An American Expat in China

Today is a solemn day of remembrance for me.  A year ago on this day a student of mine, Levan Kennedy, was shot and killed in his car in the Oxford Circle neighborhood of Philadelphia.  It is painful to think about, but it is essential for the healing process to recall the grief and misery I felt when I had learned of his death and to remember the positive influence he was at my former workplace.   Levan, or as his teachers and friends called him "Van", was a brilliant young person.  He was talented in music and had a knack for song writing.  I took a lot of pride in how we connected over music and how quickly he picked up the guitar.  He was a deep thinker with a lot of generosity, empathy, and kindness.  He was the prime example of someone who made the most of a crappy situation and never seemed to let himself become a victim of circumstance. While I was his teacher I can say I learned as much, if not more from, him as he did from me. ...

I am making consistent progress on my fitness and language learning goals.  I have lost 2.25kg (almost 5lbs) thanks to diet and exercise. My fluency in Mandarin is showing much slower progress, but progress nonetheless. My lessons are going well but by the time I have them I am usually pretty tired and have a hard time remembering the vocabulary that I have learned and using it in practice.  My most recent assignment for my mandarin lessons involved writing a few paragraphs explaining my life.  The course also includes a text and work book called HSK1. Duolingo is working to improve my vocabulary as well. I went on the hash again this week.  It was a lot of fun running a trail that was actually well marked. I decided on a charity effort for the greem dress run.  I put it to a vote and the hashers decided to raise money for the earthquake relief effort.  I am sharing the charity below because a friend of mine is leading an effort to raise funds for this caus...

In only my second week of diet and exercise at the gym and I have already lost 1.35kg (2.97lbs).  I was  proud of this achievement and hope to keep shedding this weight in the weeks to come.  I am making progress in my mandarin lessons.  Between my lessons and daily use of Duolingo I hope my progress yields meaningful results for my literacy and fluency.  Mandarin is a tonal language.  So, for example, if I say "ma" it could mean mother, horse, hemp/cannabis, or scold depending on the tone I use.  If I use the wrong "ma" I may mistakenly scold your mother for smoking weed with a horse.   This makes the language fairly difficult but I am learning. On Friday I had hoped that my friend Alexander would be hosting a game night but nobody was available.  So instead I went home after the gym and did some meal prep.  Saturday I had anticipated that Faye would be visiting in the late afternoon.  When it turned out she would not be comin...

This week has been the week to put my New Years resolutions into action. I joined a gym called Panatta and it has two locations.  The location near where I work is fully equipped with stretching space, machines, free-weights, dumb bells and benches, cardio equipment, and even an indoor pool.  Their second location is at the Hilton by my apartment building and is also very well equipped. They have less machines but still have plenty of equipment, an outdoor pool which opens in April, and a steam room and hot tub.  Both locations offer classes which is included in my membership.  On my first day of working out I stepped on a scale and was surprised,  ashamed, and disappointed to see that I have gained 10.9kg (24 lbs) since terminating my membership at my previous, Philadelphia based, gym and dojo in June of 2022.  That is a lot of weight gain in a short period of time and I can bet you that it will not be lost easily.  I have committed to working out at ...

This week back at work has been very tiring but it is good to be back at work.   I had the pleasure of spending the whole weekend with Faye.  She and I enjoyed each other's company from Friday night after I returned until Sunday.  We went out to eat and went to talent park to check out the birds with my new monocular.  It feels really good to spend time with her.  It was our third time hanging out. I am hopeful she and I will spend a lot more time together.  The statuary in talent park is just stunning. There are tons of shore birds in talent park. Over the past few months I have been using Duolingo to learn Chinese.  While I am making progress with this, I decided that I needed to accelerate my language learning.  So, I opted to sign up for Mandarin lessons.  Starting next week I will have two hour and a half long sessions each week for five weeks.  This will give me a total of 15 hours of lessons.  After that I will decide on...

This post is a bit late but it was worth it to document the experience fully.  With Chinese New Year and Spring Festival being a major holiday, most people get some time off, our school got two weeks.  Restrictions have been lowered for travel into china to only needing a 48 hr neg pcr test.  My goal was to condense as much enjoyment into my 2 week break as possible while still maintaining the laid-back vacation pace.  I succeeded.  My first stop was Guangzhou. I left work early and went home to prepare. I had opted to take a long cab ride from home but in retrospect wish I had planned ahead enough to catch a train. Next time.  Guangzhou was pretty cool. My first night day there I sought out an observation deck from which I could see the city.  At 480m high the Canton Tower doesn't just kiss the clouds, it fists the clouds. I had been informed that visibility was low prior to buying my ticket so cannot complain. I had a good time so I won't complain. I...