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Notes on China: Natural Beauty

It's a beautiful country! Mostly, I'm going to let pictures speak for themselves on this page. If you like what you see here, don't miss the whole gallery [Read more...]

Notes on China

It's silly to try and summarize the thoughts and lives of over a billion people by visiting a handful of spots over a ten day period. But I thought it was worth recording some thoughts on my recent trip to China, broken up into blog-sized posts. [Read more...]

Notes on China: Random Miscellany

Things that don't fit anywhere in the rest of this series of blog posts... [Read more...]

Notes on China: Social Darwinism

Darwinism

I don't care if they call it capitalist or Communist, China is building a Darwinist society. The attitude appears in all sorts of places. [Read more...]

Notes on China: Conclusion

I didn't expect this trip. The opportunity came unsolicited from the Hunan Provincial Department of Education and one of the local universities. But I've learned that when the Universe says "Would you like to?", the right answer is usually "Yes!" [Read more...]

Notes on China: Relationships

Public Displays of Affection

An interesting mix of public displays of affection.

Lots of teenage and twenty-something girls holding hands. I suspect most of them were just demonstrating friendship, but who knows? For what it's worth, there were zero guys holding hands with each other. [Read more...]

Notes on China: The People

Diversity

One of the first things I noticed in mainland China was the diversity of the people. Not "diversity" in the sense we use it in the United States -- I saw precisely two black people on my entire trip, both in Hong Kong, and zero who we'd categorize as "Latino" -- but in the range of body types, faces, and colorations that all were distinctly "Chinese." [Read more...]

Notes on China: Hong Kong

I'm going to be writing mostly about Hunan Province and its capital, the city of Changsha. But, on the way to Hunan, I was lucky enough to spend 48 hours in Hong Kong. I'm not going to focus on that other than this one page. First, lots more Westerners have already been to Hong Kong, so there's less useful ground for me to cover. And, in its essence, Hong Kong is a Western city. [Read more...]

China: A Few Cautions

August

Don't go in August. Look, I live in Atlanta. I understand heat and humidity, okay? But South China is a whole different world. Imagine Savannah in August. Now, imagine Savannah in August without the ocean breeze. [Read more...]

China is Different

China is different.

That sounds like a completely obvious statement, but it's worth starting with it. I've travelled all over the world, and I've never felt the sense of being on an alien planet as much as last week in China. [Read more...]