SubscribeDid you ever realize that there’s an insane variety of rice products in the Chinese diet?! Rice porridge (congee), dumplings, noodles, and buns are just a handful. Truly a staple, starting with a breakfast food like congee, “flavored with all manner of additions such as salted eggs, pickled vegetables, meat, or seafood,” and rice dishes [...]
Creative Wanderings
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Tag: culture
resting on the streets of Asia
Just the start of a funny collection of photos of nothing I’d see in the States: Beijing, China (courtesy of my classmate Tim. Thank you!) Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 在亚洲的街上休息休息：这几张照片就是开始的系列。真有意思，在美国没见过。
spitting on the street: in the States too
The other day I was by South Station in Boston and saw a fairly young, caucasian man spit on the street. You’d think I’d be used to seeing the spitting and peeing on the street by now, having just spent four months in China, but really it partially grossed me out, partially offended me, and [...]
invasion of public space: chinese sausages
Found in Danshui (淡水), a port city north of Taipei, Taiwan: “禁止设摊” (Jin4 zhi3 she4 tan1) translates to “It’s forbidden to set up a vendor’s stand” I suppose as long as you are not directly selling the items from this public space, it’s perfectly acceptable to use the space for storage or display of your vending [...]
Chinese currency: 1 currency, mulitple names
With few things in China being black and white, it’s no wonder there’s more than 1 way to address the Chinese Currency: “Renminbi” is the official name of the currency introduced by the Communist People’s Republic of China at the time of its foundation in 1949. It means “the people’s currency”. “Yuan” is the name [...]
a trip to the hospital
Back in April, I was sick for a couple weeks and made myself go to the local hospital to get checked out. An interesting experience, with no one speaking English. Suffice to say, I still got prescriptions and have been happy and healthy since. A couple photos from my visit: The public hospital is incredibly [...]
guest post: Sally Wu “Bathing at Beida”
My friend Sally, a Master’s in psychology exchange student from Taiwan, is studying at Peking University (Beida) this semester. I’ve been happy to help her with some translations and she’s kind enough to contribute one of her stories here: “北大洗澡記” 每天晚上校園都有不少人手提著塑膠袋或是小提籃，裡面放著盥洗用具，在寒冷的夜晚裡，走向公共浴室洗澡。我則是和室友走向更遠的浴室，因為那裏洗澡的地方有門可以關上。我來到北大最讓我驚訝著的兩件事，第一件事宿舍裡沒有洗澡的地方，第二件事是洗澡的地方沒有門可以關上。我聽我室友說在公共浴室洗澡，大家彼此可以看到對方的裸體。不過後來拿到港澳台學生用的洗澡證，我的心情好許多。因為港澳台辦公室知道台灣、香港和澳門的同學不習慣這樣的洗澡方式。有了這張卡，我們可以被允許進入留學生公寓的浴室，保全人員會先檢察我們的證件才讓我們進去洗澡。 我的大陸朋友說，這樣的洗澡方式都常在北方比較常見，所以南方人到北方求學，常常會很不習慣。不過她說，她們得習慣環境，因為這樣的生活習慣在北方已經很久了，即使跟行政單位反應也是沒有用的。我聽完不能理解為什麼反應是沒有用的，於是我只好點點頭。 “Taking a shower at Beida” Every evening there are many students walking through campus, bringing their plastic [...]
Pakistan truck art
Wow. What a colorful and lively culture! In Pakistan, one would rarely see a truck not decorated. Trucks are painted and decorated with many colors and chimes are hung from the trucks to create jingling sounds. The tradition of painting trucks in Pakistan is long and colourful. It started out as a way for truck [...]
“jiong”
Maybe the more internet connected know about this, but I’ve just been introduced to a bit of Chinese internet culture… the use of a Chinese character as an emoticon: Jiong(3) 囧 Do you see the face in the character? The character for “Jiong” is nowadays more widely used on the Internet as an ideographic emoticon representing [...]
a game of chess on the street
These old men just set up shop anywhere for their games of Chinese Chess: Love it! Nanjing, China