09.14.08
Posted in Announcements at 12:42 pm by Benjamin Ross
I just wanted to chime in with a quick update of my wherabouts for those of you who have been following the blog. This has been one of the most incredible summers of my life, and after three months, it is finally winding down. I was supposed to leave Beijing on the 9th and head off to Tokyo, for what is now becoming my annual 3-day stop over in Japan. During my last 2 days in Beijing, I had 2 different visitors stay in my house, and combined with the normal tasks one completes before leaving China (mainly buying stuff, i.e. eye glasses, pu er tea, funky Beijing t-shirts, etc.) I wasn’t exactly ready to leave by the time my last evening rolled around. I decided to do something I’ve always wanted to do; stay in China after I’ve already told everybody I’d left. This gave me three extra days without all the text messages, excess gifts, last minute phone calls, “I gotta see you before you leave” demands, and other hoopala which go along with leaving China. I highly recommend it to anybody making an exit from the Middle Kingdom.
So anyway, I am in Tokyo now, so look for this blog to shift to more Japanese related content for the next week or two. I will be back in Chicago on the 17th, and soon after we will be back to regularly scheduled programming. Thanks to everybody who’s followed this blog during Summer ‘08. More updates on the way from the Sun Kingdom.
Permalink
08.07.08
Posted in Announcements, Food and Drink at 3:51 pm by Benjamin Ross
As Beijing puts the finishes up its remaining last minute touches for the Olympics, I have been doing the same for How To Order Chinese Food Dot Com. In the past 24 hours, I have added several new dishes, brushed up some of the descriptions, and most importantly, the guides are now available in PDF format. This means you can now either print them out or save them to your iPhone or PDA, and take them along when you dine. The PDFs can all be accessed on this page, as well as on the original page of the respective ordering guide.
For those who are not already familiar with it, How To Order Chinese Food Dot Com is a site that I started last summer just before I left China. The idea behind the site was twofold. Firstly, it’s a guide for ordering food in China for people who can not speak Chinese. Secondly, it’s an educational tool for those who can already speak some Chinese but want to improve their culinary vocabulary. In addition to providing information on ordering Chinese food, there is also an extensive Chinese culinary glossary with everything from a leafy vegetable disambiguation page to a page on the Chinese terminology of American fast food.
I got the idea for How To Order Chinese Food Dot Com from my own first experiences in China. At that time I could neither speak nor read Chinese. I found that the most efficient way to order food was to have Chinese friends write the names of all the dishes I liked in a notebook with the English translations next to them. I couldn’t read or pronounce a single character of what they wrote, but that didn’t matter. Whenever I dined out, I would go armed with my notebook. When the waitress came to my table, I would point to the different characters in the notebook and the waitress would know exactly what I wanted to order.
How To Order Chinese Food Dot Com is designed to do all of this for you. The site is broken down into multiple guides. Each guide is based on a theme. The different themes are based around particular foods (i.e. pork dishes, veggie dishes, rice based dishes), as well as by region (i.e. Hunan, Sichuan, Dongbei). Each guide contains a list of entrees, with the name in Chinese characters and pinyin (Romanization), as well as an English description and a photo. With the guides in hand, you will no longer be confined to eating only in restaurants with English menus, or bringing along a translator. Try them out, and be sure to send me any feedback you might have.
Permalink
07.12.08
Posted in Announcements, Travel Log (Asia) at 11:22 pm by Benjamin Ross
Well, it’s been a rather hectic last two days due to work-related reasons I have no need to bore you with on this blog. But the good news is early tomorrow morning (very early tomorrow morning) I am finally going to get out of Beijing for my first extended trip this summer. At 7:15 am I will be taking the direct super-fast 8 hour train to Haerbin.
