Category Archives: Uncategorized

The New Year

As I type, a string of firecrackers are going off somewhere on the street below. At various times in the past 48 hours, the streets of Kunming have sounded like a war zone, and the odd plume of smoke and stench of powder merely amplify this impression. This is, unmistakably, Chinese New Year in China.
For [...]

Random Fun

According to this quiz I just took- from the addictive sporcle.com- here are the 10 most-searched items on Wikipedia from January to October 2009:
1. Michael Jackson (musician)
2. Barack Obama (politician)
3. Eminem (musician)
4. Lil Wayne (musician)
5. Adolf Hitler (er, politician?)
6. Rihanna (musician)
7. Abraham Lincoln (politician)
8. Lady Gaga (musician)
9. Megan Fox (actress)
10. Martin Luther King (activist)
Odd bedfellows, [...]

Armistice Day/Veterans Day

My grandmother, who is 93, used to refer to Vetarans Day as Armistice Day, its former name. Without any disrespect to our men and women of uniform- of which her late husband was one- I think it would be instructive to remember the origins of the holiday, which dates back to shortly after my grandmother [...]

2000s Nostalgia

By my count there are six or so weeks to go until we close the book on the 2000s and embrace the 2010s, something I speculated upon in this recent post. For those of you already feeling nostalgic about the ‘aughts, here’s a blog dedicated to the various cultural ideas that defined the decade. This [...]

Blogroll Update

Hey all, a little housekeeping note. I’ve made some changes to the list of sites on the right, including the appearance of a new category listing all of the sites that are kind enough to have published my writing before. What’s the point of having a blog if not for cheap self-promotion?
Under recommended sites I [...]

Of Sickness and of Health, in China

I really enjoyed this short James Fallows article on how he survived living in the world’s most polluted country, China. The synopsis: it isn’t that hard! Even though Fallows mostly lived in Beijing while I live in the relatively clean Kunming, I can relate entirely to his thoughts.
To those too lazy to click on the [...]

Cracks in the China Class Ceiling Case

This editorial in the LA Times by Ian Buruma has generated a bit of web discussion recently, but something didn’t sit right with me after reading it.
Buruma begins the editorial by describing Hu Jintao as a ‘dull’ leader and how, in the context of recent Chinese history, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He then [...]

CCP Factionalism?

To an outsider the Chinese Communist Party appears to be a monlithic force free of the factionalism that defines multi-party systems of government. In fact, this is not the case- the Chinese government contains divisions that might ring familiar with political observers elsewhere in the world.
This Foreign Policy article published earlier this year defines two [...]

Ruili and Back to Kunming

24 hours ago I was just settling into a two-hour Burmese massage in Jiegao, a small town located directly on the border of China and the country now known as Myanmar. Now, I’m back in my comfortable office in Kunming, fresh from a shower and clean clothes and with a slightly battered bicycle. This is [...]

On Bike. Off Grid.

It’s that time of year again. The Chinese National Day holiday begins tomorrow, and for those of you outside of China keep your eye on the scene in Beijing; I imagine the display of jingoism will be breathtaking. Nevertheless the Chinese do know how to put on a spectacle, so it all should be worth [...]