I don’t think culture shock is what most people think it is. Culture shock seems as though it should be that feeling you get when you walk through a foreign food court and see creatures with tentacles on sticks, or the sight of elderly men carrying impossibly heavy baskets of Read more…
Here I use emasculation in the least gender connotated (I’m making up a word here as my vocabulary won’t allow me to find a more suitable alternative) way possible. It has nothing to do with being a man. It is all to do with having a large part of my autonomy Read more…
My first Chinese New Year experience began a couple of weeks after I arrived in the country. I was excited, Chinese New Year in my imagination was a carnival of dragon puppets, fireworks and celebrations. I couldn’t believe my luck at arriving just in time to witness it. I learned Read more…
I did something dumb and landed myself in hospital, only my second medical incident in China since 2018 which was also finger related. I foolishly ran up a flight of stairs whilst at work, the kind of behaviour I would normally reprimand students for exhibiting. I hobbled, I fell and Read more…
In less than a month of it coming out, I sunk around 50 hours into Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. 50 hours. That’s over two days of playing one game. It sounds gross, but then I got onto reflecting on the other numbers that I run up on other aspects of Read more…
Many months after seemingly burying covid in a pit, the virus was more or less a distant memory. There was still an atmosphere of vigilance, masks were still compulsory on public transport. Travel quarantines were unavoidable and stern eyes would follow you around airports. By this point, the UK had Read more…
What’s the best thing about living in China? China takes convenience to another level for almost everything you could want. And with it also being a cheap place to live, anything you want becomes even easier to get. Arriving in China for me was like a simultaneous shuffle into the Read more…
It’s funny. Great leaps forward in technology seem to just slide into prominence quietly. I always expect these things to explode not with a whimper but with a bang. I still don’t fully understand 3D printers but they seem like alien technology, no one seems to be making a fuss about them though. Chat Read more…
This was written sometime in 2021. Looking back at this, some of it has aged badly. Nobody could predict how things would unfold in the following years. I stand by some of the things I said here but as later instalments of ‘COVID in China’ will make clear, this was Read more…
Week 3 of dry month. I did a month without drinking back in 2021 so I know what to expect. I’m sure over time I may have done one without realising it at some point. The difficulty of the challenge is completely dependent on your relationship with alcohol. Mine has Read more…