A few months ago, when I was visiting family in Guiyang, my uncle told me that my grandfather’s best friend was a very famous man in China. Due to my poor Chinese, that is all I knew. Later on, my aunt visited his factory in LeShan near Chengdu, Sichuan, and told my mother about it, who then told me in English. She told me that there is a memorial to Laurence Moh at Beijing Jiaotong University. Jiaotong means public transportation by the way. I began doing some research to find the memorial and was shocked to find what an amazing and remarkable man he was. So here I am writing a blog post about it. In 1948, my grandfather attended Beijing Jiaotong University with Laurence Moh (莫若愚－Muo Ruoyu) and remained close friends since then. Laurence Moh went on to study at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania for his MBA, and then started Universal Furniture, which gained the most acclaim for being the first Asian (furniture) company to tailor their products specifically to American needs, thus attributing to their success in exporting goods to America. In the articles I have read about Mr. Moh, people describe him as “a visionary” and ahead of his time for his business acumen. Not only that though, he is also described as a true Chinese gentleman and an altruistic philanthropist. The reason why there is a memorial for him at Jiaotong University is because he donated a large sum of money to the university to build a large auditorium and for scholarships that continue to this day. When trying to locate his statue, I asked many Jiaotong students who maybe were not familiar with his name, but they all knew about the scholarships. His generosity extended to American students as well. Even today, under his wife’s name, many full ride scholarships are offered to students pursuing the furniture design industry. Particularly, Mississippi State University’s interior design program has received many of these Moh Scholars. Mr. Moh also donated many scholarships to The Wharton School and received Wharton’s Dean Medal in 1991. In my opinion, the most generous scholarships that he provided were for the children of his employees at Fine Furniture Ltd., Shanghai. His generosity also extended to my family personally. According to my 3rd aunt, Mr. Moh bought the apartment for my grandparents in Ganzhou where my mother grew up. From my childhood, I have very faded memories of playing with my sister in this very apartment. More recently, during Joey and I’s visit to Ganzhou, we also went to this apartment, which unfortunately now is a little dilapidated, but holds many memories. From the business perspective, Mr. Moh is well respected because of his impressive cultural understanding. He was able to successfully conduct business in China by patiently dealing with government bureaucracy and consulting Feng Shui experts, was considered a good employer to his multiethnic work force, and was successful in the American business world as well. He truly was a versatile gentleman with a deep cultural understanding of both China and America. Furthermore, the quality of his product was unsurpassed and always his top concern. He was able to turn the at-that-time-considered worthless rubber trees from South East Asia into the now valuable teakwood by treating the wood with a chemical compound. There are more details about his business in this article, “Schooling the Chinese: The story of globalization visa furniture manufacturing in China and America.” His memorial meeting room is in Jiaotong’s Science Building called Zhijing Hall (科学会堂智瑾厅). We were very lucky to gain access to this room. The hall was actually closed, but we walked around the whole building until we found an unlocked back door. We found two office workers who told us that we could ask for permission for access in another building. Luckily, Joey had the good sense not to listen to them and we walked around the dark and empty hall. Finally, we found a janitor, who obviously would have keys to the whole building, and convinced him to let us in the room, which is otherwise not open to the public. The highlight of the room was a bronze bust of Laurence Moh and pictures of Mr. Moh lined the walls including plaques detailing his accomplishments. Interesting memorabilia include a photo of him and his 1959 Hong Kong Teakwood Works, Ltd, which at that time only had 20 employees. The name was later changed to Universal Furniture Ltd., and their first big client was the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel. You can also see Merrill Lynch’s letter to Mr. Moh expressing their honor to have offered his IPO in America. He is also picture with the 5th Chinese premier, Zhu Rongji (朱镕基) , as well as the 41st American President, George Bush Senior, who has Mr. Moh’s furniture in his home. Although I did not know my grandfather very well, nor is there a wealth of information on him online, it makes me happy to know that my grandfather was friends with such an outstanding gentleman. It makes me believe that my grandfather, too, was an outstanding gentleman.

Who knows how to adopt a cat, specifically in Beijing?

