Cup of Cha’s post called Goodbye Foreign Visitors describes my feelings on the new visa regulations, only more eloquently than I’d put it. This week involved saying goodbye to expat friends, Sven from Tennessee and Christina both left on Saturday.
Any foreigner living in China now will tell you that something weird is going on. Our […]

This is not the world’s greatest photo, but it’s the only picture I have that shows the great hallway of produce outside our gates. Christina snapped it when we found the market, right after we arrived in Beijing, and I’ve been going there at least once a week since then. I have a fruit vendor […]

I met Joe about a month ago when he asked me to sub for Christina’s class one day, and he’s offered me occasional tutoring and substitute gigs since then. Subbing in an American middle school looks like torture, but subbing for Chinese-middle schoolers rocks. Basically I turn up, introduce myself, giggle at a few of […]

Wednesday night, we went to Ganges, a small Indian restaurant in Haidian. ( ??????160? or go to the south entrance of Qing Hua University) They were full when we arrived but managed to seat us pretty quickly. While we were waiting, I got my second glass of Coke. I don’t like Coke, but it’s hardly […]

Teacher Assistant A and Teacher Assistant B begin to discuss the high cost of electricity. This gets my attention because these TAs don’t speak English unless forced. (Please note, A and B are not my TAs, because my TAs rock. Also they have better names than A and B.)
Teacher Assistant B comes over to […]

We went out for a wonderful payday dinner of Western food, but after dinner, Christina began to feel ill, so we decided to grab an immediate cab home. Unfortunately, we came out of the Outback Steakhouse in the ritzy Sun Dong’An shopping area, and the cabbies were quoting really outrageous figures to take us […]

It’s sort of an expat joke that the only information determined at a Chinese meeting is the time and place of the next meeting. I think I even saw that on of those “You know you live in China, when…” lists. I was just in an hour-long meeting at which the only thing determined was […]

My coworker Christina asked me yesterday why I would walk past the supermarket to get fruit at a street stand. I think I said something about it being more Chinese, but I didn’t really have an answer.
Yes, the fruit carts are a little less expensive, and the prices becomes cheaper and cheaper as the laowai […]

Last night, we celebrated Moon-Viewing Night by trying out a street hotpot place. It’s a hole-in-the-wall during the day, but at night, they set up flimsy portable tables with propane burners and vats of boiling soup.
So we get a table, and a menu, and I THOUGHT I was ordering a chicken broth. The waiter said […]

Today I had my first lesson with my gifted kids. This was sprung on me in a typically Chinese fashion, it was once mentioned in passing that I’d be team-teaching English club with Christina. When I got the details a few hours before the class would begin, I found out there were actually 2 sections […]