IN ANOTHER 10 DAYS I WILL CELEBRATE MY 2nd CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS IN CHINA, AND IT IS A MOMENT TO REFLECT ON THE BLESSINGS OF MY LIFE. MY 18 MONTHS IN CHINA HAVE BEEN EVERY BIT THE ADVENTURE I HAD HOPED FOR, AND HAVE BROUGHT ME MORE JOY THAN I COULD HAVE ASKED FOR. TO MY WONDERFUL FAMILY, TO MY OLD FRIENDS AT HOME AND IN FOREIGN LANDS, TO MY NEW AND SPECIAL FRIENDS IN CHINA, TO MY CURRENT STUDENTS AND COLLEGUES AT TAIZHOU TEACHERS COLLEGE, AND TO MY FORMER STUDENTS AND FRIENDS AT CORAL GABLES SR. HIGH SCHOOL, I SEND YOU WARM AND THANKFUL WISHES FOR THIS HOLIDAY SEASON IN GRATITUDE FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR CARE. I HOPE YOU WILL SPEND YOUR TIME THIS CHRISTMAS SURROUNDED BY THE LOVE, WARMTH, AND STRENGTH OF YOUR FAMILIES ... read more

The National Holiday for China is October 1st. On this day in 1949, Chairman Mao declared the P.R.C. from the rostrum of Tian'anmen Gate in Beijing to throngs of proud and cheering Chinese citizens. Each year this National Holiday celebration continues in importance and significance, and the festivities now include the first seven days of every October. These 7 days in October are now known by the Chinese as the "Golden Week" for travel. Increasingly, China's ever-more affluent 1.4 billion people enjoy this vacation as national tourists, traveling to China's grand sights, sharing pride and quality time with family and friends. Students around the country also anticipate these first seven days in October, as millions of them prepare return-visits to their families, much like our students travel home during the Thanksgiving-holidays. The college and university "freshmen ... read more

The Campus of Taizhou Teachers College is once again busy with the hustle and bustle of academia and college life. Our upper-classmen have returned, each one year closer to their goal as future English-teachers in China, hoping to make the most of their remaining years, and salvage a satisfying career. (In China, teaching is not considered the most prestigious job by students or even society, and the enthusiam to become a teacher has serious limitations.) A thousand new Freshmen from all over the Eastern-Province of Jiangsu have also been registered at our small college. This new crop of anxious and timid first year college-students, whose first goal was not likely that of becoming an English teacher, have for the most part never had or seen a native English-teacher. Most probably they have never seen a Western ... read more

The "After-Life" of China's Imperial Dynasties was of great concern for the ruling emperors. They too could not escape the icy- and bony-fingers of the "Grim Reaper", and so they prepared for their inevitable demise and death from the moment of their coronation. They did so with profound and focused enthusiasm. Tens of thousands of laborers were conscripted by the emperor and the ruling elite of eunichs, as were brilliant architects and throusands of skilled artisans, to initiate construction of their final resting-place quickly, to offer "comfort" on their journey to the beyond, at a moment, that could never be predicted. These massive underground vaults of stone took decades each to construct, and turned into below-ground marble palaces. This would permit the emperor an existence of earthly luxuries for an eternety, comforted by their wifes and ... read more

The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing are less than one year away. Whenever I speak to a Chinese person about it, they smile proudly. Touching their belly they tell me, the anticipation gives them "stomach-butterflies". The Summer Olympic Games are more a topic and of greater consequence in the Capitol of China itself, which will host most venues. In other cities "the Games" are perceived more abstractly, where the average Chinese are pre-occupied with improving their living standards. In Shanghai, the games are almost scoffed at, as they prepare for "their" more important World Expo 2010. But it does fall to Beijing to showcase the changing China first. China has entered the World-Family of Nations, and to turn back the clock is unthinkable for the Chinese. National Pride, in being recognized by the world, is bountiful ... read more