Timely Snow

I’ve often been struck by the positive tone of news here, of which this is just a recent example. I’m staying in a fancy on-campus hotel at BNU that has TV with two English language stations, CNN-International and Star Movies. The former provides that vital international perspective on Paris Hilton. Looking at the movies on [...]

Courtesy of danwei.org, here is an interesting article about the essay questions Chinese high school students have to write about for the college entrance exams.

Below are translations of some of the essay questions as reported by the Beijing Evening News and the Xinmin Evening News; they may not be accurate or complete.

· National I
“Taking a [...]

I’ve been thinking about pinyin and computers lately, and also thinking about the (to me) odd belief of Western linguists such as John DeFrancis and Victor Mair that Chinese characters are destined to wither away and be replaced by an alphabetic system.

It does seem to be the case that pinyin as a way of putting [...]

My daughter, Ruth, has accepted a job teaching in Beijing next year, at this school, which is out near the Capitol Airport. Should be an interesting adventure.

I’ll use the comments to collect advice to her, or suggestions on things to bring or quickly acquire here, as well as things to avoid.

If I were going to [...]

Interesting article about why the set of remaining Communist countries in the world hasn’t diminished in the last almost 20 years. It’s sad to extend this argument to thinking about what the tragedy in Iraq will do to the attractiveness of democratic institutions.

really interesting article in Wired magazine, although he calls it “field sense” and it’s much more perceptual than the examples I’m interested in. The idea of periodic occlusions seems potentially interesting, though.

The nice thing about coming to China once a year, every year, is that it’s like one of those motion-capture videos where they show growth by animating a series of time-lagged snapshots. So here are a few random things I’ve noticed this time:

Signs of new wealth:
Electrically-assisted bikes have really taken off. I think I [...]

It’s a couple of days after June 4. I haven’t been downtown yet this trip. On the day itself, I was visiting the Institute of Psychology. I asked a couple of old friends if they knew what day it was, and both recalled it after a couple of minutes thought. One said she thought everyone [...]

I leave a bike at BNU for my use here, because one of my favorite things to do in Beijing is to bike around the city. It’s always a question whether it will be there when I return. This time it was still there, despite the fact that the area where the bikes are kept [...]

When we lived in Beijing in 2003, my wife really appreciated the fact that news here has a constructive tinge to it. The basic message is something like, sure there are problems, but life’s getting better. Sometimes, though, you really need to reach…