Farrago

Crazy Taxi

It’s an unfortunate limit to my Chinese that I don’t know how to say, “I’m sorry sir, but I don’t think this is a road.” I just returned from Dalian where I had dinner (complete with a mystery “meat” dish that resembled cartilage in texture) with the remainder of our group – Lorna, Alan and …

March 3, 2005
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We’ve Got An Allison Down!

I considered entitling this entry “Take It Easy” as I’ve got that Eagles’ classic stuck in my head… not anything but the “Runnin’ down the road, tryin’ [not] to loosen my load…” line… as I seem to have developed a bit of food poisoning. I’ve tried to narrow down when exactly I faltered in my …

March 1, 2005
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So, that’s “Intensive”

The morning after… Spring Festival is finished. Well, aside from an adult class in an hour and one on Monday evening… I’m officially done the first portion of my contract – the Winter Intensive. What does this mean you ask? For starters, and most significantly to me, it means five days a week of sleeping …

February 26, 2005
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Commies Rule, Cappies Drool

That’s right folks… the world’s biggest communist country just hit top of the charts as biggest consumer. According to a CBC.ca article China just beat out America as the top consumer… Oh, and for anyone that might have heard about that big coal mine explosion that has killed like 200-some-odd people… it was in the …

February 18, 2005
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Tone Deaf

I guess anything is difficult when you are first learning, but man am I ever frustrated with this damn Chinese thing. I’ve realized that if I’m going to get anywhere with it I really need to practice more. I tend to just throw in a phrase here and there, and mostly listen… but I don’t …

February 15, 2005
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Stuffed

Right, so I’ve undergone about four days worth of serious overeating. I mean, it’s nuts. We Westerners think we’ve got it bad because at “the holidays” we eat too much… but usually just one day. Spring Festival is insane… just non-stop gorging for like a week. I mean the Chinese tend to eat a lot …

February 13, 2005
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Xin Nian Kuai Le

Well, Spring Festival is upon me and I’m officially on holiday – though I guess technically I’ve now been on holiday for two days, which is nearly as long as I’ve been trying to update my blog, but with little to no success. For some reason I just cannot get on to the area of …

February 10, 2005
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I thought it felt a bit warmer…

The Chinese Heating Solution Right, so it was finally getting warmer, and then today it started to snow… which actually was just what myself and my two neighbours had been hoping for last night as we couldn’t think of a better scene than it snowing down on these new electric palm trees they’ve installed just …

February 4, 2005
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Cannons to the left… Cannons to the right…

Right, so it sounds like there’s some heavy shelling going on outside my apartment. Evidently someone got their days mixed up and mistakenly thinks today is the start of Spring Festival – which is, in fact, a week from today. Along with an ever-growing symphony of car horns, there have been constant explosions since I …

February 2, 2005
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Climatized

Well, I think I’m finally settling into my groove. It’s difficult to get to know a city when it’s generally too cold out to do much exploring – but now with three weeks in country, I have a pretty basic, but solid, understanding of where things are, how to get to and from (a) AND …

January 31, 2005
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