I hate doing private lessons but I was skint and I didn’t need to leave the house, we could do it on Wechat, so I said yes. There is no end of sixteen year old Chinese students desperate to study abroad and Julie was typical. Her parents, both doctors, had the wherewithal to send her… Read More »
I am lucky in that people are very supportive of all my business ideas, all those business ideas into which I put so much of effort for them to come to nothing. But am I down-trodden? No I am not. I keep going and trying new things. My latest business concerns Chinese language learning for… Read More »
I was waiting to go on the ferry from Hongkou to Pudong when I saw a group of three men fishing. It’s a nice sight on a sunny Sunday but then I looked down into the water. I wasn’t the only one. Other people were looking into the water too. What I saw there were… Read More »
I’d never been to the Jewish Museum of Refugees and so, as the number of weekends left has dwindled to three, I thought I’d cycle over there. It was Sunday and hot hot hot. I plastered on loads of sunblock and topped myself off with a bush hat and set off on my old Chinese… Read More »
I have written a lot about the old lanes and communities in the old parts of town which are being cleared of human life and demolished. Today I was walking around the old town, LaoXiMen in the area of YuYuan Gardens and saw two very attitudes of the city authorities to two lane communities. The… Read More »
Get rid of that haul of spare change you have in pots around the house. I have so much coinage that I gave one massive pot to my ayi as a gift. Well, not really a gift – I didn’t know what to do with it, and it’s hardly worth taking to the bank. Then… Read More »
Smart bins and smtarting to appear on the streets and in the communities around the city. It’s a great initiative although it does put householders to much more work. I have never previously considered it necessary to split my rubbish into categories before disposing of it because it has always (certainly in Nanjing) been tipped… Read More »
I had decided to buy a few things before I leave China, just to remind myself of my time there. I have bought enough fake rubbish and cheap tat. What I wanted was something genuine and old. Old was important, after all, are we not all sick of hearing how old China is. I have… Read More »
Couldn’t believe what I saw today as I went to the bank to get my monthly bank statements printed out. I brand new vending machine has appeared at the Construction Bank of China on XiangYang Lu. It’s not like there is a lack of corner shops from which to buy snacks so why oh why… Read More »
It’s only when you have friends to visit that you see a place through fresh eyes, like you saw them when you first arrived. It was a visitor that pointed out that there was a man living under my stairs when it hadn’t occured to me that it was strange. Yes, I suppose it is… Read More »