Recently, a friend of mine who is having a ‘bad China year’ has been complaining a lot about how uncreative Chinese society as a whole is. I can understand where he’s coming from. He’s an extremely creative person in his own right: he’s a graphic artist who has his [...]

I just came across this BBC article about how China is enacting a new law on May 1st that will officially ban smoking “in places like bars, restaurants, and buses, but not workplaces.” Please, oh please, let this work. There are about a zillion “no smoking” signs around this country, but [...]

So my roommate and I went for lunch the other day at a Japanese rice bowl place. We walked in, and only 1 of the 3 employees was awake. The other 2 were sleeping with their heads on the table, completely unaware that customers had even entered the shop. [...]

China, the land of 麻烦 (mafan)! For those of you who don’t know what mafan is, it basically means trouble or inconvenience. And China is chock full of it. In some ways, this has to be the most inconvenient place on earth to live…

I totally love it here in China. It’s a really awesome place! But every culture has its drawbacks. One of the things I hate about Chinese culture is the nose picking, the very public, unabashed nose picking. [...]