I recently travelled to Inner Mongolia with my husband (white American), coworker (white American), and her boyfriend (a very dark skinned Thai). Why am I specifying the race and ethnicity? I'll tell you why. As is a common experience for foreigners, while the four of us were waiting for our train, a Chinese man asked if his adorable daughter could take a photo with us. We said yes and she stood in front of us and they took the photo.Totally normal, right? But then they showed me the photo and they cut my Thai friend's face out of the photo even though he was clearly part of our group. I instantly felt very uncomfortable, but I couldn't put into words (English or Chinese) at the time why I felt weird. Later, the Chinese man said that my friend's skin was as black as an African person and I realized that I thought that is why they cut him out of the photo.So two questions--why do Chinese like taking photos with foreigners, specifically white foreigners? And why did they cut my friend out of the photo?

So up until now, I thought I at least had a decent level of understanding of Chinese culture, but after some recent drama at my work, I realize I just completely do not. This situation is completely unfathomable in America so I just have no idea what to do. Here is the issue: Myself and another foreign teacher were given desks in an office full of Chinese teachers. I use the desk once or twice a week for a few hours. Whenever we go into the office, the Chinese teachers treat us very coldly and often ignored us when we simply said, "Hello." This didn't bother me since I just wanted a quiet workplace, but the other foreign teacher stopped using the office because of the cold treatment (maybe I should've gotten the hint). Since my home internet often does not work, my husband sometimes comes to my office to use the internet for his work. He also brings me lunch or dinner if I am really busy with work. He has been to my office maybe 15 times in 8 monthsAbout a month ago, my supervisor who had given me the desk said that some teachers were returning from America and needed to use the desk, but there was another office for foreign teachers. I asked about this office, but found that the office was not open during lunch or dinner, which is when I do most of my work, so I emailed my supervisor to ask if I could share the desk with whomever because our office has about 10 desks, but never has more than 3 teachers using it at one time.A few days ago, I went to my office as usual and it was a particularly hot day so I turned on the AC, but I forgot to turn it off. The next day, my supervisor asked me to immediately vacate my desk because I forgot to turn off the AC. She also claimed that she never received my previous email. I apologized for the AC and restated my email, which was that I only use the office a few hours a week and there are plenty of desks available so I thought it would be a fair compromise to share.She was having none of it and insisted I leave immediately and also referenced that several people have complained about my husband being in the office. This was the first I ever heard of this. First of all, he rarely comes and when he does come he is very quiet and simply does his work on his laptop. Second of all, my coworkers bring in their children all the time who are extremely loud and disruptive. I felt there was a double standard being imposed on me, especially since the other foreign teacher who has a desk in that office was not asked to leave.I spoke with the foreign affairs liaison and she told me she would get me a key to this new office and I could use it whenever I wanted, but she couldn't give me the key right then, so I told my supervisor who wants to kick me out of the office that I would leave as soon as possible, but I didn't have access to the new office yet.She once again insisted that I leave immediately and her message contained many childish lies that were clearly very personal and not professional at all. This person has a lot of seniority at my school and I understand this is very different than in America where people are perceived as equal to their boss. I started to think I might get fired over this silly issue so I contacted the foreign affairs liaison asking for her to resolve this issue for me and her email back was not very nice. Obviously, there are too many details to explain everything, but this is the gist of it. I understand that the Chinese are very indirect with their communication so it makes sense that no one would have told me directly that there was a problem with having my husband in the office, but I wish they would've said something before they decided to kick me out because of it. I went to the foreign affairs liaison because I didn't want to piss off my supervisor further and wanted advice on how to handle the situation, but instead managed to really piss her off. Are there any Chinese (or foreigners with a good understanding of Chinese culture) out there who can tell me what I did wrong and what I should do?

