Us China expats are an arrogant lot. Succeeding in China is rough and long-term expats see many friends over the years who can’t handle it, or hate it, and leave. That gives us a sense of that we are “survivors” and when new expats come we can dazzle them with
Chinese Kids Wishes to Santa
In my writing class I asked my students to write a letter to Santa. “Tell Santa if you’ve been a good girl or boy and ask Santa for something you want,” I said. While my students all know about Santa they obviously have never written a letter to Santa like
Featured on NPR!
If you don’t follow my badminton blog then you haven’t heard the good news yet! I was featured on NPR’s Only a Game this month! Listen to the 8-minute interview here! For those of you that don’t know what NPR is it stands for National Public Radio in America. It’s
Living a Cashless Life in China — Firsthand Experience
You may have read recently about how China leads the world in mobile payment. How people are giving up their bills and change for their more convenient smart phones. How even Chinese airports are striving to become the first cashless airport where you can’t even use cash if you have
When Putin Comes to Town
The acronym on everyone’s lips in Xiamen these past few weeks is BRICS. It stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Why and how these five random countries decided to team up is anyone guess (because I don’t care enough to Google it) but as the presidents from
Summer Holiday Time Again
A few blog posts ago I was talking about the semester beginning, and now here I am talking about the ending. For the past month I have been free, with more than 2 months left in my holiday. (Usually my holiday is 2 months but this summer it’s freakishly long.)
When You’re Really, Truly, “The Foreigner”
Let’s talk about speaking Chinese. These days about 70% of my life is lived totally in Chinese with people that can’t speak English. (Take my classes out of the equation and you get closer to 90%.) I am not a natural language learner. In fact, I would say I was
Thousand Character Chinese Classic
Like I do at the end of every year, I have my students in speaking class become teachers. Their final exam is to “teach class” for 15 minutes. (Not a presentation, but actually teach.) This is always super fun. Students freak out when I assign it to them, but then
Parsley & Coriander — Italians in China
So I just finished reading the newly released English translation of Parsley & Coriander written by Antonella Moretti and wanted to recommend it to you, my dear readers. While fictional, the story will ring true with many expats in China as Antonella drew from her real life experience of quitting
You Know You’ve Been in China A Long Time When…..
Three years ago I wrote a post called 10 Signs You’ve Lived in China a Long Time. It was a post about all the culture differences I’ve grown accustomed to over the years. At this point I’m so used to China I’m not really sure what I do differently anymore.