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How Do You Like Hyperlocal, Mr. Darcy?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. And when he finds that wife, and she happens be pursuing her PhD in English, she’s...
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Just Can’t Get Into the Kindle
The New York Times is reporting that Amazon.com is coming out with a bigger Kindle for textbooks and newspapers (pictured right). Try as I may, I just can’t get that excited right now about the...
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Blurb Rolls Out PDF-to-Book Feature
I love Blurb. I started using it a couple years ago and have made several photo books with it. The only drawback was the limitations of its bookmaking software. While it does make the process of...
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Go Check Out Courtney’s New Blog
Writing an occasional post or two on here has proven insufficient to quench the wife’s thirst for blogging. Courtney has branched out and created her own blog, The Pensive Citadel, which will focus on...
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China: Alive in the Bitter Sea
While dropping off some stuff at the local PTA store a little while back, we browsed through the collection of used books and picked up a bunch, including “China: Alive in the Bitter Sea”, a 1982 book...
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China Photo Book, Done At Last!!
It took almost a year after the trip, but I’ve finally managed to finish the photo book for our China trip. In hindsight, I’m glad I procrastinated on this project, as Blurb, where I’m ordering the...
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Divine Creations
While being stuck at home sick for a couple days last week, I used the time to make a couple photo books, including one of pictures of our cats as a Christmas present for my parents. I usually don’t...
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Writing A Book
I’ve started working on a book about the history of my father’s side of the family. It’s an idea that I’ve been toying with for a few years now, and our trip back to China in 2008-09 convinced me to...
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Of Water, Pot, Firewood, and Chinese Medicine
Note: I’m going to start cross-posting some blog entries about my book-writing process on both my primary blog, Matters of Varying Insignificance, and the Tumblr blog I set up specifically for the...
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Faces From Long Ago
As part of my information gathering for the book, I’ve been digging into material about the history of Guangzhou, my hometown. I’m learning a lot about the city that I called home for the first 10...
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Guangzhou “An Urban Cesspool”? Whatever, Laowai
I’m about halfway through Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost. I’ll write a full review when I’m done, but I just finished reading the part about his experience in Guangzhou, and I can’t help but...
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Book Review: Lost on Planet China
I had previously written about my displeasure with the fact that J. Maarten Troost’s Lost on Planet China called my hometown, Guangzhou, an urban cesspool. I just finished the book, and despite that...
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Politics and Education
Note: This post is cross-posted at my book blog. I’m currently reading a book about the education system in China from 1960 to 1980. It kind of reads like somebody’s dissertation (which it probably...
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The Birth of Chinese Pop Sensations
Note: This entry is cross-posted at my book blog: http://thezhus.posterous.com. The previous excerpt I translated from the book of interviews with pioneers in Guangzhou’s reform-and-opening-up period...
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Teach A Man To Sell Fish …
This entry is cross-posted at my book blog: thezhus.posterous.com. My research on 1980s Guangzhou led me to the discovery of a 1984 Chinese film called Yamaha Fish Stall (雅马哈鱼档). It’s a story about a...
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