Haerbin is the capital of Heilongjiang province, and in the heart of what is called “dongbei,” which means “Eastnorth.” (the Chinese denote the east-west direction before the north-south one, hence “southwest” would be “westsouth,” etc.) I plan to use Haerbin as my starting point, and then slowly meander back to Beijing. On the way back, I am aiming to stop in at Yanji, the Korean autonomous prefecture in Jilin, and possibly Dalian, and of course several random rural podunk towns which always seem to be the most interesting places in China. From past experience, I have always found it is always easiest to travel in China with no reservations, no concrete plans, and carrying nothing more than what can fit in a small backpack. This always makes for the most spontaneous and flexible Middle Kingdom excursions. I’ll try to post regularly from smoky net bars along the way.
Permalink
07.10.08
Posted in Announcements at 1:02 am by Benjamin Ross
For the past 24 hours I’ve been working on some site maintenance which should alleviate the problems people have been having with accessing this site. So in case anybody has been noticing anything strange with the site over the past 24 hours, that is probably why. As of now, everything should be functioning properly, but if anybody encounters any problems from this point on (i.e. pages not opening, pages opening increcibly slowly, comments not appearing, links going to the wrong places, etc.) please send me an EMAIL to bensinchina at yahoo dot com. Be sure to let me know what problem occurred, approximately what time it happened, and what country you are accessing this site from. Thanks for all your patience and help, especially to those who answered the questionnaire last week. Expect regular daily China-based content to start flowing again tomorrow.
Permalink
06.28.08
Posted in Announcements at 9:24 pm by Benjamin Ross
As many of you have probably noticed, my blog has been having some problems of late. Sometimes it loads great, other times not at all, and lately here in Beijing it has been opening, just incredibly slowly. I have narrowed the problem down to three possible reasons, but I need a little feedback in order to get this solved. So if you are reading this and have the time please send me an e-mail to bensinchina at yahoo.com answering these 3 simple questions.
What country are you accessing this site from? (If you’re in mainland China, please list province and city too.)
Have you experienced any times where this site would not open at all?
Have you experienced any times where the site loaded, but very slowly?
If you haven’t experienced any of these problems, please by all means let me know as well. I need to know where the problems exist, and where they don’t. Thanks for everybody’s help, and hopefully this situation will be rectified ASAP. Hope everyone’s enjoying their summer.
Permalink
06.23.08
Posted in Announcements at 8:10 pm by Benjamin Ross
Just like Beijing is preparing its city infrastructure for the upcoming Olympics, I have been trying to get my blog up date for 8/8/08 as well. One of the changes was to do something about the mountain of spam comments I have been receiving of late, which are now taking a rather large chunk of my time to sift through. In doing some editing to the PHP I made a little mistake which disabled the comments, only to uncover it today. Everything should be working well again, and if anybody has any more problems with it, shoot me over an e-mail to bensinchina at yahoo.com.
Permalink
05.30.08
Posted in Announcements at 6:24 pm by Benjamin Ross
I’m going back to China!…only for the summer this time though.
About this time last year, after living in China 3.5 years, there was little doubt in my mind that my time in China was nearing an end, and I was ready to acclimate back to my life as an American. However, I always thought it would have been a shame to live in China from 2004-2007, only to miss the Beijing Olympics and all of the hoopala surrounding them. Nonetheless, I have been spending the past seven months settling into my life in Chicago, and must say I do see myself living here long-term. Chicago is the only location in the universe which is both Midwestern and cosmopolitan, and I can’t think of any better location for suburban boy from Kansas to live out the remainder of his 20’s. With that in mind, I had been resigned to the fact I had the amazing years in China, but the Olympics would be an event I’d just have to let pass by.
Two weeks ago, I received an offer to work on an ethnography project from the company I had worked for during my last year in China. After several days of deliberation, I decided that it was a once and a lifetime opportunity I could not pass up on. (I would have made an announcement earlier, but needed to get all the details taken care of, plus tell my current employer, before making the decision public.)
