A Karmic Lychee @ rah-kun.net

(via boingboing, via Jos)

Note to self – my Chinese gets exponentially better once I’ve got a little bit of booze in me. I had a small class of Jianjiu, or Yaojiu (medicine wine), which is basically the local baijiu with roots and herbs in it. It’s still pretty nasty, but I can pretend that it’s got some kind [...]

If there’s any one thing that’s happened to me in China so far that has made the entire experience worth it, it’s been the connection I’ve managed to forge with this family:

There’s something about precocious children. They’re so… precocious. And Friday nights too, good things tend to happen on Friday nights for no apparent reason other than it just so happens to be Friday night.
It’s been pretty dull here lately, and I’ve been rather lonely since my non-school related friends dwindled in number from two to [...]

I just gotta get this out of my system before I can give a decent summary of the Wuhan trip. You have to know what I was pretty certain I knew what I was getting into – the details were not there before this trip started, but the otherwise feeling of uncertainty and “Nah, I’m [...]

Somehow, Fried Squid-on-a-Plate is less appetizing than Fried Squid-on-a-Stick. Nevertheless:
Things have been quiet out of me lately because, in the last week or two, I’ve slipped into something of a state of normalcy. I work slightly irregular hours over the week, do my two 8 hour shifts on the weekends, then hide in my apartment [...]

…in my stomach, as we speak.
Which brings me to my next point:
I created life today. Not much of it, but after a bit of nagging, I managed to wrangle a new frying pan out of the powers that be at my school. The previous one both sucked as a cooking implement AND seemed to be [...]

Today was an odd day of firsts.
I had my first professional hair cut in 10 years. Before, I’d just have someone grab the bottom of my ponytail and hack the damned thing off with a pair of regular office scissors. Today, I went out and spent a cool 21 yuan (about 4 dollars) in a [...]

人之初，性本善
性相近，习相远
苟不教，性乃迁
教之道，贵以专
　　　－＜＜ 三字经 ＞＞
ren zhi chu, xing ben shan
xing xiang jin, xi xiang yuan
gou bu jiao, xing nai qian
jiao zhi dao, gui yi chuan
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　- “Sansijing”

I’ve been trying new things again.
The other day, during my run to the Wushang next door, I grabbed a five pack of ramen for “emergencies.” Last night, I decided to try one and… I kinda regret it.