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...]

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 … [Read more...]

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 … [Read more...]

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. 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...]