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(Hopefully, I’ll have pictures inserted throughout this long-ish post soon.) The first stage of cultural exchange is commonly called the “honeymoon” period, the time when baby expats get moonstruck by being in a brand spankin’ new place. But when I first got to China, I didn’t feel particularly excited. It could have been a [...] At almost the eleventh hour the Shenzhen Education Bureau – that is, that peculiar section of the Shenzhen municipal government that is “responsible” for us in the way an insurance agent is “responsible” for your medical bills – has decided to throw us a Christmas party after all. Magnanimous! Us “foreign expert” Americans+Assorted British Commonwealthers [...] I’m sitting in a Starbucks – the one at the Coastal City megamall complex a few blocks north of my school. I took the bus to get here thinking that I needed to restock on frozen dumplings and could also use another space heater since it’s getting a little chilly again. But I guess I [...] Near the end of the two-and-a-half-hour lunchtime every day, the students here always hijack the school PA system to blast pop music throughout the rafters and courtyards. The teachers don’t seem to mind, though after my lesson on music I’m always a little paranoid about which songs they play might have come from me. [...] This blog isn’t dead, I promise. The combination of dead laptop (which makes it inconvenient to come here to the office to post) and additional writing work from NaNoWriMo just crowded out the time it took to write magnum opus posts all the time – and while I could twitter away various opinions and [...] Hoo, it suddenly became chillier than I expected Shenzhen could get. Currently it’s a nice 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which of course is balmy for back home in Washington, but then I’m becoming less used to those temperatures ever since I left home for Los Angeles. It’s the curse of the well-traveled: people from [...] I have been wanting to watch television in Mandarin for a while so that I could improve my vocabulary, but the news isn’t suitable (the words are too hard; I can’t imagine translating ‘bilateral trade negotiations’ on my iTouch and feeling very much accomplished) and the Chinese soaps I find on TV are too silly [...] When he was here, Dad asked me if I had made any good dude pals who I could chum around with. No, I told him a little regretfully, not yet. Most of the young male teachers play basketball after class, but I still haven’t gotten to joining them. A plethora of reasons [...] Even though I’ve frequently visited the shopping venues right next to it, I hadn’t actually gone near Shenzhen’s Kempinski Hotel until today, when I came to find my parents who had just crossed the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen. For American prices it’s a good deal to book, I hear. But I [...] Last week I got two small, baby turtles from a street vendor. Their names have alternated from “Emeril and Dolce” to “Elmo and Remington” to “Bebop and Rocksteady” (follow the link if you are not of my generation/are Chinese) and are currently “red turtle” and “green turtle.” They are sleepy things, usually sitting [...] |
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