Yesterday I did an interview with ChinaTravel.net as their featured blogger of the week. You can read that here. It was exciting to be picked for their site, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to share a bit more about myself and my motives behind this blog. I hope you’ll check it out. Tom [...] Keep reading »

A few months ago my friend told me that she had a small tumor. The doctor said that it was benign and she could either have it removed with an operation, or try to reduce its size using Chinese medicine. She opted for the Chinese medicine. 3x’s a day for months she drank the thick brown bitter liquid which was distilled from bear bile, birds [...] Keep reading »

While I was in Huaxi another interesting topic came up which doesn’t have so much to do with this strange village, but reflects more broadly on China. As we were walking through their hall of glorious history we noticed there were pictures of leaders from several foreign delegations on the wall. Two in particular seemed to be emphasized and we lo [...] Keep reading »

This is part of a series, it starts here with my trip to Huaxi village The whole experience raised more questions about Huaxi’s socialist success than it answered. Most of the Chinese people I have talked with know about the village, are quick to repeat that it is the richest village in China, but I’m still stuck on how exactly it became so ric [...] Keep reading »

Continued from yesterday At dinner that first night we started to realize that there was much more to Huaxi village than most might realize. For one the village leader offered us the choice between Huaxi Wuliangye (a famous brand of baijiu) or Huaxi Changyu (a famous brand of red wine in China). The dinner included a variety of local specialties, i [...] Keep reading »

A few websites have already rushed to translate the reactions of Chinese internet users responses to the news of Bin Laden’s death (ChinaSmack’s coverage). As you know though, I am much more in favor of soliciting views of people who don’t know their comments will be made public. China’s net users often try to say the most i [...] Keep reading »

This short post comes from a friend living in Inner Mongolia, and is brand new to life in China. I asked her what had surprised her and this was her response. Her and her husband keep a personal blog about their adventures, which can be found here. Spring is in the air, and as I was walking back from class recently I took a deep breath and realized [...] Keep reading »

Over these past few days we’ve gotten a better picture of life for China’s farmers. Today I want to look at some of the systemic issues that are keeping China’s farmers at a disadvantage. First though I think it’s important to establish that China’s current growth has been built at least partially at the expense of the rural population. M [...] Keep reading »

In the winter of 08/09 I had the chance to visit one of the project sites that the charity I work for had been involved with. The place we were visiting was about 3 hours from Lanzhou in rural Gansu province. It was so cold that day that it actually ruined the mp3 player that I had in my coat pocket. When we arrived in the town I noticed the man lo [...] Keep reading »