Farrago

Survivor: China – The Best Worst Idea Ever

I like Survivor. There, I’ve said it. Please scroll down and immediately flog me in the comments. I don’t care. I’ve had this romantic notion of being trapped on a deserted island since I was a kid and saw Brook Shields’ (ahem) assets in The Blue Lagoon. When the reality TV show debuted back when …

April 19, 2007
 // 29 Comments
 // Read More »

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt

Today Kurt Vonnegut joined Hunter S. Thompson in the list of seminal counterculture authors of the 60s and 70s that have died since I moved to China. Like Thompson, I read Vonnegut in those trailing years of adolescent angst; a time full of chemical-induced searching to put texture to the confusing “adulthood” I inexplicably found …

April 12, 2007
 // 5 Comments
 // Read More »

Time To Face The Book

After endless pestering from my friend Sarah, I’ve finally jumped on the Facebook bandwagon. I’m not a huge fan of social networking sites, mostly as I’ve just been over exposed to them. From back in the day when my friends were on Campus Kiss, and then migrated to Friendster and MySpace and now they all …

April 9, 2007
 // 10 Comments
 // Read More »

Road To Wedlock VIII: Thai’d The Knot Pt. 2

… continued from Part 1 Where were we? Right… Koh Chang – or rather, the journey there. I’ve travelled most the various forms of mass transit in Thailand, and when possible I’ve avoided the VIP tour bus solutions. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe because I heard packs were commonly rummaged through in the luggage …

April 7, 2007
 // 2 Comments
 // Read More »

Road To Wedlock VIII: Thai’d The Knot Pt. 1

It’s been over a month since we returned from our honeymoon in Thailand, but I’ve only just found the time (or rather the patience) to wade through the hundreds of photos I took and pick out the ones to put online (and to print for our little honeymoon photo album). So, without further adieu，here is …

April 7, 2007
 // 2 Comments
 // Read More »

I’m Not Kid Friendly

I often relay to people the story of my flight over to China back in January of 2005. I had travelled quite a bit at home and abroad, but had never set foot in the Middle Kingdom. My total combined knowledge of China at that point was a rough hash of info compiled from reading …

April 4, 2007
 // 6 Comments
 // Read More »

Aprilfoolery with Chinese characteristics

Sorry for anyone that spent any amount of time searching China Daily for that article I referenced yesterday. As you may have noticed, it was tough to find… Despite having “claims” on inventing numerous things, baseball is most likely not one of them and the story is completely fabricated (as some of you seemed to …

April 2, 2007
 // 8 Comments
 // Read More »

Chinese Invented Baseball

It’s hard to take this recent article, found on China Daily, seriously. Baseball a Chinese invention (Xinhua) Updated: 2007-04-01 08:35 Though long thought to have evolved from the UK-created rounders, new evidence suggests that the sport of baseball’s origins extend back nearly 500 years to China’s Ming Dynasty (c1368-1644). Li Gang, of the National Council …

April 1, 2007
 // 23 Comments
 // Read More »

My Blog’s Got New Clothes

You may have noticed that the look of things around here are changing faster than China’s landscape. The reason being — I’m reskinnin’ my blog. After nearly a year with the old look, I was a bit tired of it. Bear with me as I get things sorted out and please let me know what …

March 30, 2007
 // 6 Comments
 // Read More »

The Green Leap Forward

Apparently my little home-away-from-home province of Jiangsu is kickin’ ass in green goals met. Thanks to Jeremiah over at The Duck who led me to this China Dialogue article about Jiangsu province setting a shining example for possibly solutions to China’s massive environmental issues. Jiangsu’s contribution to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has consistently ranked …

March 29, 2007
 // 5 Comments
 // Read More »