I was recently told that I suck at writing on my blog. It’s true, I am guilty. I haven’t been so inspired to write anything recently, which may be a reflection of my growing disillusionment with Beijing and China. I’ve started many posts but after writing a few inane lines, I started boring even myself. […]
China’s census results have been released. Besides numbers that verify the slowing of China’s population growth and the migration of people to cities, as well as that there are lots of migrant workers, the most interesting and relevant bit of information (for me) was that there are 107,445 laowai in Beijing. And I’m one of […]
Spring has sprung and Beijing is now in summer mode. Luckily, boyfriend and I managed to picnic in the park on breezy, sunny day a couple of weekends ago, before I left for Yunnan on a mini-vacay and missed the remaining days of Beijing spring. Ritan (Sun Temple) Park is a 10-minute walk due north […]
One of the ways I’ve tried to improve my Chinese is by learning place names through road signs. It’s convenient because I can’t go a day without commuting and easy because signs are usually written in Chinese (character study!) and pinyin (pronunciation guide!). There are also smaller signs, such as Beijing’s famous hutongs (the alley […]
In an effort to be fair, Gmail/social networking sites aren’t the only thing China targets for bans. Here are other things China has banned in recent days: Luxury advertising (local Beijing policy). Indoor smoking (ban in name only). Illegal additives in pig feed that are toxic to humans (cross your fingers!).
Since those pesky flower-related “protests” a month ago, Gmail has been, let’s say, not working as well as it is in the U.S. What I, and most people who use it, had hoped would be temporary has stretched into a month of frustrating, erratic and worsening load times. Even with a proxy or VPN, Gmail […]
Boyfriend and I moved apartments a couple of weeks ago. Now that I have had time to adjust, settle in and get the amazing dirtiness under control, I would like to say that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Cons first: Still pretty dirty. I have to find a carpet cleaner […]
It’s one of those “China sucks” days. To wit: They’ve been fucking with Google for the past week. This means that Gmail randomly goes down while I’m checking or writing e-mails, in the middle of uploading attachments or saving drafts. It also means that Google Maps stalls when I try to search for a specific […]
In addition to elaborate multi-course banquets for every lunch and dinner, as well as private rooms in each city’s best hotels, I received tons of gifts from each local government — and sometimes company — we visited on our Anhui media tour. Actually, I’m not really sure who gave each gift, but anyway, they did […]
This is nice. The Beijing government will start tracking all 20 million people in real-time through their mobile phones. From South China Morning Post: Wireless communication experts said the system would be particularly useful not only for following the whereabouts of individuals but also in detecting any unusual gathering of a large number of people. […]