I remember watching The Postman Always Rings Twice a while back with Lana Turner as Cora, and I can’t remember the name of the guy who played the drifter. It’s an interesting movie, very ‘sizzling’ if you know what I mean, but there’s one scene in particular I remember and that’s where the husband has […]

Mike Tyson said that. And a company called Busy Building Things immortalized the saying on a little plaque that sits above my desk even as I type this. I think it’s amazingly profound! It’s quite self explanatory, I guess. I mean, you make a plan, a strategy, and then you jump into the fray and […]

Saw a watch advertisement today with a cocky looking Daniel Craig standing there like a fortress, his arms crossed, saying this watch was the same one as the one the new James Bond wears. So… Does that mean if you buy it and wear it, you’ll have something in common with James Bond as played […]

Recently, there’s been a HUGE push in schools to address problems with bullying. There’ve been suicide videos, the most recent from a girl named Amanda Todd, and bullying and suicide seems to have really reached a peak in terms of social consciousness. Parents and educators are really feeling compelled to do something about the ‘epidemic’. […]

feels a bit like a waste of time. Sometimes the feeling of impotence in the face of global dilemmas is just excruciating. This is one of those times. It seems to crop up every so often. It’s like tensions build and build in Israel and Palestine, and they start fighting, and people start dying. And […]

Can you believe that’s actually a line of dialogue in the movie Love is a Many Splendored Thing??? I burst out laughing when I heard ‘third’ uncle, say that to his Eurasian niece. Okay, maybe I should give the movie a break. A love affair between a white guy and a half Chinese woman in Hong […]

I have to admit, over the last few weeks I’d been feeling such an overwhelming foreboding of disaster when it comes to American politics that I had basically resigned myself to a Mitt Romney victory. It started when Obama fared so poorly during that first debate. I actually thought he handled himself well. And watching […]

This is the last entry of my Shanghai journal. I know it seems strange to talk about Shanghai when we had such a major catastrophe in the eastern States, but I think even in times of difficulties life has to go on. My heart goes out to all those suffering from the effects of Hurricane […]

Sun Yat Sen is the father of modern China. I had no idea. He died in 1925 and they decided to raise a mausoleum for him on top of Purple Mountain in Nanjing. At the time China had about 39.2 million people, so the guy who designed the memorial got the bright idea there should […]

We went to see the Confuscious Temple. It was in a very touristy district, lots of foreigners and when I stepped off the bus I saw a Chinese woman who was wearing what could only be hijab! She was so cute! And I felt incredibly homesick. And despite all my qualms at being photographed by […]