Category: Nebulous Items
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2nd Tier City, 1st Class Hotel: A Totally Impractical Review of Hangzhou Oakwood Residence
As you may know, my Super Secret job with the linguistic CIA sends me all over China to do covert linguistic operations. If I told you more about what I do for a living, they’ll kill Noam Chomsky. We can’t have that. What I can do, however, is to use my extensive experience and critical…
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Sunshine and Lollipops in Shanghai: I Do Believe It Is Springtime!
We are now, improbably for March in Shanghai, on Day 5 in a wild streak of completely sunny, bright, warm days. Yesterday I went out in a light cotton Thai sun dress with a medium weight cardigan over my shoulders, not convinced that I could shed so many layers before the month was out. I…
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Confessions of a Fauxmad: Notes on Really, Really Wanting a Home
In the past few decades, I’ve lived in approximately 8 cities in 6 countries on four continents. That tally doesn’t include the hundreds of hostels, sofas and floors I called home for most of my early 20s. In the past decade alone- my more settled, grown-up 30s- I’ve lived in 3 cities in two countries…
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A Totally Impractical Expat Interview #17: Edna Zhou
You know what I haven’t done in yonks? Interviewed someone, that’s what. I’m not sure why I re-start the series when I do. It keeps popping up again at odd intervals. I think it may be due to a peculiar combination of my own writer’s block and an annoyance (or impatience) with what I’ve created…
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Notes on Scuba Diving in Thailand (and Elsewhere) for the Non-Amphibious
When I was about five years old I had a dream. It was one of the very few I ever remembered after waking up and is probably the only one I still remember vividly 30 or so years after it was dreamt. I’ll spare you the details, as dreams are generally of little interest to…
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Notes on Memory and Context (and the Decontextualization of Travel)
I have a terrible memory. When I actually stop to think back on my life, to specific moments or sequences of time and events, I often draw a blank. Or if not a blank then a whole bunch of fuzzy blotches punctuated by non sequential images or impressions that may or may not be…
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Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou
I’ve been on a bit of a ‘zhou bender in the past month, flitting around the Eastern seaboard of China with two 4-day stints in Hangzhou and one down in Fuzhou. Given this, I should be writing a top ten list of places to visit, delightful things to see, local delicacies to sample, cultural curiosities…
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Nothing to Say Here (The Solutions Edition): Put A Shirt on That Pig!
For today’s edition of my Shanghai photo series, I have a small task for you. You see, yesterday I saw something confusing. Something I hadn’t seen before in this city. I saw this. Yes, that’s a pig. And yes, she’s wearing her best quilted winter PJs to take the pig for a walk. I had…
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Nothing to Say Here: Shanghai Street Photos (Mops!)
You know what Shanghai is? Shanghai is MOPS. Period. Screw economic prowess, massive deconstruction projects, shiny buildings and nouveau riche bazillionaires and their homicidal spawn and their ¥10,000 bottles of moutai in garish clubs. This city is all about the mop. See?
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Nothing to Say Here: Shanghai Street Photos (Curing Winter Meats)
As you may have noted, my writer’s block is rather acute these days. Oddly enough, this dearth of things to say has coincided with an inexplicable increase in my impulse to take pictures of random things. Of course, these photos aren’t necessarily fit for human consumption as they focus mostly on mops and meats and…
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Nothing to See Here; Kindly Move Along
Once upon a time, I used to keep paper journals where I wrote down everything I saw and thought. I spent long afternoons in pubs and cafes across Europe and Africa, nursing rationed cups of tea and writing down the minutiae of my twenty year old life. I have a box full of those journals…
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Top 4 Tips on How to Traumatize Your Parents When They Come to Visit You
I’d call myself the prodigal daughter except I have yet to return home after my years away in the wilderness. Every year, with irregular clockwork, my kind, brave parents gird their loins, apply for visas, book astronomically priced red-eye flights and come to see me. I repay their loving parental support by allowing these visits…