My first thoughts of coffee when I moved to China were ones of longing.It was my first time in Asia, and I arrived with a job at a city university and a stubborn commitment to experiencing the culture in as pure a form as I could—forsaking a few of my favorite comforts from home that […]
China
Paste Magazine: The Case For China’s Trains
The bizarre combination of investments from quasi-communist China and a private Las Vegas firm might instigate a new era in American travel. Or at least introduce a quicker way for Angelenos to get to Vegas for a wild weekend. In less than a year, China plans to start building a high-speed train line from Los […]
China, This Is Why I’m Leaving You
This fall, my second Chinese home was Portland, Oregon’s sister city: Suzhou. Suzhou is an ancient, once beautiful city. Even though they’re sisters, the only thing I could initially find the two having in common is they are both places where people like to wear eye glass frames with no lenses, for fashion. Otherwise, Portland […]
Single and – NO MINGLING, I’M ONLINE SHOPPING.
On November 10 last year, I began an English class at the Chinese university where I worked with an American culture lesson. “Who knows what American holiday is happening tomorrow?” I asked my students. There was always a chance someone could have heard of Veterans’ Day, maybe from a movie or a foreign news website, if […]
Paste Magazine: A Tattoo Feature
International Ink: Searching for Rebellion in China China is a country of deep-rooted tradition and superstition that has survived a near century of Civil War, occupation and communism—a combination that doesn’t leave much room for a well-established Western symbol of rebellion: body art. So, when I took a road trip through industrial, inland China with […]
Paste Magazine: China Survival Guide
The People’s Republic of China is a perplexing place for outsiders—a communist country where you’ll often feel like you’re trapped inside a shopping mall, where English is constantly a form of decoration and only occasionally a means of communication. The international mega-cities of Beijing and Shanghai have taken Westernization to heart, but outside the cosmopolitan […]
Teaching “Under The Dome”
This was a bad week for people in China who like journalism. This was the week a cruise ship sank on the Yangtze River and killed 440 people with no explanation, but Chinese media were forced to change the headlines to “18 People Rescued From Cruise Ship.” Of course, this week was also the anniversary […]
Hot Brother
A couple of weeks ago, I taught my freshmen about western families, and one insistently outgoing student asked if I have any siblings. I said yes, I have one. Siblings aren’t as rare here as you might expect, despite 34 years of China’s (recently slightly relaxed) one-child policy – there are many legal exceptions, and many […]
Schoolin’
My first three months of teaching have been quite a learning experience. I teach 272 students in eight classes. All are freshmen and sophomores majoring in English. Most are 18 or 19 years old, just like most underclassmen in the U.S., but that is essentially where the similarities end. When I walked into each classroom […]
Honeymooners and Burnouts
My first month in China was not a honeymoon. It was a month of confusion, nerves, and stress – the good kind and the bad – peppered with lots of fun. (Like the mouth-numbing peppercorns in nearly every dish here – surprising, not entirely comfortable, but intriguing.) The amount of work that went into that […]
“No, really, I don’t understand.”
One of my best and favorite phrases in Mandarin – and definitely the only one that I use in every single conversation, even though it always takes my pride down a notch – is this: “Ting bu dong.” “I don’t understand.” Before I came here, learning such a phrase seemed like a waste of brain […]