Category: cultural incidents

Framed

Toward the end of last year, I picked up a paper cut while in Beijing of one of my favorite passages. Last week I headed out with one of my Chinese tutors to find a place to frame… Read More

Kindess of a stranger

Saturday I headed to the orphanage in the peculiar weather of a hail storm. I am not absolutely certain, but I believe this was my first hail storm in China. Hailing a taxi, I didn’t care how much he… Read More

Interruptions

This week I’ve been asking for a spirit of “interruptability” (I know it’s not a word, but I would like to petition for its entrance into the dictionary). With 130 midterms to grade, lessons to plan, and grad… Read More

Holy cow!

One of the first lessons you learn in China is never to say you like something. An offhand, “oooh, I like that” about any object from food to trinket equates in many peoples’ minds to “oooh, give that… Read More

Olympic spirit

After a couple deceivingly balmy days, the weather has turned again. Hopefully this chilly blast will be short-lived. However, the warmth lasted long enough to bring out buds. The short season of cherry blossoms is one of my… Read More

Broom black hole

My apartment has developed a black hole for brooms and mops. A couple weeks ago I was looking for my broom. Towards the end of last semester, I started having the lady who cleans Sarah’s, the Wu’s, and the… Read More

Changeable weather

Spring in Siping…beware of flying bags My first year in China, I used to snicker a little bit when students would tell me, “Be careful, Miss Katherine; the weather is very changeable.” The phrase “the weather is very… Read More

Ten minutes in Burma

Thailand gives a thirty day tourist visa free of charge to U.S. citizens upon arrival in the country. This allotted amount of time has always been enough for me in the past. However, when two and a half… Read More

The Post Office

The post office has been and continues to be one of the most stressful places for me in China. It is a place where you want to get communication exactly right, but a place where there is a… Read More

It’s the small things…

…that can make or break your day. I hate teaching in building ten. Especially on the sixth floor. Every Monday I teach two classes in a row from 1:30-5:10 on opposite ends of the campus. In addition, I… Read More