Last Saturday night found me surrounded by women from ages 20-mid-40’s. Mostly from America, mostly old China hands, mostly into Chinese guys (either married to or interested in), mostly African-American. We had come from different places in China, a few even traveling for 5 hours by high speed train to
Getting Tricked by the Trickster
I’ve mentioned one of my former students Wendy several times on this blog. She is responsible for one of the best surprises I’ve ever helped pull off, and she’s even been to my hometown in America. She loves surprises, and tricking people and despite knowing that, she finally got me.
Chinese-Style Plumbing
About a year ago I complained about a small leak from my bathroom into the hallway. My bathroom is fine, the leak is in the wall, and despite numerous more complaints over the year, I was told it was “too difficult” to fix. I even has an engineering student check
Spending Time in a Chinese Hospital
No one can avoid the doctor forever and with almost 5 years under my belt, I finally landed myself in a Chinese hospital. Well, I guess I should say a hospital in China, as the one I went to was a western style hospital in Hangzhou. They had a high
Lin’an Hot Springs
A friend recently asked me if I wanted to join her (and her son, her sister, her nephew and mom) for a day out in the Lin’an hot spring. My first thought was what hot springs? I’ve lived here for almost 5 years and I had never heard of the
A WTF China Moment
I had an important document I had to print, but all the print shops near my school are closed and shuttered. So I had to go to downtown Lin’an and find one. I didn’t know of an exact location, so I just got off the bus and started walking. I
Solitude and Craziness
So before I go traveling I have about a month of doing nothing. The first few weeks flew by, with lunch and dinner appointments, friends birthdays (In Shanghai and elsewhere), and hangouts with students and friends. But now everyone has gone back home, all the foreign teachers have left for
The Last Class
Three and a half years ago I met class 105 and 106. (In China the classes stay the same, with the same students taking all their classes together, for 4 years.) Both freshman classes, new to university life, I was hesitant to say the least. Freshman not only have the
Learning English by Using Chinese
My little hairdresser was looking at my Chinese textbook the other day, and noticed that I had written pinyin (or the alphabet version of the words pronunciation) under the Chinese characters so I could pronounce them. “You know, I used to do this with my English homework,” he said. “What,
The Class that Took a Lifetime to Prepare (Literally)
Sorry, I’ll admit this is a long post about my favorite students and class that maybe no one will find interesting except for a few foreign teachers who have done something similar. I know it’s going to be a bit boring for my readers at large, but hey, it’s my