1,000 years old, and a block away from a four-story electronics store

The street in this photo has been there for a thousand years, or so the locals tell me.
It used to be part of the city’s main commercial district, back when Yangzhou was one of the richest and most important cities in China. In those days, the salt merchants (who seem to be roughly equivalent to [...]

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13 years ago, in Tiananmen Square

Joan, a middle-aged colleague at Yangzhou Tech, still remembers it.
It was 1995, when she and some 20 other teachers took a trip to Beijing on an educational tour organized by her college. It was her first trip to Beijing, and doubtless the first for many of her colleagues.
She was in Tiananmen Square, where just six [...]

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A good idea and a silly one

The Chinese government is doing what it can to clean things up before the Olympics.
That doesn’t mean anyone is cracking down on spitting, or small children urinating in public, on the streets of Yangzhou (though they are going after spitting and line-jumping in Beijing). And it doesn’t mean the canals near our school are any [...]

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Who will America attack next?

I am always curious about what people here think of America.
I’ve had this image in my mind of a group of Chinese college students sitting around a table after a few drinks and talking about what the Americans might be up to. Having recently graduated from a university in America, I know American college students [...]

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The best-dressed ladyboys in Chaiyaphum

I was looking through some old photos from my semester in Chaiyaphum, and I came across one that just had to go up on the blog. And I realized that I have never properly addressed the subject of ladyboys.
The well-dressed individuals in this photo are ladyboys.
They may be dressed better than most of the girls [...]

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