China has a history of being forced to conceed certain areas of its land to colonial powers. Although many may be aware of British, French, and Japanese territories, I was suprised to learn that the Germans had a concession of land as well. Qindao is located on the East coast of China on the Yellow Sea across from Korea. It is a strategic location and is China's 4th largest port. Germany invaded the town in 1898 and established a naval port after 2 of their missionaries were murdered. They didn't hold it for long though. In 1914, the Japanese took over [View Full Entry]

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Although I didn't get a chance to climb Mt. Fuji, I knew there would be other mountain climbing opportunities on my trip. I wouldn't have to wait very long and a week into China, I found myself climbing Mt. Tai Shan. Tai Shan is the most revered of China's five sacred Taoist peaks. Emperors, Chairman Mao, and even Confucious himself has risen to the challenge of reaching its summit. It's said that if you climb Tai Shan you will live to be 100 years old. I'll let you know in 2078 if that's true or not. The mountain is 1545m above [View Full Entry]

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Last week I gave a speech entitled: "The End of Loose Money: Subprime, The Credit Crunch and What it Means for China." I gave the obvious, yet necessary disclaimer before the speech that I am not an economist, affiliated with the real estate industry and/or an expert on the material in any way shape or form, BUT I do enjoy reading about such topics and find them worthy of further discussion. I would say that the speech was partly intended to introduce economics-related vocabulary to the students and partly intended to explain the current economic landscape in the United States and [View Full Entry]

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Went to Qingdao for a weekend trip to see some ocean and get away from the smog and bustle of Dongying. The weather turned out to be pretty nice. Qingdao is famous for its beer and beaches, the former coming by the plastic bagful if you are so inclined. No comments in this one, just pictures! Enjoy! [View Full Entry]

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The pictures from this entry cover the last stop on the winter break tour in Beijing up to the first plunge back into teaching for semester number two. My time in Beijing was well spent, getting a healthy dose of international cuisine, cultural/tourist sites and some pretty entertaining nightlife as well. The highlight of the trip was without a doubt Chinese New Year's Eve. A fellow Dongying foreigner who's spent the past couple of years here in China told me "if you're gonna be in China for Chinese New Year, you'd better make it Beijing." Imagine the greatest Fourth of July [View Full Entry]

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Everything and everyone is cool. There are no problems and peace reigns supreme. I am happy, and everyone else is happy. There is no conflict. There is no tribulation. Harmony has been achieved. No one complains and there is no reason to do so. People everywhere have everything they want and no one is wanting for more. The weather is perfect. Nobody is too hot nor cold. Everybody has enough to eat, but never eats too much. The leaders are honest and accessible, twenty four hours a day. Corruption does not exist. People work for the greater good rather than to [View Full Entry]

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I just returned to the United States for the first time since moving to China three and a half years ago. My father, brother and sister and I met in Manhattan which we consider our spiritual home, though we moved to California when my siblings and I were in elementary (primary) school. I did not, as I suspected I might, suffer from any reverse cultural shock. I felt perfectly at home in New York and spent my week there eating my way through the city. I do love Chinese food, but I like being able to choose Chinese food rather than [View Full Entry]

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Winter is here, in full effect. Jinan is cold and dry, and everyone is wearing thermals these days! We've had our first snowfalls, mainly light flurries that are easily swept away off the sidewalks and roads. It is fun but there is never enough snow for winter sports or sledding. It's mainly brown/gray here in the winter, very drab. The winter weather here is cold, I'd say about 20s-30s. The weather is always in Celsius, so I have to approximate the conversion to Fahrenheit. If the sun is out, it's relatively pleasant. Some days it gets quite bitter, but nothing like [View Full Entry]

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It's been a while! The end of fall semester has finally arrived! My apologies for slacking a bit on interesting and exciting entries. There are good reasons for this. First, given the 100+ written exams on top of the four classes of oral examinations, I have been pretty crazy the past few weeks with everything involved in the evaluation process and pretty much learning everything on the fly to boot. The second reason is very simple: Dongying is neither very interesting nor exciting so a certain degree of stagnation setting in is almost inevitable. The first thing that I want [View Full Entry]

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We finally set out on our travels to Japan on 9th after having packed up house in Tai’an and sent everything we didn’t need for travelling on to Nanjing. (This involved quite an involved and baroque session at the Post Office, and we are hugely grateful to Emma, Jack and Gene for their interpretation and help with sewing up the postbags.) We waved goodbye to everyone, were advised by all our students one last time to wrap up warm so as not to catch cold, Emma gave Amy a pack of tissues for the journey, and off we went. Our first [View Full Entry]

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