Although I am totally a romantic at heart, I have never been the type of girl to fantasize about my "dream wedding" so when my boyfriend of 5 years proposed to me, I was ecstatic, but had no idea how to plan a wedding. I watched American wedding movies to learn up on how to be a proper bride, but none of it appealed to me and I couldn't relate to the girls in the movie who had been planning it since they were 5 years old. I let my mother take control of a large portion of the wedding because I also felt like it was her day as well--I suppose many people would find this odd. The only things I cared about were the food and my dress. Since I was conveniently living in China during the whole engagement period, it was really easy to go shopping and buy decorations for the wedding. The following are some of the ways I incorporated Chinese culture into my wedding. Here are some of the decorations:One of my artistic friends and I spent 2 whole days refurbishing an old window pane to make the seating chart traditional Chinese depictions of the dragon and the phoenix symbolizing husband and wife, as well as fish symbolizing wealth and prosperity. In the top left panel is a common wedding wish: 百年好合 (bǎinián hǎo hé) meaning 100 years of harmony. My mother labored for hours over the wedding invitations, which were dual language, English and Chinese. The English was printed, by my mother hand calligraphied the Chinese with gold paint and I affixed the red invitations with a gold wax seal engraved with my husband and I's Chinese names (伟伟 & 爱德华). We chose the auspicious date of August 18 (8/18). My husband's brother baked 50 cupcakes (yes 50, we had a very small wedding and I'm not big on sweets) and learned enough Chinese to draw the double happiness symbol on top.Now to the actual wedding. My mother briefed the wedding party on Chinese wedding games. The first of which is when the groom must try and enter the home of the bride. Since our wedding was actually in New York at my husband's aunt's home, it was more symbolic that literal. In the picture, you can see me peeking through the window with my friends while my bridesmaids prevented my husband from entering. They made him dance like a ballerina and make up a poem professing his love for me--it was very touching. Traditionally, the groom must throw money over the door, but that made me feel uncomfortable because I felt it would be like he was buying me. In the actual wedding, we had a tea ceremony. Now traditionally, the tea ceremony takes place in the homes of the bride and groom, but our wedding was in New York and I was taking my own twist on both American and Chinese culture. Therefore, we had a brief tea ceremony during the wedding ceremony where I served tea to my husband's parents and he to mine. In the picture, my mother is giving me an envelope with money. My husband and I had our wedding clothes designed and tailored in China. I absolutely love the Mao-style suit and this is should be brought back into fashion. My dress is a modern combination of a traditional qipao and an American style wedding dress. Finally, we had Chinese wedding games, which we so fun! In addition to the typical "biting an apple on a string," my favorite was the guessing game. They blindfolded my husband and made him kiss peoples' hands trying to guess which one was me. It was very amazing, but he got it right! I was the 5th one.As I am half American and half Chinese, I chose my favorite parts of both cultures and incorporated them into my wedding day. These are just a few example of the Chinese wedding traditions that I chose to incorporate. If you liked my blog, please vote for me!

A study of language difficulties shows that Chinese only ranks in the 5th category of “Fairly Hard” as opposed to the “Extremely Hard” Polish language and Hungarian in the 2nd category of “Very Hard.”I completely agree that Chinese is not that difficult; the most challenging thing is the infinite amount of characters and lack of an alphabet. However, the article states that when comparing Chinese intonation and Polish pronunciation that the Chinese tones are not as difficult, I declare completely false.Having learned some Polish and a lot of Chinese, Polish pronunciation is very easy once you learn the rules whereas Chinese intonations are still extremely difficult for me after years of studying.Some of my Polish couch surfers also explained the me that Polish grammar is extremely complex and that the average teenager is fluent in English by high school, but the average Pole is not because of the grammar. I'm no grammar expert, but she attempted to explain it to me and I was just completely confused. Chinese grammar on the other hand is rather easy even in comparison to English. If you liked my blog, please vote for me.

There is a Chinese saying, “天圆地方” that means heaven is round and earth is square. The Temple of Heaven has a beautiful complex of raised circular platforms stacked on one another encircled by, you guessed it, a circular wall. The Temple of Earth was the same, but the walls and platforms were all square. The Temple of Earth was serenely quiet as it is not as famous as the Temple of Heaven and the structure was a little dilapidated with grass growing up from underneath the stone floor.Notice the difference in the stone tiles indicating round or square patterns.If you liked my blog, please vote for me!

