The last mosque in Suzhou. Before 1949 there were over ten mosques in the city. Among small restaurants and butchers, Taipingfang 太平坊 was restored in 2018 — made anew and more turquoise — and it now offers a spot to pray for local and visiting Muslims. Shifu gave us a tour, even though non-muslims aren’t […]
For GoEast Mandarin I planned, shot, edited & subtitled a mini-documentary about working in China using the Chinese language, interviewing several foreigners with intermediate+ Chinese language schools, and one Chinese native.
I started reading this with my full attention but it just wavered — to the point, I was skimming over the last pages because I lost interest and wanted to get to the end. Ali Smith’s writing style is loose and goes all over the place. Weaving and fusing and referencing texts and books and […]
三年在中国，我回到起点。街道变了一点儿，我变了更多。我现在可以看懂标志而能和中国人沟通。 Three years in China. The street changes, but not as fast as me. Taikang Road next to Tianzifang, for me the starting point in Shanghai. I try to go back once a year, even though now it’s far from my home and work.
She looks south and seawards and always. Putuo Shan is the dojo for Guanyin Bodhisattva. She’s originally the patron saint of seafarers, but she now gives an audience to anyone who comes with wishes. And listen she does. The three characters that make up her Chinese name (观世音 Guānshìyīn) literally means ‘the one who hears […]
In high school, I was never good at languages. Not in Dutch — learning advanced grammar — and not in French, German, or English. The latter I actually learned most from playing computer games online, but because it’s so similar to Dutch, I never really considered myself to be bilingual. I never had to embrace […]
In Chinese they describe it as “净化心灵”, meaning ‘purify the soul’. We stayed on the farm ‘椿庭朴门’ nor far from Shanghai, with 大熊 (Big Bear) and his wife Moqi & their two daughters. The place is far from a typical Chinese rural farm. Here, everything is made from bright wood bend into various shapes, fit […]
The new home. 同和, two characters meaning ‘harmoniously together’. It’s the international compound next to Fudan University, even though there are barely international students now. It’s also near GoEast Mandarin and surrounded by dozens of cheap restaurants that are rather hit or miss. I love this part of Yangpu, it’s like a small village surrounded […]
Kids from rich parents spend their weekends doing extra classes, like maths and English and public speaking, while kids from poorer parents spend their weekends watching videos in the store or restaurant while their parents work. All-day. It’s the same all over the world. Poor people spend more time behind the television, less time with […]
I have this recurring daydream, usually when I’m doing low-focus work like Photoshopping, or like now — sitting in the high-speed way train from Shanghai to Suzhou. It’s this moment from my high school. We need to run three kilometers or some distance like that. Too far to sprint, but close enough to just sort […]
