darkstar1 Jul 10,2013 16:43

Tags: Arts & Entertainment, Expat Tales

Ok so I’ve been to several music festivals before in China, but I’d thought I’d write about my experiences regarding one particular festival which I attended late last May. This ...

darkstar1 Jul 05,2013 15:49

Tags: Food, Expat Tales

Well since living in China for around four years I’ve only managed to be properly food poisoned three times. Not too bad I think. I’m not talking about the upset stomach following an ...

darkstar1 Jun 21,2013 09:47

Tags: Lifestyle, Expat Tales, Expat Rants & Advice

It was about October last year that I spent over 2,000 RMB to sign up for a year pass swimming card at the Beijing Olympic Sports Centre which allowed me to swim 80 times. I did the maths on the ...

darkstar1 May 20,2013 15:52

Tags: Expat Tales, Expat Rants & Advice, Teaching & Learning

As an on and off teacher in China for several years, I’ve met a fair share of different students, been treated and scammed equally by different schools, and have of course come across a ...

darkstar1 May 07,2013 16:26

Tags: Lifestyle

Weixin, or WeChat, as it’s known to us English-speaking folk, is truly a revolutionary piece of technology. I’d heard about it for a couple of years from friends and was urged to ...

darkstar1 Apr 28,2013 12:01

Tags: Expat Rants & Advice, Health & Environment

I’ve been in China a good while now and while I can’t claim to have completely melted into the society I do believe I’ve done rather well at adjusting to the various nuances and ...

darkstar1 Apr 25,2013 17:17

Tags: Expat Rants & Advice, Language & Culture

It’s amazing in China the sheer palette of varying social make ups, and by that I don’t only mean ethnicity, social or cultural background, I also ideas and viewpoints that come with ...

darkstar1 Apr 18,2013 12:27

Tags: Expat Rants & Advice, Health & Environment

Being sick in China sucks. Well, being sick anywhere sucks really; but when we’re hit by a barrage of headaches or a nasty cold it seems that the symptoms and the road to recovery are ...

darkstar1 Apr 11,2013 16:39

Tags: Lifestyle, Expat Rants & Advice, Health & Environment

China can very easily get you down. Read the news, cross the road, open your window, look outside, teach a bunch a spoilt brats, and we can all feel the pressure at times and the screaming in our ...

darkstar1 Apr 02,2013 12:00

Tags: Lifestyle, Expat Rants & Advice, Travel

I must say that in general, China has a pretty generous amount of public holidays. In my mind, we’ve only just come out of Chinese New Year and are already about to enter another one with the ...

darkstar1 Mar 26,2013 16:37

Tags: Expat Tales, Expat Rants & Advice, Health & Environment

We all worry about the day when our bodies finally give up on us and we have to reluctantly haul ourselves from the comfort of the toilet bowl to the nearby hospital. I’ve been in China for ...

darkstar1 Mar 18,2013 12:00

Tags: Lifestyle, Food

Despite obvious food safety concerns and the like, China is still a culinary paradise for many reasons, and is known for its countless ingenious ways of cooking various types of foods in weird and ...

darkstar1 Mar 13,2013 12:20

Tags: Expat Rants & Advice, General

Ok, I’m about to open a can of political worms with this one, though who doesn’t savour the opportunity to be an armchair pundit with almost no expertise on a subject which has been ...

darkstar1 Mar 08,2013 12:34

Tags: Lifestyle, Expat Tales, Expat Rants & Advice

I recall an evening roughly a year ago where I was with a group of friends heading back home after a night out in one of the many chilled out bars located around Beijing’s Gulou area. In a ...

darkstar1 Mar 04,2013 15:16

Tags: Expat Tales, Expat Rants & Advice, Travel

I’ve been living in Beijing for a few years now, and though I don’t think it can quite claim to have full “international city” status in the why that Hong Kong or possibly ...

darkstar1 Feb 27,2013 15:22

Tags: General, Arts & Entertainment, Language & Culture

Whenever some lays mention to C-pop, Mando-pop, or even J-pop and K-pop for that matter, images of sickly sweet bubblegum vocals and soppy ballads immediately spring to mind. We need only to look ...

darkstar1 Feb 18,2013 15:42

Tags: Lifestyle, Expat Rants & Advice

On a flight back to Beijing from visiting a friend in Guangzhou, I really wasn’t looking forward to returning to the world of smog.Guangzhou was warm, greener, and to me, a lot cleaner than the ...

darkstar1 Feb 06,2013 17:28

Tags: Language & Culture

My Mandarin isn’t great, but since being here for a few years there’s been one thing that noticed and it’s certainly something I love about being in China – the countless regional dialects. ...

darkstar1 Feb 01,2013 16:58

Tags: Dodgy beer, Beijing chauner, Yanjing, VPN

We’ve all heard of the many food scares in China. MSG,gutter oil, rat meat disguised as beef, beef disguised as rat meat and so on. I had a heads up from all my friends and family about all these ...

darkstar1 Jan 28,2013 09:33

Tags: Weibo, Chinese blogs, Chinese memes, Chinese internet

So with my Chinese capable to a degree where I think I can read Chinese enough to know roughly what might be going on…if it’s a story book for toddlers…perhaps, I’ve recently been indulging ...

darkstar1 Jan 21,2013 13:29

Tags: bargaining Beijing, Yashow market, Beijing market

I consider myself a very calm, collected guy. Well, most of the time. I’m actually pretty proud that out of many of my expat friends, I’m the one who complains the least about the apparent ...

darkstar1 Jan 09,2013 16:04

Tags: Californian, exercise, fat, fitness, gym, hot-pot, kung-fu, muscles, running, vanity, winter, China

Unforeseeable Frolics in the Gym Well it’s winter, and yes it’s damn well freezing. I’ve even heard reports that this is China’s coldest winter for a long time…as a Californian this makes no ...

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