I never got around to publishing this last week. I’m working on something about my time in St. Petersburg now, but my feelings are so different from what I wrote last week that I feel this needs to be published…
Shanghai-Tested: My first ‘Chinese’ haircut
The hairstylist put down the bleach and took out a jar of brown dye. That’s when I realized something had gone awry. As part of my recent deep-dive into embracing China local life, I took the plunge and did something I had never done before…
A morning commute in Shanghai
My scooter slips. I skid into a crack on the pavement and veer sharply to the left. The man on a motorbike to my left narrowly avoids me and squeezes past, unfazed. The car behind us screeches to a…
Spanish paella, LobsterFest 2017, and other reasons to celebrate Spring
I had planned to write about how the miserable of the past week, but instead I’m writing about the beautiful. I’m writing about the beautiful, because life in Shanghai has reached peak levels of the exhausting and the absurd, and when things…
The most beautiful things about Florence
I feel like the word breathtaking is overrated. We use it so much that when something truly takes our breath away – and I mean with that sharp intake of breath and an utter loss for words, I completely lack the vocabulary to…
The courage to eat with a spoon
Learning to use chopsticks in China is easy. Learning when not to use them is hard. Dinner in Shanghai – my home for the past two years – is rarely eaten alone. A dinner is the sort of grand occasion…
If I put soy milk into my latte, am I Chinese enough for China?
I’ve been on a huge China kick the last couple of weeks – I’ve finally started getting groceries online from YiHaoDian (an online Wal-Mart/Amazon hybrid where I can buy puppy food, sparkling water, and a Kindle all in one go), ordering lunch…
We told the consul general he should play more beach volleyball
What did we get ourselves into..
Breaking the rules when you live abroad
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…
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…