China Segment

It’s no secret that China is strong in manufacturing, engineering and massive infrastructure projects. India is better at information technology and services. Google has effectively left China, whereas it has a strong presence in Hyderabad. Now, Facebook too, is setting up shop in India. China should take note. Facebook came [...]

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I guess I should comment on Kai En English Training School shutting down since I taught there for about four years. I knew the founders personally, and worked there both when it was small and the big schools like EF were just arriving, and later when it was on the way down.
So it’s toast, [...]

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So I’m looking at an ad for Papa John’s in Hengshan Road (衡山路) subway station, which as you know is a pizza restaurant. There is not a pizza in sight on the advertisement. There are chicken wings, and potato skins, which they are careful not to call ‘potato skins’ since Chinese people don’t [...]

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Football is not a Chinese sport. The Chinese refer to themselves as ’small ball’ players. That’s all part of the racial stereotypes the Chinese have of themselves and others - another topic. My point is that in a country where ping pong and badminton champions are celebrities, the NFL has a long [...]

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I try not to eat there, but once a week or so McDonald’s saves me from eating 麻辣烫 (málàtàng) or some of the other grosser local fast lunches or the more expensive but hardly authentic ‘Western’ foods around town. I hate myself for eating there, but try not to make it a habit. [...]

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The markets of Shanghai contain many sorts of goodies. Certainly there is not as much variety as those of Guangzhou, but enough to satiate most any brave stomach. Brains are for sale, as they sometimes are in restaurants. Those pictured above happen to be pig brains, which I’ve encountered several time (though [...]

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I was also considering, “China, show it and tell it how it is” as a title, but there’s not much zing to that. Please note, those highly sensitive people who don’t care to talk about ‘gross’ subjects, you might want to skip this post.
Westerners are pretty sensitive about things: blood, guts, twitching bodies, cruelty [...]

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This is a traditional liquor store in China. Looks to me like home brew, which back home is just as famous for making people go blind as for bringing on the sweet buzz of forbidden nectar. Potent and relatively legit, the stuff sold in these stores is bottled in objects you’d figure suitable [...]

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For some reason, China doesn’t have ‘em. Which makes for interesting discussions about money. Who’s bank account should our money be kept in? My wife’s or mine?
For those of you confused, women in Shanghai often control the purse strings of their men. Whoever makes money in the family turns it over [...]

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Qingcai (青菜, sometimes known as 小白菜 or Bok Choy) really moves when you arrange it in beautiful spirals. Or so the farmers and middlemen must think.

How long does it take to do one of these baskets? Is that why the farmers wake up at 5am? Or is it the market [...]

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