I have moved house 5 times in my 9 years in China, always fairly local moves. Over the weekend I made my most recent move. Surprisingly there weren’t any hiccups, parlty cos I made got a chu men tiao before moving. This step is easy to miss!
The toffee fruit vendor chatted to the jian bing vendor, saying “Wow! She speaks pu tong hua [standard Mandarin Chinese]. Like my grandson. He can’t speak our dialect. We speak our dialect to him but he doesn’t pick up much.”
While I’ve already written about the bad air in Beijing lately, I compared the air quality I recorded in Oct/Nov ’12 with January’s air. I am thankful for my air purifier, but horrified by how this must be affecting an entire generation of Chinese.
Occasionally I meet a driver who has interesting things to say, and a good attitude, so it’s fun to listen. This was one of those times. I don’t share all his opinions but I’m always interested to learn more about another person’s perspective on life.
Beijing’s bad air is now international news. Articles about last weekend’s horrific conditions sprung up all over the place. Yes, it really was that bad. In the past two weeks we had 6 days in the hazardous range, with one day’s average off the scale.
I made a decision a while back to tell stories, not write a newsletter. While there’s room for improvement, I’m getting better at looking around me for stories that others may find interesting – stories that show a little of what life looks like here.
It’s been a wintery, Christmassy week in Beijing. I had plans to shop with friends at the Christmas market and snow falling all day added to the Christmassy mood. Some plastic display trees had fake snow, others were covered in REAL snow!
I came to China for a year, but it took me 6 to decide I was staying. This place is the first place I made a real home. Buying a Christmas tree was a symbol that I really was home – I didn’t have to grow up or go back to Australia, I was home HERE.
Autumn is my favourite time of year in Beijing. It’s crazybusy but I enjoy it! We have great weather, get a holiday (helps the weather), and we have our annual youth camps. We had over 200 people from at least 15 countries (5 continents).
The first week of October is a holiday in China. Flags go up everywhere, red and yellow flower arrangements brighten every complex, and almost the whole country goes on holiday. Great weather adds to the festive feel.
This week the Spring weather suddenly came upon us here in Beijing. The daytime temperatures soared to 13, 15, 20 degrees! It’s finally warmer outside than inside! And the overnight temps are almost always above zero. It’s very exciting. My puffy coats are back in storage til next winter, which is a very lovely thing.…
I woke this morning to find a layer of wet, white snow on everything. Last night’s rain turned to snow around 11pm as the temperature dropped. Gotta love snow after a week of warm weather (warm meaning tops of 12 or so several days in a row). The drive to church was so pretty! The…
Stories From Tanya 