I finally found a fencing teacher in Shantou. In fact, I found two of them. Or actually I didn't find them, I met their boss, the head of the Shantou Sports Bureau while taking a tennis lesson (my third ever). He was fascinated by the fact that I'm studying Shantou culture. He does too. He even wrote two books about it. He was formally posted ( Read more... )

just wanted to share one of my new favorites - apricate "to bask in the sun" which I would dearly love to do today but circumstancies have stymied this particular goal.

My boyfriend, a transplant from the north, and I were trying to figure out what to eat for lunch. July in Shantou is really really hot. Neither of us wanted a huge lunch with a big price tag but we also wanted to find a place with air-conditioning. That particularly combination was somewhat difficult to negotiate without turning to some form of ( Read more... )

Hi all ( Read more... )

A quote from Bachelard's, The Poetics of Space, my current brain bender. It's fun to think/dream in his verboscape. Are we poets or philosophers? Do we allow ourselves to be either? Has stress/life/grad school put a stop to both? Is the leisure which allows for "sacred" contemplation no longer available ( Read more... )

Over the last two days, I've been asked by three close friends to stand as an interpreter of things Chinese ( Read more... )

This is a call out to all of my verbo-centric friends to help me graduate. I know that I have enough Scrabble-Boggle-crossword playing geeks, oops, I mean, friends to achieve some form of vocabulary critical mass, so I put this conundrum out to you. I've already caused the foreheads of the folks at Autumn Leaves to wrinkle with this one, so y'all ( Read more... )

While most of my journal entries are sort of narcissistic letters to my American friends, I thought that while I'm in the USA for "the holidays" I'd try to write some addressed to my Chinese friends. Possible topics include "Home for the Holidays," "Hottubbing," "Return of the Non-native," and so on. Please let me know if there are any burning ( Read more... )

For those who asked for them and those who didn't ( Read more... )

from http://www.democracynow.orgRead more... )