rambling

So I'm legal for another year. Well, a year and a bit, actually. The whole residence permit extension process went through without a hitch.... for my two colleagues. For me, well... I arrived just before lunch time this morning with colleague K to collect...

So Sarkozy deems it necessary to send two envoys to mend fences and patch up France's relations with China. Opération rapprochement. Nicolas Sarkozy tente par tous les moyens de renouer avec Pékin alors que plusieurs manifestations anti-occidentales ont...

And so it seems Chinese people are making themselves heard in France. But two little things stuck out at me, a little comparison suggests itself. In the second article, the one about Chinese protesting in Paris, we have this: Un rassemblement pour réaffirmer...

Lately events in far-off lands have been bugging me. There's stuff I want to write about, but this frustration, disgust and anger with events far away which have no direct impact on my life and which, of course, I have absolutely no control over, has...

So we picked up a few DVDs yesterday afternoon, among which was 李杨/Li Yang's 《盲山》/ Blind Mountain . I'm wondering if this is going to turn into a "Blind" series, each film exploring another of modern China's social ills. If Li Yang is not careful, he...

So I'm trying to delay going to the office to mark tests- which desperately need to be got out of the way so I can focus on HSK prep (hahahahhahahhahahahahaha!) and I don't get swamped with the next round of tests coming- oh, straight after HSK. Anyway,...

So I did it, I went out and wandered round a bit. Well, first I took bus 34 round to the east gate of the Temple of Heaven, then the subway Line 5 up to Dongdan, then transferred to an incredibly crowded Line 1 and rode that out to Nanlishi Lu. From there...

Some thoughts that have been ruminating on the remnants of my brain since that torch lighting ceremony in Greece not long ago.... I think it was the (well warranted) cynicism of this post that finally spurred me into writing these thoughts down... No,...

Just a few random thots from this morning's trip out to ErWai: You know the courtroom scene near the beginning of Police Story where the defence lawyer is picking holes in Jackie Chan's testimony by pointing out how many buses were scheduled to pass the...

We had to go to the Foreign Languages Bookstore on Wangfujing today, and, well, never take me to a bookstore- I'll happily wander around the store sifting through all the books for hours on end, closely examining anything of even the slightest interest....