Last night, unlike most HRSFen, I lit no candles, recited no chants, and did not Not Burn a Clock. I'd planned to say some sort of prayer to mark the occasion, but I completely forgot, and there was nothing to remind me. That's because China, a godless land if ever there was one, does not receive the gift of a holy hour from Chronos every fall, and ( Read more... )

As I've mentioned, last Monday was National Celebration Day (国庆节 Guo Qing Jie) here, meaning that pretty much everything closed for the week and everyone in China tried to visit somewhere else in China. Here's how I spent my Golden Week (黄金周), up through where I left for Inner Mongolia. I'll write that later, because food.

( Recap! )

It's been kind of a frantic last few days ( Read more... )

It's amazing how fast standards change.

I spent about RMB 120 today getting supplies for a Rosh Hashana get-together I'm hosting tonight for the H-Y fellows (as well as dry_martini and occultatio's friend Becca, who is randomly also studying at Beida). Now, I got a lot of stuff with that 120 bucks: apples, an apple peeler, a fruit knife, three loaves of bread almost ( Read more... )

It seems like everyone in the world is moving right now, and I am no exception. We're (slowly) settling into the new apartment, and theoretically we'll even get keys today once we pay rent! (The landlord's getting back today, so we couldn't actually do anything contractual until now.) We're also getting a bed and some room dividers delivered! We ( Read more... )

I'm in Beijing! And I have registered and PKU, and Norman and I found an apartment! (Or more properly, a friend of Norman's family who lives in Tianjin found the apartment.) There are some issues to be resolved, mostly having to do with paying for said apartment (they want us to pay more than we actually have in China), but we'll work something out ( Read more... )

It's starting to feel real. After a trip to the consulate today, I am now the proud possessor of a 12-month, multiple-entry, X-class (student) visa to the People's Republic of China. I also have a bottle of oral typhoid vaccine and a bandage on each shoulder covering a shot for Hep B (which I needed) and for tetanus (which I didn't, but which the ( Read more... )

I just noticed that the English-language version of the Chongqing website (http://english.cq.gov.cn) includes a link to the Chongqing page on Wikipedia. The irony, of course, is that you wouldn't actually be able to follow that link from within China. They know who their audience is!

That is

Why Cody should have picked a different concentration.I agree with most of the article, though some of the stuff he thinks is hard (tones, for example) I actually don't have a problem with, while he misses one of the things I find most annoying: the lack of firm grammar rules. Oh sure, there are a few, but it doesn't come close to a European ( Read more... )

Today actually turned into a moderately productive day! Huzzah! Eleven interviews done, most in the Yangjiaping business district in the southern suburb of Jiulongpo.* I still won't get anywhere near my original goal in terms of number of interviews, but this was good progress ( Read more... )