I went back to my old high school to see my old stats and programming teacher. He was supervising a study hall on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when I came in.
What I meant to say was, thanks for putting up with my moody high school crap, for letting me hang out in your classroom when I [...]
I came across this book when I was home in New Jersey cleaning out my old room. (Yeah, my mom said something about how I haven’t lived there in ten years and she’d really like a guest room and that piles of paperbacks are not her ideal way to decorate that guest room.) It’s a [...]
I’ve come to realise that my life is not so interesting and there are many more informative blogs about expat life in China. The only hope I have to distinguish myself is to write with correct grammar and adequate spelling.
–James Huang – Far far away from Scouseland
There is much more of an expat community here in Beijing than there was in Yantai, but I find myself in a weird no-man’s-land between looking for the best meet-market bar with the cheapest beer, and looking for the best preschool. I suppose I’d reach this stage of life anywhere, but China brings this, like [...]
Some of Stick’s students will be receiving their red scarves in a Children’s Day ceremony next week. I believe they’re called honglinjin (or is it honglinjian? Not entirely sure). You see them on Chinese schoolchildren all the time. These red scarves are a mark of distinction for high-achieving students of good moral character, and receiving [...]
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My high-school stats teacher once explained, during a lecture on how to lie with statistics, that Simpson’s Paradox is a statistical phenomenon where the data seems to prove the reverse of the truth. Simpson’s Paradox is how Gryffindor can lose to Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw and still get the Quidditch cup.
Anyway, it’s appropriate metaphor for [...]
Basic Chinese is my new superpower. I’ve been making a lot of progress with vocab and the hellish tones, and I’m starting to feel like Matt Parkman on Heroes, magically given the ability to hear what people around me are thinking, or in my case, saying. In the grand scheme of superpowers, though, perking my [...]
Things in China are a little different. At home, a calculator might come with extra batteries. In China, batteries come with a free calculator.
I imagine this one as one of those Amazon recommendations. “If you enjoyed electronic devices, try silverware!”
Life in China has caused Stick and me to ask each other questions that we hadn’t [...]
I’ve often wondered at the futility of making advance plans in China. Black And White Cat explains why.
The boss says to his secretary: I’m taking you to Beijing for a few days. Get ready to go.
The secretary phones her husband: I’ve got to go to a meeting in Beijing with the boss for a few [...]
First, here’s a Danwei article about the way the F-bomb pops up in Chinglish translations, and why. Check it out, if only for the screenshot of the computer translations.
Lost Laowai talks about the Rape of Nanking. And not in the CCTV9 70th anniversary documentary way, either.
…it surprised me that I had gone a quarter [...]
