The whole Shanghai vs. Beijing debate is somewhat tired, I know, so I’m not interested in rehashing it. I’m not going to bash or gush over either city. Rather, I’ve had sort of a change of heart about Beijing, and I’d like to tell why. To be honest, the more time I spend in Beijing, the more I like it. But I doubt I’d ever voluntarily relocate to Beijing.
Still, if I found myself in any of the following scenarios, …
I upgraded to WordPress 2.1.3 lately. Since then, my RSS feed doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve been pretty busy at work lately, so I won’t have time to try to fix it until next week. I’m running the Feedburner plugin. Anyone know anything about this?
Gotta work all weekend, and then the May holiday starts on Tuesday. I am so looking forward to it…
Update: OK, I think I fixed the feed. Please let me know if I’m wrong.…
I recently discussed the article Why Secret Salaries Are a Baaaaaad Idea with my Chinese friend Mike. It’s an interesting read. The main points the article makes for why open salaries are a good idea:
It’s the end of the semester. You might expect me to be busy with schoolwork, but I’m really not especially busy because all three of my graduate-level courses are based on essays which don’t need to be turned in until the beginning of next semester. So I have all summer to work on those. The one undergrad class I’m taking to make up credit, Modern Chinese (现代汉语), does have an exam. So that’s probably the only traditional exam …
ChinesePod has been generating buzz online for some time among those of us who are interested in new methods of studying Mandarin Chinese, and yet you haven’t heard a peep out of me about it (OK, maybe one peep). There’s a reason, so let me explain.
When I first discovered ChinesePod months ago, I thought, “that’s kinda cool, but a podcast a day? Let’s see how long they can keep that up.” Well, they did keep it up, and …
I’m currently doing some editing work for a Taiwanese book on English. It’s one of those books that takes the most common English words, organizes them alphabetically, then provides a Chinese translation, English sample sentence, and Chinese translation of said sample sentence for each word. Now, since each word only gets one sample sentence, it’s important that the usage in each sentence (1) corresponds to the most common meaning of that word, and (2) provides clear usage of the word.…
It is now Year of the Dog, and I find myself working during my vacation. What am I working at? Well…
Jamie’s recent post outlined his history with China. It was a history which crossed mine. The most significant common experience was had in a college in Hangzhou we call ZUCC. (If you’re American, you say Z-U-C-C, kind of like F-B-I. If you’re Aussie or kiwi, you say “Zook,” rhyming with it “book.” I have always wondered about that little cultural linguistic difference.)
In chronicling my three years at ZUCC, I aim to do three things:
In China foreign teachers are called 外教 (a shortened form of 外籍教师). Literally it means “foreign teacher.” It’s a simple descriptive term. There’s nothing wrong with it.
And yet I don’t like to be called a waijiao. Why? It’s the connotations that usually come with the word. A waijiao can come in many shapes and sizes, but typically:
A waijiao is white.
A waijiao is most often male.
A waijiao is young, likely fresh out of college. (Alternatively,
It’s happened again! My company needs more foreigners. Last time I whined about this on Sinosplice for several months Micah ended up working here. Success! As the company grows, however, two foreigners are not enough. They’re looking to hire up to four more.
Anyway, if you have some English teaching experience and you speak Chinese, you might be interested in the position. Check out Sinosplice Jobs for the details and shoot me an e-mail if you’re interested.
Now for the …
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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