...to be able to get the illustrated digital version of Ming Li and the Charmed Phoenix for free ( Read more... )

Some of you might remember the paranormal romance I used to post here, I stopped posting due to a bad case of writer's block but things are slowly going back to normal and Viola and Xiaowen are speaking to me again ( Read more... )

“All the children who are held and loved...will know how to love others. Spread these virtues in the world. Nothing more need be done.”

― Meng Zi c. 300 BCE

As usual for this time of the year I'm running from one school to the next, trying to soften the impact of a new country and a new school for kids coming here from China (and Ghana, and Nigeria, but that is more straightforward interpreting than cultural mediation ( Read more... )

" Italy is good: the air is clean; the water is nice, you can keep fish in it and they don't die; food and housing are cheap and health care is free".

" Forgive me for asking (1), mr. F., have you friends here?"

" No, the language is difficult for me, but...In China at the time of Mao Zedong a factory worker was someone, now? An 80-something ( Read more... )

Note to self:

Stay away from writers who say how much they researched their novel.

People who know what they are doing are perfectly aware of how much they don't know about the topic they are writing about, and thread accordingly. People new to the topic often lack the basics that would allow them to really understand what they are reading, and/ ( Read more... )

ysabetwordsmith is helding her monthly Poetry Fishbowl given the coincidence of today's anniversary and the theme of Sleep and Dreams I left a prompt about the trampled dreams of the Tiananmen students, this poem is the result. Thank you, Elizabeth.

The Dream of Freedom
The demonstrations in Tiananmen Square ( Read more... )

 Netizens residing in the People's Republic of China cannot write the date or mention  the numbers 64 (which can, given the Chinese way of expressing time, be constructed as June 4th ) or 35 (since people started writing about May 35th to go around the ban) or 24
(the years since the Tiananmen repression) but even expressions like that year and ( Read more... )

Some time ago I was in the mood for some light, fun reading, I happened across White Tiger by Kylie Chan, the blurb intrigued me, I went with the book and was hooked right from the start.

Let it be said immediately, it isn't a 'perfect' book (if such things even exist) there are moments in which I wish the editing had been tighter, sometimes the ( Read more... )

It has, in many ways, but no matter what some Western businnessmen may think (I've read people complaining in earnest about 'Those troublemaking NGOs from Hong Kong badmouthing the PRC'), the one thing that hasn't changed is the absolute supremacy of the party.

And so, Monsignor Thaddeus Ma Daqing, the 44-year old auxiliary bishop of Shanghai has ( Read more... )