CHINA
Country Overview:
“Love the food, hate the government”
I arrived in China in May 2013 and left August 2020. I taught English for awhile, did my master’s of politics & foreign policy at Tsinghua University, worked for a year at China Today, and then two years at Xinhua News Agency. I spent most of my time in Beijing, but also traveled to Shanghai, Wuhan, Inner Mongolia, Shenzhen, Panjin, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Qingdao, Xi’an, Sanya, Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Shanghai 2
Shanghai is great. Every time I come to this city, I’m reminded why it consistently ranks first or top two for “best cities to live in China”
Shanghai
The traditional looking pictures were taken at Yuyuan park in Shanghai. The Chinese characters I’m pointing at is a chéng yǔ - a Chinese set expression, often made up of 4 characters or two couplets of 4 characters each, often alluding to a story or historical quotation; idiom; proverb; or saying. This is one too hard to describe. Something about always working towards your goals and the mountain is high but you go in a circle and reach the point where you were going. It’s confusing…
Malaxiangguo
I like this dish because it’s sort of a Mongolian BBQ style food, where you choose the ingredients you want, then they cook it up and serve it all in a giant bowl.
Girl Power
Something funny about seeing these PLA guys next to “The Power of Girl.” Maybe it was intentional. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it’s Maybelline.
Happy Halloween!
Quailman for Halloween. Was it a niche costume? Absolutely. Was it worth it? You bet
Pizza Festival
The 2018 Beijing Pizza Festival was super cool. They host it to give all the pizza places in the city a chance to come together and serve their best pizza before the city of 20+ million people vote for the best slice in town. It was cool to see all the different types of pizza, including Baozza (pizza filling in a traditional Chinese steamed bun), and pizza using local Chinese spices and ingredients.
