an Americanish life in backwater China

Category Seasons & Holidays

An Expat Tale (Of Taxis, Trains, and Turkeys)

    What is it with U.S. American expats and turkey?!? In honor of Thanksgiving and our beloved bird, I’m recounting a couple crazy turkey tales over at Taking Route today. Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving! An Expat Tale (Of Taxis,… Continue Reading →

Yes, You Really Can Make Mooncakes at Home

I’ve always been curious to try making our own mooncakes, and this was the year the stars aligned for me to try it. Mooncakes seem like the type of thing you can only buy from a bakery or store, but–happy… Continue Reading →

Sorry, Americans. No fruit mooncakes for you.

Our first Mid-Autumn Festival in China was very memorable for a number of reasons, including a nice big #Chinafail. I was mostly having a blast learning about what would quickly become my favorite Chinese holiday. We learned about Chang-E, the… Continue Reading →

Commemorating the End of WWII at the Flying Tigers Museum

China is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. On Friday, a military parade in Beijing grabbed the whole world’s attention. Yesterday morning, on the opposite side of the country, my family and I went to… Continue Reading →

Happy Empty Tomb-Sweeping Day!

Today is 清明节 Qing Ming Jie (Tomb-Sweeping Day), a day when families go out to gravesites to remember and worship their deceased ancestors. There aren’t really cemeteries in our little rural area; each family buries their dead in their own… Continue Reading →

How to make melted wax Easter eggs with no hiccups

Way back in 2011, someone sent me an issue of Family Fun magazine that included this idea for coloring Easter eggs. The basic idea is that you color the eggs with crayons while the eggs are still hot so that… Continue Reading →

What in the Middle Kingdom? Lucky red squares

This Chinese New Year, I noticed something I’d never noticed before in China. All of a sudden, cars and other vehicles were sporting little red squares of paper. They were adorning the hoods, front ends, or back bumpers of most… Continue Reading →

Baa-ram-ewe, baa-ram-ewe, to the Year of the Goat-Ram-Sheep be true

So, which is it? Is 2015 the Year of the Goat? Year of the Sheep? Year of the Ram? I’ve had several people ask me, and the answer is easy: it’s all of them. In Chinese, it’s Year of the… Continue Reading →

8 photos of the aftermath of Chinese New Year

I know I keep saying how crazy the fireworks are for Chinese New Year, but let me try to show you one more time. Here’s some photos I took the day after the insanity. Every sidewalk, street and alley was… Continue Reading →

The chaotic, dangerous, beautiful fun of Chinese New Year fireworks

Last night was Chinese New Year’s Eve, and boy, was it a doozy. (But then, Chinese New Year’s Eve is always a doozy in China.) When people ooooh and aaaah over fireworks shows in the States, they’re talking safe, orchestrated… Continue Reading →

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