June 25, 2013
My aversion to blogging (largely due to laziness, I will
sadly admit) has finally been trumped by my ‘bursting at the seams’ urge to
discuss various points of Chinese culture with my fellow Americans (or
like-minded Western cultured ppls), which has been greatly limited by a time
zone difference of 9-12 hrs and failure to have internet (which is hopefully
now forever remedied). In other words, friends—I’m missing you guys and my
regular daily conversations/discussions/debates in person and on chat and so
have convinced myself to blog again.
This was for my study abroad in England (it took a while to
unearth the password again), so I guess it’s appropriate to continue with my ‘research’
abroad in China. For those of you not in the know, I am currently living in
China for 10 weeks (6/1/13 – 8/7/13) under the East Asia Pacific Summer
Institute Program through the US National Science Foundation. I have visited family in ShenZe and
Nanning the first week, participated in orientation with my 29 fellow EAPSI-ers
in China in Beijing for another week, and just began last week in Changchun,
China (NE China) at my lab, where I’m learning how to extract and amplify
ancient human DNA.
BUT, over the next few weeks, I will focus on various things
that have caught my eye since being here. As a sort of prelude, here’s the
topics I plan to write something about, and feel free to let me know if you
have any topics you want me to start observing or asking about. I might oblige
you. This is wholly based on what I’ve observed and is in no way systematically
researched. So, feel free to go ‘Just who have you been talking to??? I’ve
NEVER seen or heard that!’
Anyways, topics (in no particular order):
- Transportation—I have so much to say on this topic! Weirdly, one of the ones I’m most excited about rambling about.
- Taxis
- Airport Security
- Trains
- Food—yummmm
- Expatriate lifestyle
- Academia
- Environmental Issues/Sustainability
- Economic Growth
- Housing Development
- So Many People!
- Shopping Areas
- Anything else that comes to mind…
Glad to be re-entering the blogosphere!
Mel
Random fact of the day!post!whatever!: In Chinese the first character of Jon Stewart's name is 'jiong', which looks like 囧 which means 'awkward' and looks like an awkward face!!!! :D:D And 'jiong' is pronounced 'jee-yohng' which is about as close as you can get to 'jon'! In my Chinese character typing program, if I type in 'jiong', I can also put down o(╯□╰)o as an option! 'jiong' 囧 is totally my new fave character!