Most of the information in this blog comes from The Secret Message Inside Chinese URLs: Decoding 4008-517-517.com and from my personal experience here in China. In my first semester teaching here in Beijing, China, I handed out a sign up sheet for my students--one column for their student number, one column for their English name, and one column for their email. I was really surprised and especially frustrated when it came time to transcribe their sometimes sloppily written information into my excel document. BY129383092 Jenny 3914809318@163.comBY123890129 Ghost 3948290840@163.comBY128937039 Optimus 34890234890@163.comBY123849320 Santa 392480823@163.comBY127345293 Anna 949852039@163.comAnd on and on the list went. Needless to say, the first time I sent out a class email, I got a lot of returned emails because I misread or mistyped a number and there were so many numbers! I wondered why and more importantly how my students possibly remember all these numbers. They not only remembered their own students numbers, but they could identify their classmates by their student numbers as well. The first numbered website I encountered was 12306.cn. One of my friends had bought train tickets for me online and I thought how convenient is that?! So I asked her for the website to do so. When she told me "12306.cn" I could not comprehend. Is this a joke? I went to the website expecting a 404 error--this website does not exist, but sure enough there was a fully functional website and to this day I use it whenever I buy train tickets. So now here comes the helpful explanation from the aforementioned article, which claims that "[t]he digits in a domain name usually aren't random." Back in the days of dial-up, Chinese people had to enter the digits, 163, to get online, hence the xxxxxxxx@163.com email addresses. "The phone companies China Telecom and China Unicom simply reappropriated their well-known customer service numbers as domain names, 10086.cn and 10010.cn, respectively." This one makes a lot of sense, no explanation really needed. Alibaba is very famous, but I didn't know that their website was 1688.com, which pronounced with the Beijing dialect is "yao-liu-ba-ba." Arguably very similar! Another website I've never heard of 51job.com--"wu-yao-job"--"wo-yao-job"--I want a job. I have used McDonald's online delivery and I wondered why they have such a random URL, 4008-517-517.com, but "517"--"wo-yao-chi"--I want to eat.Now that these seemingly random numerical website URLs have been decoded, lets talk about why? I believe that there are several cultural and practical reasons for doing so. Firstly, despite the existence of the pinyin system, the roman alphabet is still very difficult for many Chinese people. Secondly, Chinese students are experts at memorization so what we may think is a very difficult string of numbers is easy for them to remember. I hear stories of my students having had to memorize long articles in both English and Chinese in high school and I just think, why? However, the Chinese education system is a completely different topic. Thirdly, Chinese students are accustomed to memorizing numbers and being organized by numbers due to their large population and rigid structural organization. Every Chinese student has their student number, their shenfenzhen number, their QQ number, their friends' QQ numbers, their numbered email address, etc. Finally, and most interestingly, is the Chinese association of meaning with certain numbers, the most prominent of which are 8 and 4. Some personal examples of this, in America, whenever my mother leaves a tip, she makes sure that the final bill will add up to $xx.88 or if possible, $x8.88. For my own wedding date, we chose 8/18 because 8 is a very lucky number. 4--"si"--means death so it is a very unlucky number. My then boyfriend, now husband, had on a sports jersey from his school team and his number was 44. When my mother saw this, she got very upset and made him put another shirt on to cover the unlucky numbers. Americans (and maybe other Westerners) lack this special appreciation for numbers and therefore we do not find numbers significant enough to remember or to use for a website. The only number that Americans will memorize are their own social security number (and sometimes not even that) and their phone number. If you liked my blog, please vote for me!

