WeChat is the most popular — by far — instant messaging app* in China. Everybody and their grandma has it. Got a smartphone? Got WeChat. Don’t got a smartphone? Still got WeChat. Yeah, I had WeChat before I even got my iPhone. It currently has 500 million monthly active users, most of them in — […]
Say yes to The Eight Principles for Building People-Friendly Cities (archived page). Starting now. Please?
Boyfriend and I took a semi-impromptu trip down to Hangzhou (杭州) last weekend during the Qingming holiday. We had discussed going two weeks before but didn’t actually get around to booking train tickets and hotel until just a few days before we left. As such, the trains were nearly all sold out and most hotels […]
Guys, the FCC is going to rule on net neutrality one month from now. I don’t need to tell you how important this is. (Unless I do, in which case, see here and here. I won’t link to any arguments against it, because there aren’t any good ones.) The Republican House and Senate have both […]
I woke up (was woken up) very early this morning by the rest of my family texting back and forth. Normally I would have been pretty annoyed, but: For those of you who can’t read Chinese or emoticons, the first two characters say: Lao Zhu, or Old Pig. That’s me. I am Lao Zhu (Old […]
I got hit by a car yesterday. Before you panic, I am OK! I am OK because, while the car drove into me, it was going, like, 5 miles an hour? It kind of hit my purse first, which I was holding down by my side, and then all of a sudden I felt this […]
Some things the CCP has sought to ban recently: The U.S. Embassy’s AQI readings Puns The term diaosi The last two are yet another example of the Xi-led CCP (the XiCP?) crackdown on the culture of today’s society. Even some of the most lovable aspects of Chinese culture are not safe from the CCP, even […]
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 […]