Loneliness, Holidays and Living Overseas
Sometimes living overseas can be very lonely. This loneliness is worse during the holidays. This is a blog post about that.
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Living Abroad
Life in China
Chinese Wedding: Food, Drinks and Red Envelopes
A few weeks ago, I went to a Chinese wedding. Different cultures usually deal with big life events differently. Weddings are a big life event. So, I was excited to not only see my coworker get married but also potentially use the wedding to gain some insight into Chinese culture.
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Life in China
Renting an Apartment in Shanghai
Renting an apartment in Shanghai is an adventure. Maybe it isn’t a very fun adventure. Maybe it’s a bit of an annoying, stressful adventure. But, nevertheless, it’s still an adventure. And hey, isn’t adventure what moving halfway around the world’s all about? How Renting an Apartment Works in China Apartment rentals, like many things in
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Language Learning
Rosetta Stone sucks for learning Chinese
On paper, Rosetta Stone seems like the perfect app for learning Chinese. It creates an immersive environment and stimulates how we naturally acquire languages. There is no translation, so you learn the word more deeply. Also, it’s very very expensive, so it must be good right? Well, unfortunately, maybe not so much.
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Destinations, Thailand
You Can Pet the Elephants at the Samui Elephant Haven
Okay, so even though it wasn’t quite as magical as seeing elephants in the wild, seeing elephants at the Samui Elephant Haven was still pretty magical. We were able to get up close and personal with these weird, giant animals. We got to feed the elephants. Elephants have thick, rubbery skin, covered with stiff bristly
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Asia, China, Life in China
The Best Chinese Food You’ve Never Heard of
Chinese food in China is nothing like Chinese food in America. In America, the best Chinese food is a little takeout joint that serves paper boxes full of cream cheese wontons and sweet and sour chicken. You try and fumble with some wooden chopsticks and you get a little fortune cookie at the end. As
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Life in China
The Most Annoying Things About Living in China
Today I’m writing a list of the most annoying things about living in China. Generally, I’ve tried to keep this blog mostly positive. It’s pretty easy to read plenty of negative things about China these days. It’s harder to find people saying genuinely nice things. Culture shock can make the most optimistic of us turn
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Life in China
A quiet afternoon at a Chinese hospital
Our visit to a Chinese hospital was a bit of a culture shock, even after living here for a year and a half. It was not the way I’d have chosen to spend an afternoon, though I’ll admit, I’ve been curious about China’s healthcare system ever since I got here. Needless to say, Chinese hospitals
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China: Politics and Culture
You should be way more upset about Trump’s WeChat and TikTok ban
Trump’s WeChat and TikTok ban is dumb. It’s the latest of many dumb things done by a dumb president. As an American, I can freely say that online. If my fellow Americans continue their collective shoulder-shrug about Trump’s WeChat and TikTok ban, I might not be able to for much longer.
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Life in China, Teaching English
Adventures teaching English in China
It was the end of another long day teaching English in China. I’d spent the last five hours trying to help a group of ten-year-olds decipher some American common core 6th grade reading and science textbooks. At this point, they didn’t want to learn, and I didn’t want to teach. So, I did what any
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