As part of our unit on marketing, I generally engage in research on businesses and industries that may connect with our values and relate to sustainability or China. For the last few years I’ve been interested in Garmin because: their…
Lies My Teacher Told Me
I need to keep myself grounded and remember how much damage instructor insecurity or arrogance can cause. During my productive procrastination (hey – it’s finals week) I stumbled upon a discussion of tattoos and Japan, and a thread touched on…
Bridge of Birds
A brilliant and tasteful aunt bought me Bridge of Birds when I was in my late teens or early 20’s, Shortly after when the book came out. She’d turned me on to Shel Silversteen, and this book had even greater impact.…
10 Words: literature by Yu Hua
Read 10 Words (link to Amazon) by Yu Hua last summer for the ASDP China summer institute. I expected it to be practical introduction to the Chinese language and linguistics, but the thoughtful and personal recollection and exploration of Chinese…
Summer East-West Center Retreat in Oahu
This summer focused on history, which ironically may be of more relevance to me for my English classes than if it focused on literature (especially poetry). I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with some truly gifted bilingual Ph.D.’s, and…
American Born Chinese: graphic novel review
American Born Chinese provides an easily accessible introduction to the immigrant experience in a graphic novel format. It is an award winning book that even my 4 year old was drawn into, but the subtle allegory can be brilliant at…
A Loyal Character Dancer: Inspector Chen Mystery
This book is also available at Amazon cheap, and in Kindle ebook. I particularly like how this book teaches lessons in essential Chinese vocabulary. (For more details and resources see China Composition Wiki here). Loyal is on the cover, and…
The Emporer’s Pearl and GuanYin
This Judge Dee book provides an interesting historical background on the the cult of GuanYin (aka Kuan Yin). This resonates with me, because of the parallels to the cult of Mary for Catholics (to which I was indoctrinated as a…
WTF: What the fruit?
I don’t shy from exotic food – in fact it is one reason I love traveling. A blog post on BoingBoing.net reminded me that one of the fruits I grew accustomed to in my 5 + years living in S.E.…
Beef tendon soup
Common in Chinese cooking, and a frequent ingredient in Vietnamese Pho soups, Beef Tendon is surprisingly tasty and a texture not found in western food. My son refers to it as “beef gummy,” and it’s one of my “go to”…