People often wonder how I happily lived in Mainland China for 3.5 years. What about the pollution/censorship/unsafe food/spitting/high road casualties, they ask? The key is strategically low(ered) expectations. With my […]
I was nine when I first came to know that near-penniless youth could “backpack” around Europe. I had spent many weeks carefully studying the souvenirs placed around my best friend’s […]
Watching strangers is one of the simplest pleasures. I do it in airports, city centers, beaches, restaurants, on public transport, etc. Even at the zoo, it is often the people […]
Traffic accidents are a key danger of expat life as we live in countries with hazardous roads and move around by car a lot. (Smug expats riding their bikes on […]
I once spoke to a woman who was moving to Layton, Utah from someplace in the east of America. She looked at the map, saw the giant lake (“The Great […]
Two phones, office visitors, open notebooks, the possibility of tea (see the back corner), and still so very, very bored. After watching this clerk stare into the middle-distance for quarter-hour […]
