Posted in China, Travel on Oct 26th, 2007 1 Comment »
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Here in China, the answer is “live to eat!”
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Jews and Chinese seem to have similar views of food.
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More is gooder.
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Enough is not enough.
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LOVE spelled backwards is FOOD
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If you are already full, well then, just eat slower.
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While the food is important, what’s more delicious. It is also a prop of sorts, it is stage that allows [...]
Posted in China, Travel on Oct 25th, 2007 1 Comment »
Most ATM’s just tell you to try your PIN again when you blow it. Or, if your card will not work in their particular machine, they say so.
But, this machine prefers to mock you. I must admit, it did crack a smile through my annoyance.
Posted in China, Medicine, Travel on Oct 22nd, 2007 1 Comment »
My friend Ronny says that the camp counselors get beat to the bone, but the kids have a ball, and never have clue they are held up with invisible wings.
Today for the first time in weeks there is not a thread of responsibility woven into my life, and a temperatureless fall morning next to the [...]
Posted in China, Medicine, Translation, Travel on Oct 10th, 2007 No Comments »
Sunday night was like any Sunday night before an early rising to meet the plane that would float me back across the ocean to the Middle Kingdom. Restless. Dream filled shallow sleep that longed for oblivion and respite from the months of planning and preparation. It did not arrive. It was like being a child [...]
Posted in China, Medicine, Travel on Sep 5th, 2007 No Comments »
This seems to be a habit, Autumn in China.
It is not that it has the explosions of deciduous color, nor does the sky there turn an impossible crisp blue. But, the summer swelter has evaporated, and the oppression of triple digit humidity has receded as well. This year it is not some odd migratory sense [...]
Posted in China, Language, Travel on May 7th, 2007 No Comments »
Language has an odd drip drop drip way of falling through the ears.
It tingles nerves and bounces up against thoughts, rings meaning out of syllables, feels like drowning in a rapid fire stacco of breathing. It feels fast when the words fail to chime meaning and is full of nuance and emotion when it does.
At [...]
Posted in China, Travel on May 2nd, 2007 No Comments »
All you notice from the street is that there is a suggestion of the sun. The noise and dust of destruction mixes seamlessly with that of manufacture and construction. The extent of the manmade white fog is unknowable from the street. But, it is a different story 87 floors up.
The international trade building just [...]
Posted in China, Translation, Travel on Apr 21st, 2007 No Comments »
At times, it is not unlike bashing through concrete and rebar with a wobbly headed sledgehammer.
Somehow in wriggling across the borders of Chinese and English, nouns and verbs become pathologically flexible, the doer and the doing get mightly confused as to who is the lead, and who is the follow.
I suppose that had I had [...]
Posted in China, Health, Medicine on Apr 18th, 2007 2 Comments »
Medicine and culture are as woven together as medicine and language. You don’t get one without the other. They are inseparable as two sides of a coin.
Discussing medicine with Dr. Huang always brings with it a discussion of history. Not surprising, since part of the focus of the way he practices is by using the [...]
Posted in China, Curiosity, Travel on Apr 15th, 2007 4 Comments »
It is a kaleidoscope of sizzle and boil, clanging, chatter, horns, slurping and the ever present squeaking of wheels. At at time when most Americans are stumbling through coffee, the Chinese have swarmed onto the breakfast street.
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Soup and noodles.
Bao zi, you tiao, cigarettes and cabbage.
Steamed buns, rice gruel, flat breads, fruits.
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Tables that spill into [...]