Timely Snow

For reasons perhaps best left unexplained, I found the page below to be completely hilarious. The pictures were taken from the “ready.gov” anti-terrorism preparation site in the U.S., and adapted to local conditions by John Pasden, an American teaching English at Zhejiang University in beautiful Hangzhou.
http://www.sinosplice.com/china/pictguide.html
Given the way the pictures were chosen, I found the [...]

The number of SARS cases reported in Beijing is dropping precipitously, down to 7 in the latest report (although the WHO continues to have questions about the diagnostic criteria being used here). Life is beginning to get back to normal, although SARS scars are visible everywhere. On campus, they quickly cut a new entrance into [...]

One of the interesting aspects of living in Beijing is the kind of English language books that are readily available. There are many old classic British novels, which Penguin sells cheaply ($2-3 per book), so I always end up reading class books I never got around to reading.
There are also “bilingual” editions of books [...]

Friday my wife and I rented a small electric boat and motored around Qianhai and Houhai, two very scenic lakes downtown in Beijing. It’s turning into a very pleasant area, with small bars and coffee shops along the lake side. A Starbucks is in the process of going up, so that’s a sure sign of [...]

I haven’t posted anything for the last couple of days because I’ve been finally resolving computer problems that started several months ago when the hard disk in my laptop (Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100) gave up the ghost. I’d been backing up pretty reliably to a Firewire hard disk and I’d bought the global warranty, so [...]

Some thoughts on what the SARS in Beijing might mean for the rest of the world, with a focus on the United States.

Information can’t be controlled. During the period before the amazing press conference on April 20 (somewhat sanitized transcript at: http://www.chinaembassy.se/eng/47200.html), rumors abounded, some of which were even more extreme than the reality (which [...]

During this strange SARS period in Beijing, I’ve been working to arrange access to academic journals for students in Beijing whose classes have been suspended and who are limited to their campuses.
I’m very pleased that the

Society for Research in Child Development (http://www.srcd.org/) and the
Psychonomic Society (http://www.psychonomic.org/)
have given final agreement, and several other groups [...]

If you are in Beijing this Spring, and not quarantined, it’s actually a great time to be a tourist. Yesterday afternoon, my wife and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to tour the Forbidden City. I can never remember a time when it was so empty. The picture belows gives some sense of how [...]

Last in a series of translations of advice on SARS from a poster plastered all over Beijing. This panel relates to the most obvious change in people’s behavior as a consequence of SARS (other than the huge drop in the number of people out and about). Many more people are exercizing than before. Badminton and [...]