by Alison | Sep 30, 2026 | Blog, Chinese Language and Culture, Just Life
Mid-Autumn Festival （中秋节; Zhongqiu Jie) is one of my favorite holidays in China. I like it partly because it reminds me of Thanksgiving which is one of my favorite American holidays. The other day, I was talking with some of my students about the similarities between...
by Alison | Sep 23, 2026 | Blog, Chinese Language and Culture, Just Life, Travels
During my first year in China, I had lots of adventures. Some of them were traumatic, some of them were fun, and most of them were crazy. But over the years, I’ve developed less patience for things that look like they are going to be crazy. I started saying no to...
by Alison | Sep 16, 2026 | Blog, Just Life, Thoughts about life
As a teacher, I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about how to motivate my students to study well and work hard and learn the material that I have prepared for them. But for the last few months, I’ve had a hard time with that because I didn’t feel motivated...
by Alison | Aug 26, 2026 | Blog, Just Life, Travels
I love traveling. If you’ve read many of my blog posts, you probably know that. But with traveling comes my arch nemesis: jet lag. Now, I should clarify that this post is not going to give you a lot of tips about how to deal with jet lag. There are lots of resources...
by Alison | Jul 22, 2026 | Blog, Just Life, Travels
I got my flight to America out of Hong Kong, so Kendra and I decided to spend the day in Hong Kong on my way. After lunch at a Hong Kong-style restaurant (which is a mix of Western and Chinese food), we headed to the Hong Kong Science Museum. Some quick facts before I...