On Friday the 13th of June I will be flying to Beijing. The project will begin promptly, and then wrap up around early to mid July. After that, I am planning to return to Fuzhou to see friends for a few weeks, as well as do some more traveling within China. I won’t finalize my itinerary until I get to China, but at this point, I am leaning towards Dongbei (Northeast China) since it’s one of the regions I’ve still never been to, plus it’s not too far from Beijing.
The Olympics begin on 8/8/08 at 8:08:08 pm, so I should be back in Beijing by early August. To be frank, I’ve never been much a fan of Olympic sports, and am not really concerned whether or not I see too many of the events. My reasons for wanting to be in China this August revolve much more around experiencing how the country reacts to the events, rather than the events themselves. Hosting the Olympics is a major event for any country, but no Olympiad has ever been more significant to its host country than this summer’s games will be for China. It is going to be a coming out party for the New China, and I want to be there to experience everything first hand.
I will be leaving China on September 10 and spending 3 days in Tokyo before returning to Chicago on September 14. During the next few months, I plan to keep this blog updated with reports from Beijing and give “Midwesterner in the Middle Kingdom” the kick in the 屁股 that it’s badly needed ever since I left China. It’s going to be an incredible summer and I’m already ecstatic that everything is finally coming together. One World, One Dream, One Ridiculously Expensive Plane Ticket…See y’all in Beijing!
Permalink
05.16.08
Posted in Announcements at 8:53 am by Benjamin Ross
I can’t tell if it’s that I no longer live in China, or if the amount of intelligent discourse on China in the blogosphere is actually dwindling, but it seems like less and less well-written sino-dribble has been coming out in the past few months. Lately, I find myself desperately looking for new perspectives on China, and not finding much. Not that there’s anything wrong with teaching English for a year in China and blogging about people eating fish heads and spitting on the streets, but a truly poignant blog will provide insight on a deeper level. With that being said, here are some of my own current favorites. If anybody has any others to recommend, please leave a comment with a hyperlink, and a brief description for all to see.
Sinosplice – I’m sure most of you have seen it before, but John Pasden arguably puts together the most consistently thought-provoking China blog out there. His focus is on language, but also covers many of the other nuances of Chinese culture that you start to notice when you have been living in China for 7.7 years. His entries are typically only a few paragraphs long, but rarely do I read them without learning something new, or getting a quick laugh. John also currently works for Praxis Language, which puts out Chinese Pod (and Spanish Pod) which are both provide excellent language learning material for those on the go.
Opposite End of China – Michael recently announced he is leaving Xinjiang for Beijing, but fortunately plans to continue focusing his blog on his home for the past 3 years. Xinjiang is a fascinating place, an entirely different world from Eastern China, and Michael provides some excellent press, for this under-represented region.
China Law Blog – There are many people in this world who are well-versed in the world of law. There are also many people who are well-versed on China. What there aren’t many of, are those who fit both criteria. This is where China Law Blog comes in. It’s one of the few places online where you can read about China from a legal and business perspective, from someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
Hao Hao Report – It’s not a blog per se, but this aggregate site, managed by Ryan McLaughlin (aka The Humanaught) compiles some of the best stories from around the China blogosphere and beyond.
Permalink
04.27.08
Posted in Announcements, Down in Chinatown at 12:16 am by Benjamin Ross
Chicago’s Chinatown is making national news, but unfortunately it is because of a deadly incident which occurred Friday during which a semi-truck crashed into a the Cermak-Chinatown “L” station. 2 people were killed and 22 were injured, when the semi plowed into the escalator leading up to the train platform. This is the station I use several times a week en route to Chinatown, and I had actually been on the platform just hours before the accident. I’ve always found the intersection to be a particularly dangerous one, especially due to the proximity of vehicles exiting the Dan Ryan Expressway, but never imagined an accident of such magnitude. Service at the station, part of the CTA Red Line, the main north-south artery for Chicago rapid transit, reopened Saturday morning.
