by Alison | Oct 14, 2026 | Blog, Chinese Language and Culture
This semester, I’m auditing another Chinese Literature class. Since this class is called Chinese Literature II, I, along with the other students, assumed that the class would be more focused on recent literature. Our class last semester went from ancient Chinese poems...
by Alison | Oct 7, 2026 | Blog, Just Life, Travels
Guangdong is full of interesting cities. In the past, I wasn’t very interested in traveling around my province, but the more I have traveled in Guangdong, the more I love it. I especially love the mountains in my province. The mountains aren’t as impressive as the...
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 2, 2026 | Blog, Just Life, Travels
I first learned about mate (an Argentinian tea; pronounced mah-tay) from a video that my colleague found to show to our middle school students when I was teaching at the middle school. The video showed tea and tea customs from around the world. I love tea, and I love...
