London is changing me. Because, on a rainy Friday at 5pm, I can link arms with my tall daughter whilst using one umbrella and walk freely and anonymously to a place that we just can choose at that moment. And that the choice will be amazing. Today, if you make the choice to go to the National Portrait gallery with a young woman by your side, these things could happen whilst your daughter will try to pass a man in a big bear costume handing out marketing outside a theatre, he could choose to hug her because your tall daughter is [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last night, I walked down Regent Street towards Oxford Circus but the road was blocked by an ever increasing crowd gathering around a stage - and then I remembered that the Christmas street lights were being switched on in 4 places across the city but couldn't remember who was doing the honours at Regent St - so I waited, along with about 5,000 others who merged with a crowd of around the same size at Oxford Circus to watch Jim Carey do the same thing. These pictures and videos are for my students and friends in China because they really haven't [View Full Entry]

---

---

What can I say about the contrast of a city in China with a population nearly 17 million, my hometown in China with a population of 6.2 million, a walk with 2 great friends across stanedge edge in gale force winds with changing weather at the speed of light and a rainbow stretching across the entire expanse of the horizon and London? Four fantastic places, 3 chinese dogs, and 6 fantastic friends from 2 continents all within one week. Suzhou, Shanghai, Stanedge and London - it's messing with my head. [View Full Entry]

---

---

one suggestion for something to do if you have lots and lots and lots of free time in London - like me Tuesday - Art i've just been to the whitechapel and now i'm sitting in this scummy place WITH WIFI in brick lane that i remembered when i was seeing len. you'll probably know it, it has scaggy sofas and chipped paint and old tables and an amazing atmosphere and all around are people competing with hair up hairstyles - boys not girls. the man next to me has spattered paint all across his lap top, i'll comment in [View Full Entry]

---

---

Altruism and a new day. 6am - monday The night moves slowly because it is day. My body searches for the right hour for a place to live and breathe It wakes at the wrong hours - again. London sleeps but I’m awake before the birds, my mind calculating 7 hours ahead. I have the luxury of no anxiety from this. I have no work to be alive for. It’s just me time, again. So, the hour wakes me and I look around to feel myself. It’s lunch time but the sun has not risen. I’m hungry but I have only [View Full Entry]

---

---

i was not going to do this because its been a very slow quiet day but still momentous and thats what happens when you know your way around a bit and keep poking. i heard the band playing in the old town before i saw them and because i waited, smiled, and spoke to them all - then took polaroids, i got a special ring side seat and they got another player and another crazy instrument and performed extra pieces in harmony. so they played on the pavement and i sat in an old chair placed (by them) opposite them sitting [View Full Entry]

---

---

when i sit quietly and breathe i feel a deep hollow in my chest from crying my crying is not from hurt or pain or anger, it is from a knowledge that i leave behind some of the greatest people this world holds. eleven hours ago, i sat opposite Lao Wang and explained that i was leaving, he knew but thought it was tomorrow or saturday but it was today. a man exactly thirty years older than me, looking with eyes that have seen so much change in a country that changes faster than the blink of an eye, quickly figuring [View Full Entry]

---

---

Things of beauty A Chinese bride to be, contemplating the colour green That on the day I tell the man that I most want to be with that I am leaving, he declares he wants to know me Two friends biking in the early autumn breeze A death wreath pinned to the bed of the dead man The sound of rain on my Chinese roof tiles and no other sound - nothing The bridal veil placed in position A cat when it paws the air in pleasure A tear from a tiny dog’s eye Hearing Lao Wang explain that I am [View Full Entry]

---

---

Amanda and I went to Nanjing for a couple of days - particularly to see the Massacre Museum and a place that I could not remember. Nanjing is an absolutely huge city and being the National Holiday meant that everyone was out enjoying the sun and the sights. During the last year and half that I have been in China, I have Never seen so many people in one city at any one time as I did in Nanjing - not in Guangzhou or in Shanghai. Traveling around was pretty crushing. Yesterday, we went to the Massacre museum. It left us [View Full Entry]

---

---

Seven hours walking around the old lanes in what is left of the old town in Shanghai, poking inside the antique markets and feeling the fabric in the cloth market wasn't enough to really get to the bottom of the people living here. I saw real beauty. In the women's faces, the old traditional skills mending shoes and tailoring, the old houses divided up in 1949 to house 4 or 5 families, all higledy pigledy with additions that made my heart sink but beatiful in their chinese recourseful way, the tea house, temple, food market and the bustle, and lanes so [View Full Entry]

---

---