This series is called ‘Secret Listening’, from the Chinese word 偷听Tōutīng. I know this can be — and should probably be — translated as ‘eavesdropping’, but secret listening captures it better and adds a bit of jest. These little stories or remarks stood out to me, and show a more personal side of China away […]

Virtue signaling is just as offensive as what it calls out, empathy is often narcissism in disguise, and nostalgia isn’t different than fear of future. Freedom means you can be hateful as well as happy, and positive thinking can be just as dangerous as negative thinking. Humility is no different than arrogance, for the man […]

Nearly two weeks ago, 1.4 million students in Shanghai started online classes, including the 30 that I teach branding at the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts. We had three weeks in February to prepare, which was plenty, but my real learning (as a teacher) started when the classes did. Maybe this can help other teachers […]

Don’t worry, no spoilers. H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald “Hunting makes you animal, but the death of an animal makes you human.” Helen Macdonald has written poetry before and it shows. She writes not just about things seen, but also things felt — intuitive thoughts and feelings we all have. Yet she is […]

I expected a business book but this is so much more. And it’s surprising, right away from the first page. Phil Knight writes well, and it’s obvious a lot of time has been put into the story of Blue Ribbon and Nike. There are the narratives of financing the company, the legal cases, and the […]

“We must prepare for the possibility that we cannot give offline-classes for several months.” 24th January, Chinese New Year’s eve. We had worked out several scenarios at GoEast, ranging from asking students to wash their hands and checking their temperature, to actually closing the campuses — which seemed extreme at that time. But we prepared […]

Here’s one of those classic books which I start reading slowly, letting in all its beautiful prose. But as the book fails to accelerate, my reading of it does, anxious to get this act on, eager to get it done. And so, as with other classics, the second half doesn’t get the patience the first […]

The rain turns streets into oil paintings. Tuesday rush hour in Shanghai Yangpu, under the coronavirus. The streets aren’t all empty, but quiet for this time of the day.

Learning Mandarin is often described as something deeply cultural or spiritual. Yes, it’s interesting that the character for home/family (家) originates from a pig underneath a roof, because livestock used to be in every home, or that 目 (eye) coupled the water radical becomes 泪 (tear). But it’s pure trivia, just as interesting as that […]

‘Stateless in Shanghai’ is a very detailed description of a mundane life in extraordinary times. And I’m glad Liliane Willens doesn’t try to add any grandness to the story, as the situation doesn’t need it. Willens describes her growing up in Shanghai’s International Settlement in the 1930s & 40s, as a child in a wealthy […]