While I don’t miss living in China I do miss the convenience of being able to get anything at all anytime day or night, delivered to your door for almost nothing. I have always sought out the Chinese diaspora wherever I have lived; I still see a friend I made in Uganda. Of course my… Read More »
Why oh why do six year olds need to learn how to check-in at the airport, how to pass through airport security or find their seat on a plane. It’s not like they’re going to be travelling anywhere on their own anytime soon. It’s not news to anyone that the Chinese education system values a… Read More »
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 »
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 »
Apart from the Purple Mountain, the other things I wanted to do was to catch up with some old Chinese and foreign friends in Nanjing before I leave China. Bamboo Garden is very close to Nanjing South Station and as I arrived there I remebered the time when I went to see it being built… Read More »
I take the bus most days and there is something I have noticed. Whenever passengers push on (they always push on, no matter how many free seats there are), they sit on a double seat but instead of sitting by the window they sit by the aisle. This means that anyone else who comes on… Read More »
They say Yunnan is springtime all year round and certainly when I arrived for my second trip to Dali I was met, on leaving the plane, by a cool breeze and a huge sense of relief. Shanghai is hot and sticky throughout the summer and to be honest, even though it’s a magnificent city it’s… Read More »
I have just noticed that this is my 500th blog post. I would never have thought when I started this project that I would have written so much. It started because a French friend in Nanjing suggested that as so many strange things happened to me, I should start a blog. So I have Pascal… Read More »
I wanted to get away from Shanghai for a while and looked on the map and could see that Vietnam was very close and I figured that if I got myself to Nanning I could probably get a bus across the mountains to Vietnam. SO that is what I did. Here is what I did… Read More »
Just come and give a little presentation to the director of the school – that was my task. I got everything ready, I made a lovely presentation with colour print-outs, a schedule and subtitled films. I was very proud of myself and I was 100% prepared to tell the head of the school about expeditions… Read More »