There are times when it feels the life in China is nothing but an exercise in skirting rules and regulations. Everything is legal here, until you ask someone whether something is illegal – so in most cases, it’s better not…
What we understand and misunderstand about coming back home
It’s not easy to come home. First, there’s the sixteen hours of the flight back, which is in itself a special kind of torture. There’s the reverse culture shock, this inability to comprehend what it’s like to be among people…
Boiled Brains and other things that no longer frighten me
The hot pot tasted of spoilt milk and grey, maze-like brain bits bobbled among the mushrooms and the red dates of the soup. Our waitress had told us that there would be no meat in the broth we were ordering, but obviously something had…
The beautifully-curated life
Things I’ve thought about this past week: D and I celebrated our second anniversary. To be honest, I’ve spent the past month dreading the day – and for absolutely no good reason. There’s something about being with a person whom…
Snow falling on Shanghai
I haven’t seen snow since I landed in China in July of 2014. It just hit me that I haven’t seen even an inch of snow on the ground in almost three years (D tells me that we saw snow…
I went to Florence to see Renaissance art, but all I got was this lousy pneumonia
I haven’t liked my writing much recently. I feel that I have so much to write about, so much that I have observed around me, so much that I want to put into words. But when I start putting these ideas on…