China Segment

The eternal debate about why Shanghai residents wear pajamas outdoors continues unabated… many of us have given up asking, but every new foreigner to Shanghai thinks they have it figured out. I’ve asked many locals and they seem to have different answers. I think I’ve seen it in other cities, but I’ve also [...]

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After pretty much begging my wonderful wife for one more year in China, this is it. It’s my final year in China, so I better enjoy it. Since coming here in 2003 I’ve had the pleasure of calling Shanghai my home, while also bashing it fairly consistently. I’ve had a lot [...]

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So I’m in China, but I haven’t noticed for a while. I’ve been working like a dog. 4 university classes (four real, upper year classes from UBC, not piddly little basket-weaving courses) and a variety of teaching gigs has meant that I haven’t sat down to study Chinese in about 3 months, not [...]

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No kidding here. A friend of mine who teaches English in Shanghai had one of her students ask if Americans call Barack Obama “milk chocolate” because of his mixed heritage. She didn’t know quite what to do and eventually changed the subject.
Hmm. What can I say? It reminds me of the [...]

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I may regret writing this after I get about 一兆 (one trillion, yízhào) spam comments, but what the hell.
For you see, sex in China is not always free. And it’s the women I’m talking about. Sex in China seems to either be for money or financial/life security. There are two parts to [...]

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I’m not quite sure who it was, but the other day a Chinese girl (probably a past English student) added my contact info on msn and started to chat with me. I normally avoid giving my msn address out to anyone unless I’m sure they’re ‘normal’ and not going to constantly harass me… which [...]

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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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One of the many casualties for the Olympics is fun. Here in Shanghai, many of the less desirable elements of big-city life (fake DVD stores, ‘pink light shops’, etc.) have been closed down for the Olympics. But also added to the list are the closing down of the (relatively) honest shops in the [...]

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The wife and I got back from a trip to Canada today. We toured most of Western Canada including driving around Edmonton, Calgary, Banff, Saskatoon, the (Madge) Lake and then flying to Vancouver. Put a lot of kilometers on the rental car - you might as well when they rip you off so [...]

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Guess what? There aren’t any.
More or less that statement is true. The army has guns, the people don’t. If you really want to kill someone you have to do it with a knife or your bare hands, hardly a task for the meek.
Consequently, I feel safe. In downtown Vancouver I’d walk [...]

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