Readers’ Blog

Share My grandfather’s best friend - 莫若愚: 2014-11-3 17:33; 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 m ...; 4622 views|3 comments Popularity 9

Share Umm...was that racist?: 2014-6-3 12:02; 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 a ...; 3192 views|14 comments Popularity 6

Share How I incorporated Chinese culture into my wedding: 2014-5-19 20:53; 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 a ...; 11460 views|25 comments Popularity 19

Share Chinese is not the hardest language after all: 2014-5-16 17:24; 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 dec ...; 3877 views|13 comments Popularity 4

Share The Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Earth: 2014-5-16 17:12; 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. ...; 3163 views|2 comments Popularity 1

Share Chinese Affinity for Numbers: 2014-5-10 11:14; 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 informat ...; 2978 views|8 comments Popularity 3

Share Lessons on Buddhism from Wutaishan: 2014-5-6 22:33; 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. T ...; 2446 views|9 comments Popularity 8

Share Pros and Cons of Traveling with a Tour Group: 2014-5-4 13:37; 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 minu ...; 1812 views|8 comments Popularity 5

Share Chris Matthews, of Hardball, unearths misconceptions about China: 2014-4-30 17:38; I just read a horribly cynical and biased review of Chris Matthews's statement, The 10 days in China that shook me ,about his recent visit to China. The review portrayed Chris Matthew to be a judgmental idiot. The reviewer from the Shanghaiist took sections of his text out of context and portrayed them to be rude and judgmental. I really dislike such biased reporting and I see such things happening on this website as well where people are overly eager to name call and paint someone a ...; 1538 views|1 comments Popularity 1

Share How China has Changed Me: 2014-4-30 15:36; Inspired by Maierwei 's similarly titled post , I reflected on the ways that China has changed me. I have certainly changed a lot since coming to China. I mean everyone changes as they get older. I am not saying these changes are due to China, but these are changes I've noticed in myself since living here. 1.Dress more conservatively Chinese students dress much more conservatively than American students. I learned that you can look cute and fashionable without being provoc ...; 2329 views|6 comments Popularity 4