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On last week’s Sinica podcast, host Kaiser Kuo along with Jeremy Goldkorn and Will Moss held a semi-serious wake for the English-language China blogosphere: The China blog is officially dead, moribund, cadaverous, extinct, buried, bereft of life, defunct and totally-and-utterly-inert. It could even be said to be resting in peace, save for the fact that Will Moss [...] If you heard bedlam this afternoon in the hutongs of Beijing, I’m sorry…it was the day of our semester semi-circumambulation of the 2nd Ring Road. The idea started many years ago as a full circumambulation of the 2nd Ring, which actually walking along the highway for its entire circumference. We did this [...] Interesting little post on The Beijinger blog last week. Seems one of our fellow Lao Wai had a holiday gathering which — as these things do — went late, got a bit loud, and thus resulted in an oddly frantic clash with some of his elderly neighbors. I say frantic, because a simple noise complaint degenerated [...] Things read and noted: In the WSJ, Melanie Kirkpatrick reviews Hannah Pakula’s new biography of Song Meiling: The Last Empress. Given that the only other major work to focus on Madame Chiang Kai-shek is Sterling Seagrave’s wretched Soong Sisters you gotta figure that there’s no where to go but up for Ms. Pakula. On a side note, [...] Half the town on any given day is wearing white. While Wang Dan may have been going for a ‘subtle gesture of protest,’ it’s possible the ‘wear white day’ idea was a little too subtle. Kind of like: “If you wish to honor the memory of the Tiananmen dead, don’t shave your left eyebrow completely off on Thursday morning.” [...] Today I flagged a cab to head over to the new US Embassy (a building with all the charm of a medium-security prison for Midwestern tax cheats glorious symbol of American freedom, F–k yeah!) and my driver was perplexed even though I had carefully explained in Chinese how to get there. Now this is hardly unusual [...] Today is Friday the 13th for those who care about such things. Personally, I’m not taking any chances and will be behind locked doors all day. I actually do have a good excuse as a wicked late-winter/early-spring cold has taken hold filling my lungs with an odd substance, the consistency of which varies between ‘watery doufu’ [...] “No flowers. Nothing looks tackier than girls walking around on dates with wilted overpriced roses. Chocolates MIGHT work…” These were my marching orders. Frankly, while she has a great sense of style, and quirky sense of humor, YJ has never been much of a “girly girl,” but Valentine’s Day comes once a year so…the husband has to [...] I took a taxi to work this morning, always a mistake. In this case because I’m pretty sure my driver was hammered. Now I know we expats like to make our little jokes about how some taxi drivers in Beijing like to get a little lubed before heading out to work, and certainly anyone who has [...] …it is frickin’ cold in Beijing right now. I don’t know what it is, I grew up in New Hampshire and went to high school up in the White Mountains, but there is something about the Beijing winter that chills me to my core. Perhaps subzero temperatures divorced from snow simply feels colder. It probably doesn’t help [...] This evening we went with friends to dine at the Pass By Bar. As we walked up Nanluoguxiang to that venerable institution (a decade this year!) I wondered — not for the first time mind you — why there is any resistance to banning auto traffic on that narrow street. This evening saw the inevitable black Audis [...] And so the Red Sox squeezed past the Angels into the ALCS against the…Tampa Bay Rays!?!? Doesn’t matter. What is important is deciding where to watch the games as the playoffs heat up. Last year it was the Rickshaw, but I’ve been hearing about quirks in service as management focuses its attention on the hyper-successful Sanlitun’r [...] YJ and I went to the US-China baseball match last night at Wukesong Stadium. I was at Wukesong this past spring for the LA Dodgers-San Diego Padre AAAA international tour, and the experience last night was more or less the same…with the addition of a few thousand rowdy China supporters making up in exuberance what they might have lacked [...] I took advantage of the sunny skies to do some urban hiking through the legation quarter, up through Tiananmen Square and back over to Wangfujing. Some random TGIF thoughts: Today was a BLUE SKY day. We’re talking 蓝 freaking 天. First one of the Games and well timed too as track and field preliminaries kicked of today. The [...] |
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