Roubaozi is in town. He arrived Friday for a few days in the real world before he flies off home to Southland for the summer winter holiday. Funnily enough, this means I've spent a fair bit of ...

Seems today is a day for the unexpected. Thanks to Responsible China, I found my way to this article about China's shrinking deserts. Yep, you read that right. And I did say today is a day for the ...

So I came across this article most likely via Danwei. It's about the Beijing Guanting Wind Farm, or it's installation. I saw that it was called 'Guanting' and thought, wow, that must be in ...

Is the news that the story of the fake baozi being faked itself faked? Have we gone from fakes to fake fakes to fake fake fakes? Or did somebody slip something a little funny into my jiaozi? Why ...

And even then you'd still have space for the other seven   Wikipedia is cool and I like like having open access to it again, but there are some pretty huge, glaring wholes in it. Take this section ...

The last two days I've been waking up early. Too early, this morning, as in I was already wide awake when the alarm went off for lzh to get up and go to work. The result: I want to be trying to ...

The three days I spent last week on the history of Yanqing left me worn out. Well, first of all, I'm not used to spending so much time reading Chinese, let alone translating. And then.... I dunno, ...

So what's the big deal about Facebook? I remember checking it out a while ago and thinking, Uh, no, I don't think so. Then today I read this almost glowing review. And then in the comment thread ...

I haven't managed to find a lot of information about the period between the Shanrong and, well, now. Mostly just a few tantalising little glimpses into what may have been happening. I suppose for ...

So a sudden, but fortunately short, powercut has delayed the start of today's session of banging my head against the brickwall the Shanrong people have become. Actually, I did manage to find some ...

Well, kind of. So when lzh got home yesterday evening I told her what I'd been up to. She said, well, of course you'd be better off researching Shanxi. She's got a point there- her family fled ...

So it's slow progress. I mean, my Chinese reading isn't quite up to the task, but I still feel like I'm getting somewhere. The Yanqing County Government website (should be a link in the blogroll ...

Everybody always says Sichuan food is the best food in the world. Well, Sichuan people are always saying that, and a lot of others agree that Sichuan food is pretty damn good. Personally, although ...

Once again, thanks to Danwei (there's a very good reason why Danwei and ESWN are the first two blogs I read every day), I found my way to the China Heritage Quarterly. The current issue focusses ...

So I thought I should just stop being paranoid and use the broadband. It's weird, though, getting used to this desktop's keyboard, especially considering how this desk is set up, with the keyboard ...

Don't worry, I'm still here. It's just that I have to come over to the office to get a China Uselesscom signal or use dial up, so I'm spending a bit less time online. A lot less time. And that's ...

Congratulations to Corporal Willy Apiata, the first New Zealander to win a Victoria Cross since World War Two. In the words of Helen Clark, as quoted in that NZ Herald article: "Corporal ...

So we're all moved in to our new digs down at BeiGongDa. It was a bit of a mission, but we made it. Fortunately Lao Ma, my former student, volunteered his car for the mission. Still needed a taxi ...