Hey! Well, this is it. I’m headed out tomorrow. I’m done with a year teaching English, done with a year in Jishou, soon-to-be missing the mouth-numbing food of Xiangxi. A week ago, I was nervous. There’s an uncountable amount of things that can go wrong on a trip like this. Some days, things as simple … Continue reading The First Pedal Strokes
This is a message to everyone who’s followed me so far. I’m currently about 2 months from the end of a year of teaching in Hunan Province in China—and two months away from the wide open road. This summer, I’ll bike more than 2,500 km across China in the first phase of the project that … Continue reading T-minus 2 Months: My Climate Story, A Sketch of My Message
The training started today, on a bike four sizes to small. Continue reading First Bike Ride of Spring
I’ve been in China for almost eight months now, and I have never once seen a young, able-bodied person ask for charity. The beggars I see on the street often prostrate themselves on the street and grovel, waving their disability for everyone to see. (For more on the stigmatization and abuse of disabled people in … Continue reading WEEKLY POST–The Countryside: A Photo Journal
Chinese Definitions from Pleco Chinese-English Dictionary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu Continue reading On Being Lost: Part 3
Technical difficulties have forced an extra-late and extra-low-resolution version of this post, but here it is. Let me know what you think. Continue reading On Being Lost: Learning Languages
I was gone all day today hiking to countryside villages to give out scholarships to middle schoolers. I have plenty to say about it, but I’ll save most for a future post. For now just let me say that Spring has come to Xiangxi. It was warm and sunny all day and the peach blossoms … Continue reading The most popular song in China, New Post Monday
Re-entry (Or: The wonder of distance) The energetic current of passing period echoed through the rusting yellow bars of the classroom’s windows. I glanced out at students laughing in the first day of spring, unfocused thoughts tingling my brain. Was it really this easy? Alex, my American boss, told me at the end of a hurried training … Continue reading WEEKLY POST: Re-entry
Christmas in late February. Family time, daily walks through near-deserted streets, full tables, and hours of couch-lounging after–all feel eerily similar to winter holidays at home in America. Staying with my student 周婷/Air’s Family gives me a window into the ever-evolving Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations. Despite being banned during the cultural revolution, the Lunar New Year has … Continue reading Chinese New Year
360 by bike 