and wanted to throw a shout out to my friend Turner. Here’s a bit of an excerpt, but definitely go read the full article: It happened almost by accident. An American working as an English teacher was walking around the streets of …

April 19, 2010

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CNYE in China Lite

GuÃ² NiÃ¡n HÇŽo and welcome to the Year of the Tiger! A couple cups of strong coffee and I’ve recovered from my 5th Chinese New Year‘s Eve in China. Despite living in Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park (SIP) last year as well, this was the first time we celebrated the holiday in this district. Normally I would …

February 14, 2010

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World-renowned author visits Humanaught

Alright, Lisa might not be world-renowned yet, but she’s well on her way. And she’s certainly a well-known fixture in the China expat/blogging circle. Perhaps best known as “Other Lisa” in the comments at the Peking Duck (or @otherlisa on Twitter), Lisa’s a long-time blogger (her blog, Paper Tiger Tail is one of my favs., …

November 25, 2009

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Dalian vs. Suzhou

Despite the combative title, it’s rather tough to A-B the two places I’ve spent the most time with in China. They are both supported and mired by a number of attributes that make them both rather unique places to live. Last week Maggie and I grabbed a flight out of PVG and made our annual …

September 30, 2009

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Chinese cities with beautiful women, I seem to know how to pick ’em

Before moving to Dalian in 2005 I spent a good amount of time on the Internet researching the place to see if it was the type of city I’d like to live in. Looking back on what I read, it was the typical “Dalian is a beautiful sea-side city” tourist crap that I would hear …

September 2, 2009

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Suzhou info page finally fleshed + Suzhou district map

In any given week I usually get 2-3 e-mails from people just arrived or arriving in Suzhou. As one of the longest running blogs with a focus on living in Suzhou, Google gives me some love and I in turn do my best to pass it along. In an effort to provide information about the …

August 12, 2009

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Olive (Delhi Palace) – Some great Indian food in Suzhou

Yesterday afternoon Maggie came home with the latest edition of MORE magazine, one of Suzhou’s handful of expat-geared mags, and a glowing review of a new Indian food place caught her attention. As a yoga instructor, she tends to be a bit of an India-fangrrl. The review extolled the place as Suzhou’s hidden sub-continental jewel, …

August 9, 2009

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Holiday Fu’s Suzhou City Guide

Iain Manley, editor of City Weekend‘s relatively new Holiday Fu, has just put together an excellent city guide for Suzhou. Most all the large travel portals give Suzhou a mention, but Iain’s writeup is full of a wit and insight that makes it a fun and informative read, even for this laowai that has called …

July 20, 2009

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Murder in the Hood

Murders in the news are as common as the weather report, and are rarely read with any greater attention. It is not often that they touch your life in some way, even if just remotely. Unfortunately, such is not the case with Suzhou’s most recent homicide, as it happened only a couple hundred metres from …

May 10, 2009

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My ChinaTravel.net Feature on Suzhou

A while back I was approached by the fine folks at ChinaTravel.net, an English-language travel site about China that is “editorially independent” but strongly affiliated with Ctrip.com — one of China’s largest online travel booking Web sites. The site’s editors wanted me to put together a summary article on “my Suzhou”, and as of last …

May 4, 2009

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