
To be ... or what?
Many apologies for the spotty blogging lately. I’ve been on the road for what feels like months ... because it HAS been months. It...

Middle aged in the Middle Kingdom
Middle age. So named because that’s the migratory destination of one’s body mass over time: The Middle. Love Handles? I wish. Try...

10 life lessons learned at the Minnesota State Fair
Like many expats in the dog days of Shanghai’s late summer, my thoughts turn to home. In the old days, summer was when expat’s practiced...

The next four minutes in China - predicting the very near future
I got an email from a friend in the U.S. a while ago. He said that he’s been reading a lot about China in the news and is suddenly...

An Apple Store a day in China
The Apple Store in Shanghai makes me happy. And I don't mean the warm-puppy-on-a-Hallmark-card or a smile-from-a-friend kind of happy. I...

License to kill
I’ve had a couple of requests for an article I wrote for a local Shanghai magazine a few years ago about getting my driver’s license. ...

Here comes the sun
There is an environmental disaster of epic proportions looming over the great city of Shanghai and it is threatening to change our way of...

Is this a thing now??
I was booking a hotel online and came across the list of amenities...does this mean that, if they don't list "toilet paper", you need to...

Ni Hao, y'all - Country music in China
Like “government intelligence” and “student athlete”, some call “Country Music” the ultimate oxymoron…it may come from the country but it...

A China aural fixation
Not so very long ago, I was sitting in a Chinese railway station awaiting my train which, like the first snowfall, the Second Coming and...