One Western woman with a Chinese husband makes sense of China 洋媳妇谈中国
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 9th, 2010
When you live as a foreigner in China, sometimes you can’t help but feel like a child. Maybe it’s because you can’t speak the language — or stumble through it, like a toddler playing with sounds and words. Maybe it’s because you don’t read the signs, and feel as lost as a little kid, abandoned [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 8th, 2010
When you live in a foreign country like China, it’s easy to get lost, to stumble, to make a wrong turn. But the wrong turn — or step — can cost you your time, your health or even, your trip to Hong Kong.
On the evening of December 28, 2002, I took the wrong step [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 4th, 2010
When you’re in love, and only see each other every two weeks, on the weekends, you romanticize every meeting. You want it to be as perfect as a Tang-dynasty couplet, and script out the possibilities even before your lover arrives. You practice a new phrase, such as 望穿秋水 (wàngchuānqiūshuǐ – awaiting you with great anxiety), [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 3rd, 2010
My Chinese boyfriend, John, faced a seemster of dormitory despair — while I helplessly looked on.
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 2nd, 2010
By December 2002, I had seen a lot of things at the Chinese Internet company in Hangzhou, where I worked. But spamming wasn’t one of them — until, in mid-December, when my supervisor, Mr. Fang, had a talk with me.
I was already worried when Mr. Fang asked me to follow him to the conference room. [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Mar 1st, 2010
As a foreigner in China, sometimes you touch people in ways you never realized. Something you say or do in a moment — a small, forgettable thing to you — becomes a lasting impression to someone else.
I didn’t think much about swimming at the Chenjinglun pool in Hangzhou. I’d been going there since September. By [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Feb 25th, 2010
I wanted it to be just another Saturday — as it was to my Chinese coworkers. I rode the number 44 bus to the office, as always. I took the elevator up to floor 12. And when I came to my desk, there was my ex-Chinese boyfriend, Frank, still sitting next to me, as usual.
In [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Feb 24th, 2010
When you’re a foreigner in China, the most common phrase you might hear is: “Can you teach me English?” Your foreign face is like a walking advertisement that new friends or friends of friends can’t help but answer — because they live in a world where English could determine their future, or change their destiny.
Chinese [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Feb 23rd, 2010
In Chinese traditional medicine, there is a saying: anger hurts your liver, melancholy hurts your lungs, thinking hurts your spleen, happiness hurts your heart. The thing is, we are all angry, melancholy, happy, or just thinking at different times in life. What hurts is when we do it too much, without balance.
John, my Chinese boyfriend, [...]
Posted in Memoirs of a Yangxifu in China on Feb 22nd, 2010
Tang, the famous calligrapher and painter, and his wife, Zhang — my next door neighbors — lived a world as intentional as the eccentric style of Tang’s calligraphy scrolls that decorated the walls of their apartment. Tang painted and wrote calligraphy, often for dignitaries, officials, the elite — and they reciprocated lavishly. How did I [...]
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One Western woman with a Chinese husband makes sense of China 洋媳妇谈中国
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