Permalink
03.28.08
Posted in Announcements, Personal Anecdotes, Sino-US, Relations and Comparisons at 12:13 am by Benjamin Ross
Generally when blogging, I try to keep myself out of the spotlight, but it’s been a while since I’ve written a personal update, so I wanted to scribble down a few words to let readers know what I’ve been up to of late.
As most of you probably know, I moved back to the US in late August, and then moved to Chicago in late October. It is hard to believe that I have already been here 5 months. Overall, I have been extremely pleased with my decision to move to Chicago. I came here for two reasons primarily. Firstly, I wanted to live in a large cosmopolitan city, but also wanted to remain in the Midwest. Secondly, after being abroad for 3 years plus, I wanted to be close to friends whom I had rarely seen over the past few years. Coincidentally, most of the people I care about (excluding immediate family) all live in Chicago. Thus, the Windy City was the logical choice.
Chicago is an excellent city from both a cultural and a practical standpoint. With its history of immigration, Chicago, like New York City or San Francisco is a salad bowl of cultures from around the globe. On any given day, I could eat dim sum, have a conversation in Mandarin, buy chilies at a Mexican grocery store, drink Zywiec in a Polish night club, get a ride from an African cab driver who speaks 6 languages, go out for Korean BBQ, overhear a conversation in Fuzhou hua, buy tamales from a street vendor, and the list goes on. It has been reinforcing my image of what it means to live in America.
I have also been enjoying the convenience, financial freedom, and sense of ecological and social responsibility which comes along with not owning a car (something which is not possible in many American cities). Chicago’s rapid transit, while old and dilapidated, is also one of the most extensive systems in the country. I live a 7 minute walk from a subway line which in another 10 minutes takes me downtown, from which point I can get virtually anywhere in the city via the 8 different lines. Rarely is there a location within the city which I can’t reach on the train.
As for my employment, I am currently working 2 jobs. I spend my days as a medical interpreter for a company based out of Cincinnati. Several days a week they send me to different hospitals in the Chicago area where I am an interpreter between doctors and Chinese patients who can’t speak enough English to get through their appointments. In the evenings, I work 4 nights a week as an English teacher at a local training school, not so different from the ubiquitous 培训学校 in China. My students are all adults and come from a variety of backgrounds. The largest percentage of them are Polish, but I also have students from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Austria, Mongolia, Thailand, Korea, Turkey, and Benin. It has been an interesting and completely different experience from teaching Chinese students, and I plan to elaborate on this more in a future entry. Needless to say, I have learned more about Eastern Europe in the past few months than I had in my entire life.
Even though I am back in the US now, I am doing my best to keep in touch with my life in China. People often ask me if I miss China, and I my answer is “no.” This is the same answer I would give people in China when they ask if I missed my life in the US. To me, my life in China has always seemed separate from my life in the US, like an alternative universe. When I am in the US, I think about the US and when I was in China, I thought about China.
That being said, in the past few weeks I have not been able to help myself from thinking about the events which have been transpiring in China. And the more I think, the more frustrated I become, not so much with the events themselves, but with the way they are covered by the media, both Western and Chinese. While the Chinese media does its typical song and dance of selective reporting and damage control, the Western media continue to feed us the same over sensationalized, one-sided, Hollywood dribble we’ve come to expect in post 9/11 America. Neither side is lying, yet nobody is reporting the whole truth. With one side seeking to numb the masses and the other in dire need of sales and ratings, the true losers are the readers. The resulting ignorance on both sides only provides more fuel for the fire, and I fear this trend will continue throughout the impending Olympics.
With all this in mind, I am going to do my best to take a trip back to China for the festivities this summer. While plans are still up in the air, and by no means definite, it is my desire to keep current on the country I spent nearly 1/8 of my life living in, and besides, if the proverbial shit hits the fan, I plan to be there to pick up the droppings. In the interim, I’ll be in Chicago, which for now, and the foreseeable future, is home.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
