I'm trying to be a good citizen or resident or businesswoman or whatever you want to call me.
I figure I use the things that tax money buys. I use the roads and the street lights at night. I use the parks and the heavily subsidized public transportation.
So I figure it's only right that I ought to pay taxes.
My tax rate really isn't all that high.
In fact, my accountant's monthly fee to file my taxes is m…
Some Gems:
"Chinese people need to learn brains."
"It's 2011. Chairman Mao is dead."
And the kicker:
"See, I'm Canadian, I don't have to shut up. Chinese people have to shut up. Canada people [sic] don't have to shut up."
Couldn't be prouder to be a Canadian [shakes head]. Granted, I've no idea what happened before the video started capturing the argument, but JTFC that b'ys gone off, eh!?
I feel for …
Part 2 of my two-part rip off of a Forbes article of a similar name. Did I mention there are two parts? This is the second one (of two).
7. The Internet
I'm a freedom-loving American, so the whole idea of the The Great Fire Wall is a great annoyance to me and my values. It also screws with my mind. When I first came to China, Facebook still worked but Wikipedia was blocked. I had never realized how much I ac…
Today I read part 1 of the Forbes China Tracker Blog article Weird Things That People Get Used to in China (a translation of a Chinese article on NetEase). I suppose it is about things that Chinese people get used to, but since I'm leaving soon (countdown: 4 days), I figured I'd write one based on the things I've learned over the past two and a half years. Here is my own part 1, in no particular order.
1. Making…
"For we have a right to choose the society most acceptable to us"
-- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
Before I came to China I was asked a series of questions which seemed normal at the time but now seem completely laughable. They included "Is there a curfew?", "Are there police everywhere?", and "You'll be careful, right?". Clearly my friends and family had seen the tanks in Tienanmen, and heard Richard Gere's t…
Last night I was watching the season premiere of 30 Rock. In the episode Jack says that their television show has lost touch with "Real America" to which Liz responds "all of America is real" . This comment is of course ignored as most of the rest of the episode is spending trying to reconnect with the heartland of America, including a part where Jenna signs a country song for NBC's Tennis coverage that says "Kiss m…
I caught wind of these "multicultural" Haibao images on the blog of James Fallows, and couldn't help but feel they're a bit... well... ummm... insensitive. I would like to think that I am one of the least politically correct people out there, and I groan even approaching the topic. Perhaps it's just that in my time in China I've spent the collective sum of days trying to re-align misinformed Chinese about the big cou…
We expats have a strange relationship with the phenomenon of xenophobia. These occasional encounters of the red-neck kind are a two-edged sword for us bloggy types. They can be a morale-sapping reminder of inescapable ‘otherness’, whilst providing excellent grist for the expat mill, that sees us shaking our heads at the nonsensical society we have immigrated into.
A perverse bunch, we may look to this expat media …
I need to rant. I was hoping I could hold my tongue on the issue, because I know what I'm about to say will only go towards stirring even the most moderate Chinese nationalist into fenqing-edness.
But I can't do it. This comment was the last straw.
The looted treasures from Summer Palace are legal to put into auction, so why not a pirate movies?
- Comment by From Tornto[sic]
This was in justification of the r…
It's been a long time since I've felt the need to criticize this nation with such a blanket statement as "grow up China", but in watching and reading the country's reaction to Obama coming to office - I can think of nothing more relevant to say.
I've spent the last year looking at China as a victim. A victim of poor journalism during the Tibetan riots, a horrible earthquake that killed thousands upon thousands, an…
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