The Wall Street Journal looks at the downfall of the cupcake industry today, marked by the crash of Crumbs’ stock — from more than $13 a share in 2011 to under $2 today. I remember when my sister first introduced the cupcake fad to me. I was visiting her in San Francisco soon after she […]
If you hadn’t noticed already, expats love talking about being expats. Usually it’s pretty vapid stuff. However, there’s a good discussion at the IHT Rendezvous blog about life as an expat. It started with the general pitfalls of being an expat, which led to what may be the “glass half full” way of looking at […]
Back when I went to Chinese lessons, my small class included a Spaniard and a Russian. The class was taught mostly in Chinese, but we used an English textbook. I understand English is widely spoken all over the world, but it still impressed me how many expats learned Chinese through English, not necessarily their native […]
I’m ringing in the new Chinese year in Sanya, which is the opposite of Beijing. It is an extremely popular destination, especially in the winter, for Chinese (and Russians) since it is situated on the tropical island of Hainan and southernmost point of China. I learned from Wikipedia that it’s actually on the same latitude as […]
This past Monday marked the third anniversary of my landing in Beijing for the first time (after the 2002 family holiday and my summer internship). What was originally envisioned to be a one-year stint as an editor for a state media website has now stretched into a fourth year of prowling the motherland. I must admit, […]
Last week, our home Internet began crapping out. Everything took ages to load, to the point where they just didn’t load. I accidentally did something to the router and had to call a repairman to come over. Ever since then, Google barely works and I can’t connect to my VPN anymore. I don’t know what […]
My last post was kind of whiny and dour, and really, I don’t despair about those things, I kind of just accept it. Stupid people are found everywhere in the world, so I hope China doesn’t come across as any worse than other places. There are certain things in my life here that I wouldn’t […]
This article in Prospect by Mark Kitto was so depressing to read, mostly because it’s dead accurate. People who come to China are largely idealists, ready to absorb an exotic, polar-opposite culture, widen their views of the world and humanity, and discover whatever it was they felt were missing in their former lives. Unfortunately for […]
It must be a universal truth that every year that I am in China, I will get some sort of random health problem. The first year I was here, I got devil eyes. Last year, I got spots. Now I have mouth sores, inside and out! From whence did they come? I don’t know, but […]
I love riding my bike around the neighborhood. It’s like being able to drive again (except probably much more dangerous, for both safety and health reasons). It cuts down on time spent waiting for buses, time spent walking and, most importantly, time spent being angry at stupid traffic. God, traffic is stupid in China.* Cycling […]