• China, pt. 5: Friends and Hospitality

    Despite a lot of distaste for Chinese politics and the state of the environment, I have to point out that the people are very hospitable and friendly, even if sometimes it comes across as creepy to someone with a Western background. It’s not hard to make friends if you’re able to communicate at all, and…

  • China, pt. 4: Good food, bad food, spicy food, dog food

    In Nanchang, southern-style food is the most popular, meaning spicy and salty foods made with lots of chili oil and lajiao (spicy peppers). I cannot emphasize enough that nearly everything is made with oil. Fried foods are in no short supply, and even fresh veggies come swimming in oil.   One popular snack is latiao (spicy strips)…

  • China, pt. 3: Education and Environment

    The sound of chanting voices would often float up into my flat through the living room window. Below, groups of students would be there, standing in circles, chanting the same words over and over again. Sometimes while walking on the street to class or out for lunch, students would be alone, walking back and forth,…

  • China, Pt. 2: Politics, Racism, and Being Gay

    To understand anything about China, you have to know a little bit about its history. China occupies one of the longest continuously inhabited spaces on the planet, and currently has a population of nearly 1.4 billion. China was governed under dynastic systems until the turn of the 20th century, and it was only in 1949…

  • China, Pt. 1: Accommodations

    First, let me preface all of this by saying that an entire country is not defined by one city; neither is China mono-cultural or monolingual, despite what Chinese government entities might have you believe. I do not, in the following post, mean to generalize over all of China, over all Chinese people, cultures, or cities.…

  • The Liberal Mafia

    “You’re very handsome!” the driver repeated in Chinese, rolling the window down to let the tropically humid air in. “Thank you,” I said again, without a clue how else to respond to such a statement. In the front seat, my supervisor spoke quickly with someone on the phone, and to my right, the female version…