reading/thinking about today: Here’s an update on the company dinner last night: two words – warm beer. Enough said. In other randomness: The pneumonic plague has struck China, and as alarming as that might seem, I could barely be bothered to keep up with the news. I know it is isolated to some village in [...]
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What a beautiful weekend we had. Clear blue skies. Warm temperatures. Perfect days, really. How long will they last? Yet more evidence I am an aviation geek – one of our airplanes flew over the neighborhood yesterday and I stopped right in the middle of the road to watch it pass over. I was so [...]
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Reading today: Rethinking the American Dream by David Kamp in the April Vanity Fair “…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement.” Looking at it that way, the American Dream still exists, as it always will. [...]
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For sustenance today I basically had a bowl of spicy kimchi, a slightly bitter pomelo and a liter of coffee… Just waiting to see how my stomach reacts to this one.
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Sometimes editing Chinglish improves my English. For example, did you know that to gloze means to rationalize? Leechdom, however, I did not believe could possibly be in the dictionary. (As in Infection of alcohol and leechdom for “ingestion of alcohol and drugs.”) What the hell is leechdom? Turns out it means medicine. Crazy. Went shopping today for Chinese New [...]
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I’m at work. It was 4℃ this morning in my office. I’m cold. My hands are dry. My feet are numb. At least there is coffee. You may be aware that I am a big fan of Pico Iyer, the travel writer. I enjoyed this article in the LA Times where Iyer muses on the [...]
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First, a couple of links to things I found interesting to read: Corruption Taints Every Facet of Life in China - From the LA Times. This article confirms/exposes things I have suspected/believed for a very long time. Corruption is a serious problem here and I have seen it affect friends personally. Can the central government effectively [...]
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Sometimes I have things to share, like news, thoughts or links, but I don’t think it’s “big” enough for a dedicated post. I’ll group things like this together and call it Randomness. Random things: My parents very generously have bought me a digital SLR camera for my graduation from library school. Thanks! Gracias! Xie xie! [...]
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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. ;)
