My Chinese Noodle Soup Recipe

It’s been over a week since I got back from China and I miss it. The people I met, the language I was learning, my experiences negotiating a dynamic, evolving city like Shanghai are all reasons why finding my momentum in American suburbia has been difficult. Most of all, though, it’s the food and culture [...]

Nepal at the Shanghai World Expo

The pavilion looked better than I had expected. The pavilion had great architecture, was clean and well-lit and offered a place to sit down, take a breath and buy relatively cheap snacks. But I was surprised at the lack of historical data, information about Nepal’s relation to China and some sort of presentation about Nepal’s ethnic diversity. Still, I enjoyed being there and would indeed recommend you drop by if you’re in Shanghai.

French Learners in Hefei

If you’re a foreigner in China, especially in a relatively tourist-free city like Hefei, you’ll be asked this rather often: “你为什么学中文?” (Where are you learning Chinese?)
This is less the ‘I don’t see why you’d bother’ sort of question than it is the ‘I’m genuinely curious’ type. I’m quite sure of this because I found myself [...]

Second Summer in China

I’ll be flying to China on Friday to spend yet another summer there. Like last year, I’ll be at Hefei for four weeks continuing my study of Mandarin Chinese at Anhui Agricultural University and on the English-won’t-get-you-very-far environment of Hefei streets.
I’m looking forward to meeting friends and teachers from last summer. Returning to a familiar [...]

The Misanthrope with Keira Knightley

Taking the underground trains from Victoria station to Tottenham Hale, I picked up an abandoned copy of the day’s Metro daily and discovered that a production of ‘The Misanthrope’ was currently playing at the Comedy Theater. Moreover, and really this is why I noticed, Keira Knightley was a part of the cast, making her West End début in the production!

I decided to go see it. Here’s quick review.

Hint: it’s “witty, contemporary, and at times laugh-out-loud funny”.

UK Trip Report: To Harlow, Essex

So here I am, in the UK. In England. In a little town called Harlow in the Essex county. There’s quite a bit of snow (London standards, not very much for Amherst) and I haven’t been out and about a whole lot.

I thought I’d start things off a quite trip report, with pictures and captions laid out in chronological order.