Stick left today, which was just as miserable as the last time he left China. Airport goodbyes don’t actually get any easier with practice. We had a really insane 36 hours getting him ready to go. Finally, as he was stuffing the last few things in his bag, the seam popped! I sewed it back […]

Stick’s new visa fell through at the last possible second. It was a dramatic disaster, but the short version is that apparently the school wasn’t quite as professional and aboveboard as we’d thought. His current visa expires tomorrow, so he is flying home tomorrow night.
I did my year in Yantai alone, and I really don’t […]

We set out for Da Dong Roast Duck Restaurant last night, our second trip in Hugo and Diana’s visit. (Hugo may not be so fond of living ducks, but he loves them on a plate!) When we went inside, we said hello to some other foreigners. They were a camera crew, setting up to film […]

I just had a whole telephone conversation in Chinese!!!
(If a new bottle of water gets delivered to our house today, I must have done it right.)
Edit: Stick realized that I would want photo evidence of me talking the talk, so he snapped this while I was talking.

Note the intense concentration.

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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 […]

I guess you can tell by the Herbal Essences, but this is our new shower! It has lovely hot water, and yesterday it passed the four-showers-in-one-morning test.

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Tags: Diana, Herbal Essences, hot water saga, Hugo, Stick

Last night, Stick predicted that I wouldn’t get paid on time, because the new shift in the state holiday calendar has led to an increase in mei you frustration. The holidays were rearranged to break up the long Golden Week holiday and give out more 3-day weekends throughout the year, which is actually a nice […]

My friend Hugo likes to laugh. I mean, he really likes to laugh. He can’t tell a joke because as he’s telling it, he thinks of how funny the punchline is, and laughs too hard to keep talking. He’s a professor’s dream student because he always laughs out loud at the semi-funny jokes classicists […]

When I saw this on the first sign a few days ago, it was pretty funny, but now I think it’s a trend.

I think it’s the two colors and the lovely font that really do it.
Edit: Stick thinks I may not have been clear enough that this mojito is down the other place.

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To get to our new house, walk past the bakery with long lines on the sidewalk and a sweet sticky smell, like sugar and sesame. If you get to the Muslim butchershop, with cow halves hanging from ceiling hooks, you’ve gone too far. Go past the keymakers, you’ll know it by the shiny key blanks […]