In addition to the NIMBYs and the YIMBYs, we now have the PHIMBYs: Public Housing in My Back Yard. This new acronym represents those who believe that public-subsidized housing should be added to our cities, but no private enterprise market-rate […]
Travel
Some General Observations about China: Languages, Romanizations, Air Quality, General Appearance
I am late getting out this post, which should be my last about China. China does not feel like Europe. It feels like America in some parallel universe. I had always hated the science fiction tales on TV that had […]
Beijing – At the End of the Road
Because Beijing, as the capital and second largest city, gets the most media attention, most people go there first. We made a point of going there last. The first surprise is that the air there was the clearest we had […]
Dynasties and All That
It will occur to the reader that I have been talking about dynasties and this and that without giving any clear background on them. The time has come to clarify. DYNASTIES In case you don’t know, a dynasty is a […]
Our China Journey Part V: Shandong
About half of Shandong is a mountainous peninsula that sticks out into the East China Sea, dividing it into the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Gulf. But a considerable portion of it projects into the great plain to the west. […]
Our China Journey, Part IV – Henan, The Center of the Universe
We bundled our luggage into a van and got on a train and headed for Luoyang, Henan, a place which has frequently been the capital of China, though a bit of a backwater now. Here were a number of things […]
Our China Journey, Part III – Xi’an and Yan’an
From Nanjing we got on a plane and flew 600 miles to the northwest to Xi’an, Shaanxi. This city is now a second tier city about the size of Chicago, but during the Tang dynasty [618-907] it was Chang’an, the […]
Our China Journey, Part II – Shanghai and the Lower Yangtze Region
SHANGHAI We next flew to Shanghai, though the largest city in the country it is not in its core area historically Chinese. Shanghai was a small town until 1842, when just north of it two large concession enclaves were carved […]
Our China Journey, Part I – Singapore and Guangzhou
SINGAPORE David, Roberta, and I started our adventure in Singapore, which is a 75% Chinese city but was ruled by the British from 1818 to 1957 and after 1965 by the late great Lee Kwan Yew, who established English as […]
Our Adventure in Ethiopia
In March of 2015, our family and some friends took a 3½ week trip through Ethiopia, one of the most unusual of sub-Saharan African countries. Ethiopia is exceptional in two ways; It became a Christian culture in the 300s, whereas […]