Not quite content with the extravagance of hosting APEC, China went on to host its first World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, a coastal city near Shanghai. How ironic is hosting a world Internet conference in a land where the Internet is blocked, blocked and blocked? How ironic is it that China had to unblock the […]
Judging by the lengths the government is going to make Beijing a “nice” place — pretty terrible! Here are some emergency measures being taken to turn this city around for the two weeks APEC will be in town: Pollution: Government officials have promised nice air for APEC, by closing factories and kicking people out of […]
Or so this article claims, rather dramatically. But I am here to refute that claim. Because I am not leaving. Oh, no, I am staying put. I’m so staying put that I just signed a lease for two more years. #notalleveryone In all seriousness, though, the author does have a point. The recent crackdowns on […]
During the summer, we leave our windows open to lessen the pain of baking in a concrete oven. While our apartment becomes cooler, it also becomes dirtier, even though we have screens on our windows and live on the 11th floor. Every week, I sweep up the mess, a dirty affair that takes about an […]
China has blocked Instagram due to certain sensitive events down south in a well-known semi-autonomous city. Instagram, my lone remaining lifeline to social networking with the West. The reason I got an iPhone. Is gone.
The Guardian ran a longish piece on the Beijing subway by Tania Branigan. Here are some facts: It is late summer and the carriages are crammed, but air conditioning keeps it cool, blowing wafts of recently applied deodorant across the crowd. Who in China, besides foreigners, wears deodorant? According to Boyfriend, one of his coworkers […]
San Francisco is a food lover’s paradise. With restaurants covering just about every type of cuisine in the world (we had everything from Shaanxi to Scandinavian, from donuts to Vietnamese), it is almost impossible to stop eating, lest you miss out on something special. Ingredients are also usually locally sourced, fresh and organic. While the […]
It was time to get a new visa, so back to the States I went. The visa run, a time-honored tradition for expats living in China, may seem quite inconvenient, but I love the opportunity to travel on the company’s dime. A free trip home? Why not! This time, the timing was especially convenient because […]