I know, everyone always comments on Chinese toilets – they are on the floor, big deal. Well, most of those people who write about the Chinese facilities are men, and let’s face it, when it comes to bathrooms, men have it easy. So here is what really goes on behind the 女 door. Are Chinese bathrooms …Read More
I’m going to be honest. I don’t really know how to write an introduction for this. You all know the story by now. H1N1 is going around and it is either a media creation or a harbinger of the apocalypse. So I would like to apologize in advance if I am further flooding the blogosphere …Read More
As an English teacher at a 6,000-strong middle school in the northwest of Hunan province, I come into contact with several hundred students a day. Â My course load puts me in front of roughly 850 students a week. Â In a school as cramped as mine, the students and staff are constantly breathing each other’s germs. …Read More
“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 …Read More
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 …Read More
The already unfortunate situation of internet censorship in China – imposed by the so-called Great Firewall – has been slowly getting worse this year, making a mockery of claims that the Olympics would open up China in terms of allowing a greater spread of communication and discussion. This year the Great Firewall has metamorphosed from …Read More
Today is a special day in Northern North America, Canadian Thanksgiving. While it is (not surprisingly) less of a big deal for us than it will be in about six weeks for our neighbours to the south, it is still an important day on the calendar. While I won’t be heading to mom’s for a …Read More
The Chinese government notoriously dislikes any organisation, particularly a foreign one, communicating directly to its people – so it’s little wonder that the story of Google in China has been one of jumping through fiery hoops. This week Google has been under attack in China over internet pornography, especially with regards its ‘search suggestions’ drop-down …Read More
I spent all of last weekend in Shanghai with my girlfriend, with two main purposes: to do some shopping for summer clothes; and to visit Shanghai Zoo, as my girlfriend has never seen any wild animals in the flesh, despite being quite expert on them from being addicted to CCTV-10’s nature shows and BBC natural …Read More
China has called up its first black athlete in the form of 19-year-old Ding Hui, who is in fact mixed-race. The ace volleyball player (pictured, below right) has a Chinese mother and a South African father, and speaks only Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) and Hangzhouhua (the dialect of his home city, Hangzhou). It will be good …Read More
She just wants to sleep. The plane lasted two hours later, waiting for the luggage Learningpdf time dragged too long. The airport shuttle bus also missed the moment, the bus Cisco 300-101 Route PDF as early as an hour ago already drove away. So, they have to wait for a taxi now. She stood in …Read More
I first became aware of the enormous language gap in China three weeks into my first year, when I taught English at a public high school in northern Jiangsu. One afternoon, feeling slightly homesick, I hopped into a taxi with a simple mission: to go to McDonalds. Being completely unable to speak Chinese at that …Read More
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