With us expats in China deep into the country’s chilly months, perhaps we’re a little late for these tips - but none the less, here’s a bit of advice for anyone currently reading this with gloves on.
Now, quite obviously these don’t apply to big-salary expats that are living in apartments with floor-heating and double-glazed windows. But for the rest of us poor whelps that frequently get blown over by the drafts running through our apartments, some of these might help.
I was enrolled in formal Chinese studies at a university here in Dalian for one year. And today I realized that one year was just not enough. Let me explain why. I’ve been living in China for 4+ years, and picking up Mandarin bit by bit over that time. Practical Mandarin. First it was the essential phrases like “Where’s the bathroom?,” or “Waiter, I do you have a cold Heinekin?”
My Chinese learning, for a long time, was on a need-to-know basis. When I needed a bank account, I learned how to say “bank account.”
When I began working in a computer company, I learned how to say …
One of my New Year’s resolutions in 2008 is to fight pessimism.
Anyone else fed up with BAD news about the environment? Why is it always BAD news when there are pockets of resistance all over the world fighting for the environment against something much more dangerous and insidious than the build up of greenhouse gases: apathy.
Whilst most of us sit around deciding whether or not to believe the suddenly trendy science of pop stars, carbon footprints and environmental catastrophe that reaches us via our wide-screen TVs, many without such luxurious trappings are making a difference.
The irony is that it is “lack” that is fuelling change, and in the week that a report came out suggesting that the …
I just finished reading Walter Russell Mead’s cleverly titled opinion piece in the LA Times: The great fall of China. I gotta say, he paints an interesting picture of Americans, never mind the “China” he is writing about.
The article points to a recent study by the World Bank that concluded that their previous figures relating to China’s booming economy were a tad off - by, oh, 40%!
So, essentially, the last two years of reporting about China being an economic powerhouse setting to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy by 2012 is all bunk.
China, it turns out, isn’t a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less …
With Spring Festival just a couple weeks away, time to remind any first-time Laowai to be careful as they venture out in what must be the world’s largest annual mass-migration.
Despite being one of the larger stories on Chinese-language news channels, little has been mentioned externally about an accident in Wuhu, Anhui, on January 13, where a female college student was cut in half by a train.
Leng Jing, a third year student at Anhui Normal University, was waiting on the Wuhu station platform for the train that would have taken her home to Fuyang for the holidays.
As is common practice this time of year, tickets for …
We return to the expressive photography of Shelby Karns for this weeks Photo of the Week. With Spring Festival only a couple weeks away, I thought this shot might be a good reminder for all of us to find some cottonwads before it’s too late.
Every week we’ll feature an interesting, funny, beautiful or otherwise noteworthy photo here. If you have a photo you think might make a good Photo of the Week, throw it in the pool at the Lost Laowai flickr Group and if you’ve got a great caption for it, send …
Just a little over a week ago reports came out about a man, Wei Wenhua, being beaten to death by hired city official “enforcers” in the city of Tianmen, Hubei.
Wei had stopped near a clash between city officials and locals who were protesting the dumping of garbage by their homes. When Wei attempted to capture the skirmish on his mobile phone, he was taken from his car and beaten to death.
An interesting piece by David Barboza in yesterday’s New York Times described how the ensuing outcry from citizens on blogs across the country helped in pressuring the central government to act and punish those responsible.
SHANGHAI — More than 100 people are under investigation and several government officials have …
One of the first things ever said to me about Chinese zoos was from an English friend of mine shortly after I first arrived in China. He explained that before I head to any of China’s various “zoo”-like establishments I need to understand that in a country where 
He was right.
Chinese zoos are horrible. Even the least empathetic, non-compassionate person would have trouble not feeling a bit bad for any critter that has the misfortune of ending up in these animal asylums.
Impossibly small cages, little to no thought or concern given to proper habitat, mistreatment and mis-feeding by under-educated visitors, and total apathy towards it all by …
When I got an e-mail a few months back from book publisher DK to see if I was interested in reviewing their new book, “China: People Place Culture History
I had, wrongly, assumed that the book would simply be a token collection of pages about the Middle Kingdom. However, what came in the mail was a massive tome full of eclectic photos and information, as its title suggest, about the country’s people, geography, culture and history.
The absolutely beautifully bound book features stunning photography by Christopher Pillitz capturing China from a number of different angles …
Those Mac vs. PC ads are getting a little tiresome now, so for my next cartoon I’ll rip into those two familiar characters to pit the Chinese search engine Baidu against the international search giant, Google.
There are huge regional variations in terms of which search engines and portals are favoured by which nations. The Japanese love Yahoo.co.jp for some reason that is lost on me; I gave up on Yahoo’s lameness about 5 years ago.
Whilst here in China, homegrown variations are preferred, and Baidu is the leading search engine amongst Chinese netizens. Yet, as has been well documented, Baidu is very much tailored to - ummm, how shall I say this - national interests, so you can easily spot …
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