China Segment

Gifts during Spring Festival usually consist of alcohol, cigarettes, chocolates or other candy, fruit, etc. This year my wife had the great idea to take her grandparents to Shanghai Circus World. We invited Rachel’s parents as well - partly to be nice, but also because we needed someone to drive the grandparents into [...]

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Over the last couple of months I’ve had more than my share of posts that are a little on the negative side, and I really don’t want this blog to turn into a complete rant. I do love this country and this city in many ways, and I should make a better effort to [...]

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Putuoshan 普陀山 is a fantastic place to go outside Shanghai if you have about 3 days to spare. Despite the name, Putuo Mountain is actually an island with several mountains on it, off the coast of Ningbo. It is known as one of Chinese Buddhism’s four holy mountains (四大佛教名山 - see here), along [...]

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If you’ve ever had to enjoy the company of relatives in China, you will have been introduced to 黄酒 (huángjìu), Chinese yellow spirit or yellow liquor. If not that way, then maybe you had 10 kuai left in your pocket at the local convenience store and said, what the hell, I’ll try some of [...]

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I’m pumped about my 2009 calendar. It’s a combo of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar. There’s a lot of color and though it was produced with a kind of corporate art with ads, any corporate material is minimal and the only odd part is the recipes for dishes that [...]

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Being from Canada, some people in China might think that I don’t have an appreciation of history. Our (written) history may be short, but you generally get a feeling that Canadians love their country when visiting museums, war memorials and the like. We don’t have a lot of ancient buildings or statues (Gordie [...]

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Hong Kong is my favorite city in the world. Granted, I’ve barely scratched the surface of the many cities of the world, but for some reason, Hong Kong rings true. My days there as a student give a certain bias, since studying is far different than working, commuting, dealing with HK ID issues, [...]

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Yu Gardens, with Jinmao Tower in the background.
Feds

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Known as a Buddhist nation for centuries and having mix of Taoism, Buddhism, Islam and other religions unique in the world, China suddenly took a turn for atheism in 1949.
These days as the ideology of Communism fades, Buddhism and other religions are staging gradual comebacks, though they are still hampered by barriers and discrimination. [...]

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One of the most popular streets for shopping and gawking is Huaihai Road. From around Xiangyang Road, at the site of the old fake goods market (now deceased), down to around Tibet Road, Huaihai is the place to be. If you want window shopping, it’s here. If you need restaurants, many of Shanghai’s [...]

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