From Grits to Chopsticks

When ordering food in China, you have two basic options: something that is fried in oil of questionable origin, or something that is boiled in a soup base.  Sometimes, the soup boils at your table in a hotpot: Although the temperature can be really high, the spices make it even hotter: Sometimes the meat is hard to […]

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We were truly blessed to take a break and travel to the States and be with our family members.  While spending time together at Myrtle Beach, we had our annual sand sculpture competition.  Jeruid created a sand shark: I did a rendition of the Titanic: And Caitlyn turned Timothy into an octopus: Earlier in our visit, we […]

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Now that final exams are over and grades have been submitted, it’s time to begin the English Summer Camps.  We have a wonderful group of students and teachers from America who are working with three different groups, starting with university students (about 80 this year): In the opening ceremony speech, I pretended to be a doctor and did some […]

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Two of our good friends took us out to dinner on Friday night, treating us at a local “snack restaurant.”  They quickly placed a huge assortment of interesting things to eat on the table: This was a busy place (click here to see:Snack Dinner).  Along with a large plate of pigs feet, we had some really spicy chicken […]

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A Chinese friend of ours recently joked about the way that Brits sometimes mispronounce the name of this country as “Chinar.”  He remarked that their accent actually contains a hidden truth.  By combining the two Chinese words “Chāi” (拆 – to destroy) and “Nǎ’er” (哪儿 – where?), it describes the reality of the rapid pace of modernization, leaving us wondering […]

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Our university just finished the regular teaching period and is now entering two weeks of final exams: This is also the time of year for graduation.  As I mentioned in a past post, the graduation ceremony here is given far less attention than in America.  This is evident by the few rows of spectator seats at the event (in […]

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As he was finishing up his visit with us, we continued to keep Timothy busy.  He met a lot of students at English corners (and joined with some of them separately for meals afterwards): Here he is, teaching them to play “Ticket to Ride”: Remember the card game “Spoons”?  We learned that some students had played […]

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Timothy’s time in China is drawing to a close, so we decided that it would be appropriate to do a “Chinese marathon” on Saturday night.  To dispel any confusion, this has nothing to do with running, but actually an attempt to eat as many different kinds of food for dinner as possible.  He started early […]

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Each year, many of my International Trade students volunteer to work at the SE Asia Trade Fair held here in Kunming.  I always like to go and visit them, asking questions about their business to see what they are learning. There were hundreds of officers on-site this year for crowd control.  They aggressively enforced a […]

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We recently booked some cheap flights for a weekend trip to southern Yunnan Province.  When we arrived at the airport, we found out why they were so cheap – our first plane was canceled: While the above picture is an over-dramatization of our initial reaction, we were still a bit disappointed about the six hour delay.  However, we were soon blessed […]

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