One of the advantages of being a university teacher is that I get the chance to see amazing performances. The other day, my roommate, Kendra, and I were out having adventures in the city (I’ll have to tell you more about those in another post). As we were getting on...
How to Motivate My Chinese Students to Talk
I often have colleagues complain that their students don’t talk in class—the good kind of talking. When I hear these complaints, I always feel a bit sad. I feel sad for the teacher because I know how frustrating that is, but I also feel bad for the students who don’t...
Understanding Ancient Chinese Poems
This semester, I decided to join one of my roommate’s Chinese classes. When she told me that one of her classes is Chinese Literature, I was pretty excited as that is a topic that interests me. Really, literature from any culture is interesting to me, but since I’m...
Phantom of the Opera in Guangzhou Opera House
I love watching live musicals, and Guangzhou Opera House is a wonderful place to enjoy them. Few of the musicals I've seen are as impressive or beautiful as Phantom. I love the costumes and most of all the music. The story is a bit frustrating. The first time I saw...
Another kind of traveling
When I used to teach IELTS speaking or just regular spoken English classes, I liked to have a travel lesson, and one of the questions I often asked the students (usually as a warm-up or introduction) was: How do you like to travel? With family, with a friend, with...
What to do when there is construction in your building…
I have realized that I need to be more thankful for the blessings in my life rather than allowing myself to wallow in pity parties. I’ve been reading Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic. If a man with no arms and no legs can be thankful, I should be able to be...
Hiking MacLehose Trail (Section 1)
On our quest to hike all of the MacLehose trail (100 km total!), Jaye planned another hiking adventure. This time, we planned to do sections one and three. I was a little hesitant about the feasibility of this plan, especially when Jeff did some calculations and...
Swan Lake in Guangzhou
My university often had shows and concerts available for us to watch. Some of them were required, and some of them were optional, but I enjoyed attending them. My school had excellent music and theater programs, and all of the performances were excellently done....
Fun Park in Guangzhou: Guangzhou Orchid Park
Now that the winter holiday is here, it’s a perfect time to go out and explore Guangzhou. The weather is chilly, but still nice for walking around (much better than summer when it’s brutally hot!). And outside is actually pretty warm. When I was thinking about places...
Should We Use AI for Cooking?
I have never really enjoyed cooking. I love eating, but cooking takes a lot of time and planning, a brief time of enjoyment, and then it’s time to clean up. During Covid, when most of the restaurants were closed, I cooked most of the time, but now that eating out is...









