Pollution in China, incredible photos
Pollution was something that I thought about far more in China than I do here in Canada. A lot of that was on a simple day-to-day level – when I hacked up suspicious black things and suffered from constant eye infections. Or checking the pollution ratings each day and seeing the reports of a “blue...
Journalism challenges in China
In many ways, the media here is still very young and developing in China, as compared to North America. Some of my work here involves editing stories written by Chinese reporters who, I must say, have slightly different “rules” to play by than the ones that were drilled into my head at journalism school. First...
The importance of the oh-so fabulous poncho
As I hopped on my bike yesterday to head towards home, I couldn’t understand why everyone was riding in such an insane fashion. Now, riding a bike here in the beginning was a harrowing, white knuckle experience. I’m trying to come up with an analogy, so let’s say, picture the entire city of Montreal on...
One very odd note stuck on my door
The other day I arrived home and found this note on my front door. In fact, I found three identical notes on all the doors surrounding my apartment. My roomate and I are the only foreigners in the building and it seems there is a need for our services. We laughed pretty hard. They big...
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Cheese heaven
As much as I enjoy the food here there are things I miss. Cheese. Oh cheeeeese. I love you so. My cheese experience in Uganda was rather lacking. My cheese experience in China has been slightly better. There is a large selection here of cheese if you go to the fancy import stores, but you...
Round and round the courtyard he goes
Every day when I come home, there is a small group of elderly women and men waiting for me outside perched on a strange assortment of chairs that have been rescued from the trash bin. In actuality, they’re not waiting for me, per se, but they are hanging out, drinking tea and occasionally playing checkers...
I’m scared of blonde people too
I’m finally at this brilliant point where I’m starting to understand what people say to me. It’s a fabulous feeling, even if I can’t say much back at the moment besides a whole host of random words and phrases (such as “sir, can I have 10 dumplings?” which is very useful I’ll have you know)....
On Chinese food. And rats. For dinner.
This photo makes me want to cry. One of the things I most looked forward to, when coming here, was the food. HOT DAMN there is some amazing food here. Honestly, I would say my failure rate of food (which, I think in North America is at least 50 per cent) is about 10 per...
The staring game
A “level 3″ stare… Fine, fine, it’s not a game. I couldn’t come up with a title. I’m lame. At any rate, I do want to talk about staring. Now, I am stared at here. Is this a surprise? Not really, considering my height and the way I look. I’m stared at here on a...
The dollar bill game
The dollar bill game lives on!!! (and yes I have bed head. stuff it) A reporter friend and I used to play this game called the “dollar bill game.” Really ingenious name, I know. Basically the gist of the game was that for every new country we traveled to, we stuck a $1 US bill...
The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs
I went for a walk near my apartment the other day and found these sweet little birds. They’re everywhere in Beijing – usually in tandem with a group of older retired men. Sometimes they play cards (the men not the birds). I don’t know very much about birds, but I think the ones I normally...
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