Category Archives for China
Getting the Seasons Wrong in Wudalianchi
“Can we see the cranes?” I ask Zhang Wei, in my still resolutely rubbish Chinese. “They’re not here,” he replies, driving at a pace so glacial I wonder whether he’s secretly Australian. Bugger! Spring has come late to this part of China, which means we’ve come to Wudalianchi early. Way too early. The cranes aren’t [...]
Signs of the Times: Chinglish Edition
The Communist Party of China, in its infinite wisdom, is about to remove one of the most reliable sources of visitor entertainment, the Chinglish sign. So I thought I’d celebrate with the best Chinglish signs I’ve seen over our time in China. The one above? That’s actually for a toilet restaurant in Shanghai. Yes, a [...]
Some Thoughts on Chinese Algebra
Watching Family Guy last night, we hit the episode where Tricia Takanawa says: “Hi! I’m here with Stephen Hawking, the only white man I’ve ever met who knows math better than me.” We laughed. And then we almost cried. Because here are some (translated) examples of the algebra that my son’s seventh grade (Year 7) [...]
A Swimming Date in China
The lesser spotted tween, and its larger relative, the greater spotted teen, are elusive creatures in urban China. You might glimpse one between 6 and 7am, neat in their tracksuits on their way to school, then again between 5.30 and 7pm, returning to their homes. On Friday nights, you might catch one in a restaurant [...]
5.30am Is No Time to Wake Up
For the first week of Chinese school, our routine has been: wake up at 6am, breakfast, dress, and leave the house at 6.40 to make the bus at 7am. This is a routine that Zac adapts to better than I. He is not a morning person, but he is adaptable. I am not a morning [...]
Handwriting has never been a strength of Zac’s. He’s a lefty, and started writing aged three. Then, because current British thinking is that young children should be left to “experiment with mark-making” by themselves – which is ideal if children are “mark-making”, rather less so if they’re actually writing – he wasn’t taught how to [...]
On Doing Maths in Chinese
I knew, of course, that maths as taught in Asia is some way ahead of the UK (and, for that matter, most of the West). I had vaguely suspected that maths as taught in mainland China might also be some way ahead of maths as taught in the rest of Asia. But I’d expected that [...]
First Day of Chinese School
We’re both fairly quiet in the taxi to the school. What had seemed like a really good idea at the time – put Zac in a Chinese school for a term or so so that he could improve his Chinese – now seems more and more unnerving. Not least since Huaze, out of the goodness [...]
Skiing China 6: Happy Days in Beidahu
There’s not a lot to Beidahu: two hotels, some half-built condos, and a ski centre, an hour and a half’s drive from the centre of Jilin city. But we don’t need a lot. And, thanks to this wonderful offer, we have a room in a Chinese five-star hotel. With bath robes, slippers, a tub, a [...]
Harbin Xi railway station sits way out in the west of town. It’s an enormous red brick affair, a grandiose arch that towers over windswept, snowclad plazas, its waiting room a blaze of dominant glass. The Chinese government completed it last December as a stop on a brand new line that runs from here to [...]
