By now it’s basically made the news everywhere that Beijing is in the midst of an “airpocalypse” of epic proportions. This past Saturday night the US Embassy air quality monitoring station spat out a terrifying AQI reading of 755. Considering the “acceptable” level is less than 100, and the advisory scale maxes out its severest…
Read MoreOther People
I’ve touched before on the fact that Beijing is chock full of people. Teeming with people, people everywhere, pretty much a nightmare for anyone with an acute fear of a zombie epidemic. Even though I’ve now lived in Beijing a combined 4.5 years (in two different stretches), because this is so different from how I…
Read MoreBeijing – An Underwater Adventure
About a week ago, it rained heavily for an hour and I came home to find my street looking like this: I was grateful that emergency crews were there to try to pump the water out, but pretty shocked that cars were still driving through that mess (and with great speed, no less). Forecasters started…
Read MoreTaxi cab confessions
Conversations with taxi drivers generally follow the same formula. I could probably record my side of the conversation a la Ferris Bueller’s doorbell routine and save myself quite a bit of talking time. Yesterday, however, my cab conversation took a turn for the delightfully quirky. It started raining sideways basically the moment I stepped out…
Read MorePatience is a virtue
In case you’re unaware, the current population estimate for China is somewhere around 1.3 billion. Beijing alone is home to at least 20 million, possibly even closer to 25 million. To state the glaringly obvious, that’s a lot of people. Given such a massive population, you would think that people would naturally be used to, you…
Read MoreGiving thanks
Western-style ovens are not common in China. I own a sort of toaster oven on steroids, large enough to accomodate a dozen very strategically placed muffin cups. It is not large enough to handle a chicken, never mind a turkey. So, when questions of Thanksgiving dinner arose, my American friends and I were at a…
Read MoreOf cabbages and kings
There was terrible traffic. My alarm didn’t go off. The weather really slowed things up. There was a cabbage and fish sale at the grocery store. As far as morning delays go, this is definitely a new one for me. There’s a grocery store in the basement of the building where I work, and when…
Read MoreA collection of happy thoughts
Over the past two weeks I’ve been taking mental snapshots, Cam Jansen style. Whenever I hit a patch of stress or exhaustion I like to bring them back to the forefront to remind myself to breathe. Disjointed and strange as they may be, I take comfort in these human moments and thought I would share…
Read MoreGetting back in the swing of the Jing
One of the things I love about Beijing is its ability to provide me with little moments of amusement throughout the day. There will eventually be things that drive me crazy, but as it is at the start of any relationship the quirks are charming rather than infuriating. Take, for example, opening a bank account. While…
Read MoreLike riding a bike
Even though I don’t actually know how to ride a bike (despite being shamefully old for that declaration) the saying still holds true. Being back in Beijing feels natural to me, like I’ve only been away for three months rather than three years. The language skills are returning slightly slower than I would have liked, but…
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Positively Natalie 