I’m a little “frazzled” in my quest for decent coffee here in Linyi. Here the results of a mini-tasteoff: Instant Coffee Taste-Off! Outside of the US & Canada, instant coffee is ubiquitous, and especially in Asia, more common than brewed! What’s an espresso drinker to do? As you might have figured from my constant complaining, [...]
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Ginger Is Your Friend If Mao could see the consumer culture that has swept his land, I’m sure he would have flipped over in his grave a few hundred times (and had he actually been buried.) Instead, he lies cold and waxy in a huge mausoleum in Tiananmen Square. I’ve seen him. It was not [...]
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Monday Mélange Sometimes I wish I could scream it out loud During my years as a foreigner in China, I’ve experienced endless amounts of staring. In my little city of Linyi, many of the locals have never met a foreigner before, so when they see me in the street, they can’t help but stare. Here [...]
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China Reflections: The Language Issue This is really embarrassing to admit, but after four years in China I still speak like a toddler. And not even a really smart toddler. My Mandarin skills are deplorable. Sure, I get by and by that I mean I can tell a taxi driver where to go, answer questions [...]
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China Reflections I’m back in Linyi and to be perfectly honest, I am suffering from some serious post-vacation blahs. I am not at all sure how I feel about being back in China. Or more specifically, Linyi. This little city is feeling just a little bit too little these days. September 1st was the fourth [...]
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Today was a good day. I’ve been having lots of bad China days recently, probably because it’s hot and I’m ready for a vacation. Anyway, China can seem so wonderful on the good days, so I’ll take as many as I can get. This one started off well. The weather was rainy and the visibility [...]
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Last month I was forced to renew my passport. This is a pretty momentous event in the life of an expat. Our passport is our most treasured and protected document. With it, we can travel and live legally in our chosen expat domain. Without it, we are naked in expat purgatory, trapped, reliant on our [...]
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The other day as I was browsing around my neighborhood supermarket, I found a summer skirt I liked in the clothing section. I visit this supermarket nearly every other day, but I had never bought clothes here before. I waved over a supermarket worker and asked her where I was supposed to pay for the [...]
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Welcome to World Blog Surf Day, featuring food! As an expat, or even as a traveler, you quickly learn that Americans are fairly finnicky eaters, and in the beginning of my expatriate life, I was no exception. I will never forget the look my newly-acquired (by marriage) Spanish Aunt gave me as I carefully separated [...]
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I'm an American expat living on the fringe of Chinese society. Thanks to a lifetime spent moving around, I often feel like an outsider. This blog explores life in Beijing, China, the occasional aviation topic, expat issues, random travel experiences and interesting things I see, read and hear. If you want to know more about my latest hobby, visit Sewing on the Fringe, where I blog about learning to sew in Beijing. And for daily documentation of Beijing's ever changing air quality, visit My Beijing Window. And, yes, I do wear my santa hat year-round. ;)
