Fireworks and Festivals and Tigers! Oh My!

The barrage started on a Friday morning——a few distant booms that soon led to louder explosions and fizzling sounds drawing closer to my apartment. As the day progressed, sotoo did their frequency until night fell and a     

Africa,My Dear Africa!

WHEN you grow up in a foreign country,as I did,it can be difficult to accept that maybe you don’t belong there. I spent a mere 21 years of my life in Uganda,Tanzania and Kenya,so I can imagine how hard it must have been for multi-generation colonists of those and other African countries to face up to the unwelcome truth that they may not be welcome there. It came as a shock to my family,on an otherwise unremarkable Sunday in 1973,to be informed that we would have to leave our homeland within 60 days (we were very lucky:few Europeans were given longer than 48 hours).     

Just My Cup of Tea!

正I recently played a modern-day hostess for a black tea commercial in Beijing.As an American,it was a great opportunity to learn more about China’s traditional beverage,which I have come to occasionally enjoy alongside my habitual coffee fix.We filmed the commercial in a Western-style hotel on the northeast outskirts of Beijing.     

My House My Home

FOR people like me in China, roughly 20 or 30 years ago, the modest apartments allotted to us by the state were our homes, and I took it for granted that mine belonged to me. At that time, all apartments allotted to people were state-owned, nevertheless we felt more assured and confi dent than I think people do today, having to pay as-tronomical prices to put a house in their name, as verifi ed by their property ownership certificates. The deed has a sunset     

GO! GO! GO!

Rowers compete fiercely in a dragon boat race at Stanley Main Beach in Hong Kong on June 12,during this year’s Dragon Boat Festival.More than 240 teams took part in the celebration of the traditional Chinese holiday.     

My House and My Mortgage

DESPITE the mortgage repayments I've been making since December 2005.it will be another year before I actually see my new home.My boyfriend and     

A Whole New Ball Game!

<正>From a faceless Brooklyn boy who was the sixth among seven siblings,Stephon Marbury achieved fame due to his prowess as a basketball player.From the NBA,he switched gears in 2010 to pursue his career in China,winning three Chinese Basketball Association(CBA)championships with Beijing Ducks and being hailed as the greatest foreign player ever to     

安全!安全!

上海塌楼、南京车祸、重庆滑坡、湖南撞车、成都纵火……发生在近期的一系列安全事故，又一次震惊了我们。马斯洛的需要层次中，安全仅排在最前列的“饮食男女”之后。     

Can do! Chengdu!

CHENGDU can do!" exclaimed Ge Jun, managing director of Intel China, when he witnessed the one billionth chip roll off the production line at the company’s Chengdu plant in January 2012. Now, his words have become the tagline of Chengdu’s promotional ads. From June 6 to 8, the southwestern city hosted the 2013     

My silk Road

This autumn, during the Na-tional Day holiday, I wentwith a group of foreign expertsfrom Nanjing University to one ofthe two places in China famed tobe paradise on earth, Suzhou. Theother is Hangzhou, described byMarco Polo as the "celestial city"where "abundant delights [...]might lead an inhabitant to imag-ine himself in paradise". Polo de-scribes the inhabitants of Suzhouas having "vast quantities of rawsilk, and they manufacture it, notonly for their own consumption,     

加州西梅，我的最爱!

美国加州西梅是用经日光照射成熟后的新鲜梅子,干制而成。它和新鲜的梅子一样,富含同样的维生素、矿物质和纤维,且便于随时享用。据最新科学研究,加州西梅富含抗氧化剂。抗氧化剂能延缓人体衰老,保持青春活力。     

My First Marathon

THE decision on where to run my first marathon was an easy one: I chose my second home, Xiamen, a beautiful city with long beaches and a lovely climate. The route for the Xiamen marathon, which runs along the Island Ring Road, must be the most beautiful in the world. This year was the city's third to hold a marathon, and it attracted 15,000 participants from several countries. I downloaded a training program     

My Two Homes

Irecently hadto fly back to Australia to have some urgently needed surgery. I have had the surgery, and my doctor has given me the all-clear to travel internationally, and to go back to teaching again. I will return to China very soon. Now, I am writing from my study in my modest but comfortable home in Robertson, Queensland. This is a very wealthy suburb of     

My China Ties

To go sight-seeing in the mythical People's Re-public of China or to go there for in-depth studyof its ancient civilization are two different things. Ihave been given a good opportunity to live amongsuch a group of people: honest, diligent, tenacious,careful, seeking progress, peace-loving, dedicatedto truth, goodness and beauty... In my youth I wasdrawn to the abstruse philosophies of Laozi andConfucius and determined to go to their homelandon a study tour. As the years went by and with theknowledge I had accumulated, my desire to learnthe thought of the two geniuses-to discard the drossand clear away all the evils in life in pursuit of the     

My German Daughter

IRAAnetteBuseckisagraduateofHumboldtUniversityinGermany.Since1995she'sbeentoChinathreetimesatherownexpensestolearnChinese.MywifeisaChinese-GermaninterpreterandanoldfriendofIra'sparents.SowhenIrawasstudyinginBeijing,wemaderoominourapartmentandinvitedhertostaywithusonweekends.ThefirsttimeshecametoBeijing,IraspokealittleChinese,muchlikeachildjustlearningtotalk.IrememberthefirsttimeItookherbacktoschoolandshesoftlyaskedmetocomepickherupthenextweekend.Thesceneisimprintedonmymindbecauseitremi…