an Americanish life in backwater China

Category By the Numbers

Here’s How 28 Jeopardy Questions Change After You’ve Lived in China

We all have cultural assumptions about objects, food, etiquette, and more. It’s amazing how many of those assumptions change when you’ve lived in another land. If you were competing on Jeopardy, here’s how 28 of your questions would change from… Continue Reading →

64 Things You’ll Never Take for Granted after Living in China

“You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone,” Cinderella lamented, and it’s true. And when you live in China, you realize certain things are precious indeed because now you’re living without them. Here are 64 things you won’t take… Continue Reading →

14 Ideas for a Cross-Cultural-Stress-Busting Laugh Break

What do you do for stress relief? Some people go for a run, some people scrub their house clean, some people zone out with Netflix. But sometimes, there’s nothing like a good, long laugh session that leaves your stomach and… Continue Reading →

10 Things to Know About Teenage TCKs

How are things different having a teenager overseas versus having a younger child? And how are teenage TCKs different from their monocultural peers? I’m answering those questions in a guest post over at China Family Blog: 10 Things to Know… Continue Reading →

10 Things Ya Gotta Love About Chinese New Year

It’s the biggest human migration in the world to celebrate the biggest holiday of the year. Sure, there are lots of annoyances, but let’s think positive. Here are ten things that are great about Spring Festival. 1. Everyone is happy…. Continue Reading →

The 10 Craziest Questions I’ve Been Asked in China

Being white in China, especially in off-the-beaten path areas of China, seems to make it fair game for any stranger to ask you any question about America. This can sometimes be awkward or weird, especially if you are a white… Continue Reading →

50 Smells You Can’t Forget if You’ve Lived in China

They say smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. If I could make your screen scratch-n-sniff, I would, and you’d be instantly transported back to the Middle Kingdom. Chou doufu Mosquito coils Getting caught in a cloud of… Continue Reading →

Are They All Yours?

Early on in my Mandarin studies, I learned the word 都 dōu. Although it can mean “both”’ the meaning that stuck firmly in my head was “all”’ as in: “All the Americans in Nanning love to play Ultimate.” “All of… Continue Reading →

While You Were Out, These 15 Things Exploded in the U.S.

At some point or another, American expats come home. When you do, you’ll face some level of reverse culture shock as you try to figure out how your country has changed while you’ve been off galavanting around the globe (not… Continue Reading →

8 Ways China is More Environmentally Friendly Than the U.S.

Any expat who lives in China can easily rattle off the ways China is harming Mother Earth. (air quality index, anyone?) But there are also plenty of ways that the laobaixing incorporate environmentally friendly habits into their everyday lives, even… Continue Reading →

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