Wutaishan (五台山) or Five Terrace Mountain is regarded as one of four sacred mountains of Buddhism in China with over 40 holy temples. It is known as the home of the bodhisattva of wisdom, Manjusri (wen2shu1-文殊), whose Sanskrit name means “He Who is Noble and Gentle.” Manjusri is often depicted with a sometimes flaming sword in his right hand—Vajra Sword of Discriminating Insight cuts through ignorance and entanglements of conceptual views, also cuts away ego and self-created obstacles. The prajna paramita sutra, perfection of wisdom, is often depicted in or near his left hand.---------------------------------------------------The Shuxiang Temple, which was especially crowded because it housed a famous Manjusri statue and May 2 was Manjusri’s birthday. The highlight of the temple is the statue room called, “Manjusri Meeting Five Hundred Arhats.” This room boasted a tall bronze statue of Manjusri and the 500 hundred colorful monk statues adorned the walls. In the back was a solemn looking Buddhia whom only 3 types of people could bow to: 1) monk, 2) those with family members in prison, and 3) those with misbehaving children. Since I had a nasty cold, I bowed to the health and medicine Buddha, which was also in the same building. ---------------------------------------------------Pusading Temple sat atop the Púsà Peak (菩萨顶 Púsà Dǐng aka Bodhisattva Terrace). This temple was very high up and offered a wonderful birds eye view of the Tayuan temple and Xiantong temple beneath. From the top, we walked down through the 3 monasteries. Next we went into the Great Bowl Courtyard which housed a beautiful 5 story bronze bowl sculpture. It is said that the layman who donated it made a wish at the Wuye temple that came true so he donated this sculpture to give his thanks. Outside a Tibetan/Chinese fusion monastery, there were 3 stone tablets from the 3 emperors that visited the mountain. It is said that the youngest emperor placed his tablet to the left of his father and made it a few centimeters taller, both of which are unfilial acts so there is an unexplainable permanent footprint high up on the tablets as penance which neither rain nor sun can wash away. The fusion monastery was very cool; inside there were Tibetan monks chanting. Finally, there was a long stairway from which you could look out onto the town and see the landmark white stupa. There were 108 steps, when walking down the only thing you must do is at the bottom; at the bottom, you must close your eyes and walk forward, touching the 福 symbol on the wall with your left hand. Walking up however, you must not stop, you must not look back, because each of the 108 steps represents the 108 annoyances of Buddhism.---------------------------------------------------The Wuye temple came into being, according to an ancient legend, when Manjusri Bodhisattva borrowed a cool stone by his wisdom (?) from the Dragon King, but the five sons of the Dragon King were not pleased so in anger they cut the five peaks, making the five plateaus that we see today. Eventually, the five sons surrendered to the Bodhisattva and each one agreed to live on each of the one peaks. The locals built the Wuye temple, on the 5th peak, in honor of the 5th son of the Dragon King who is said to love theatre so they built a theatre across from the temple. It is said that Wuye can make your wishes come true so every year thousands of Buddhists make their pilgrimage to this temple to make 3 wishes to Wuye.To make wishes at the temple, first you must offer incense, then once inside the temple, you hold your hands in a certain way, bring them above your head, then to your forehead and tell Wuye where you are from, then to your mouth and whisper your name, then to your heart and tell him your 3 wishes, then repeat the motions twice more. America, Sonia, health for my family, a clear life purpose, and relief for Joey’s taxes, I wished. It is said if you wished for something big and it comes true, you must perform a play for Wuye because he loves theatre or make a big donation.---------------------------------------------------Dailuo Peak is famous for its unbeatable view of the valley and the 1,080 steps that lead up to Dailuoding Temple. On the way up, you can enjoy breathtaking views and bask in amazement and respect for the devout Buddhist followers who perform prostrations (or bows) on every step. Once at the top, you can clearly see the blue sky, the green mountains, and the temples that pepper the valley.The whole of Wutaishan is devoted to Manjushri bodhisattva and there is a temple on each peak dedicated to him, but for the sake of tourism, the locals built the Dailuoding temple to encompass the 5 directions of Manjushri so that Buddhists can just visit this one temple instead of each peak.If you liked my blog, please vote for me!

Organized group travels seems to be all the rage in China. Even when I was traveling in Europe, I would see floods of Chinese tourists pouring off buses following their tour guide with their little flag. The Chinese tourists were always unruly in that they would push and shove to see whatever it was, take a picture of it, and they were gone in several minutes. I have personally always been a fan of independent travel, but this holiday, someone invited me to join their tour group at the last minute so I thought, "Why not?"Here are some pictures from my travels to the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi.The ProsYou can take it easy; it is the tour guides job to worry about finding the hotels, direction to/from wherever you are going, you don't have to be worried about getting cheated by localsIt's all paid for; you paid in advance so you don't have to constantly worry about finding the best priceYou don't have to do research; research on hotels, direction, information etc., your tour guide ought to know all this and give you detailed history of the sight you are seeingIt can be cheaper; the tour guides usually have special relationships with certain hotels/restaurant and can get you better prices than you can get yourselfIt's luxurious; if you are a cheap ass like me, I always find the cheapest hotel, eat minimally, and walk/bus everywhere, but with the tour, I stayed in 3 star hotels, ate way too much food, and we had our own minivanThe ConsIt can be more expensive; if you are a cheap ass like me and usually stay in the cheapest hotels, barely eat any food, and walk/bus everywhereIts really easy to get cheated by the travel agency! I have heard countless stories about bad travel agencies ripping off Chinese people. If you found a reputable one, take note of it. You never know what is going on; because you didn't have to do any research, you never know where you are or what you are going to do next. You only know what the tour guide tells you and what is on the scheduled itinerary.Lack of freedom; you have to follow the scheduled itinerary. Depending how big or small your group is, you have more or less freedom to do as you please. For me, this is a big one because I really like exploring random things and I like to go at my own pace.Lack of adventure; because you are constantly with your tour group, at a designated hotel/restaurant, at some tourist site, you have very little opportunity for interaction with locals or the chance to have an adventureIf you liked my blog, please vote for me.