Today was a special day: the day I managed to acquire sheets. My Fulbright stipend hasn’t started yet, and the guy who handles these things have been on vacation for the last two weeks, so I’ve been reluctant to spend money on anything other than food, rent, and the various administrative fees involved in getting my residence permit. Since moving ( Read more... )

Mid-Autumn Festival (zhong qiu jie) is a Chinese holiday for getting together with family, and eating yummy food, and drinking tea, and looking at the moon if you can. It was too cloudy for moon-gazing, and my family is all across the ocean, but I got the rest of the experience tonight.

One of our neighbors is a friend of my roommate’s family ( ( Read more... )

As I said in an earlier post, I’m going to be in China for a total of ten months. Although I’m hoping to make some research trips (and maybe one or two fun trips!) while I’m here, the vast majority of these ten months will be spent in Beijing, where I happen to be right this minute. For those of you who have not had a chance to visit this city, or ( Read more... )

I was going to write a post talking about Beijing, but I am tired out from my morning trip to the health clinic. The Travel Health Clinic is outside the 5th Ring Road (more on that when I get around to that Beijing post), and getting there took me nearly an hour, with subway, bus, and walking all taking about a third of that. The best part was when ( Read more... )

• Number of times I’ve seen other foreigners on the street: 11
• Number of times my roommate Bing has pointed out other foreigners by saying “Look, more of your kind” with well-feigned contempt: 5
• Number of times a Chinese person has told Bing that he’s practically a foreigner himself, what with the 10+ years he’s spent in the US: 1
• Number of times I have ( Read more... )

Things I have done since arriving in Beijing two days ago:

• Gone to the airport twice
• Served as a Japanese<->Chinese translator for a Mongolian woman and a Chinese shuttle bus driver
• Met my landlord
• Won the non-car bed in an epic rock-paper-scissors battle
• consumed a lot of tea

I've tried all my other social networks, but I forgot about LJ. My friend Bingyu desperately needs a place to stay for the second half of June and first half of July (we're both taking Manchu at Harvard). Does anyone have a spare room they could sublet out? Or a couch they could loan out? Or know of someone who does? Bing's nice, and very quiet.

(If anyone cares)

School!
My general exams/quals are this April, so I am finalizing my major and minor field reading lists. My fields are going to be: Qing history, Anglo-American legal history, and Early Chinese literature. Hopefully these will meld together and turn me into someone who can confidently fake her way through China studies and legal ( Read more... )

I'm in town. Anyone want to hang out tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday? Email/text/call me!

I am back from Taiwan! If you asked for a postcard and gave me an address, you will probably get one in the next couple of weeks.

I miss Taipei already, but it's also good to be back. How was your summer?