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A bad case of giant sign gremlins

Posted Sunday, February 07, 2010 3:57 AM by will
Honestly, sometimes I think this country is a giant juggernaut that simply can't be stopped, and other times, well, to keep things polite, I don't. Yesterday I moaned about the giant sign going up outside my apartment windows. Today, the fates have delivered Read More...
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Imagine my joy at this...

Posted Saturday, February 06, 2010 4:48 AM by will
A few days ago, on the construction site across the main boulevard from where I live, a set of huge characters went up, exhorting the workers to "close the gap, finish the building". OK, twenty-foot characters seemed a bit excessive, but exhortations Read More...
13 Comments

Why, again, did I agree to be paid in RMB?

Posted Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:30 PM by will
Just went to the bank to convert a year's worth of RMB savings to Singapore dollars (my main savings currency), where I was reminded by the vast complexities involved that the renminbi is not freely exchangeable. Here's the box score: Documents required: Read More...
7 Comments

Hubei cigarette purchasing plan extinguished

Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:54 AM by will
It turns out that the plan to have local officials prop up the cigarette market in Hubei has gone up up in smoke. Seems the people were fuming. From China Daily : The order made headlines in major newspapers around the world after being made public, triggering Read More...
2 Comments

A few other people that China could helpfully quarantine

Posted Tuesday, May 05, 2009 3:26 AM by will
Imagethief has been watching with some interest the resolution of the drama concerning the quarantining of Mexican passport holders, some of whom hadn't even been to Mexico in recent months. Given that my own country, the United States, was only recently Read More...
25 Comments
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Strange things are afoot in the supermarket nut aisle

Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 5:40 AM by will
I don't generally write Chinglish posts any more as the novelty has worn off after five years and Chinglish now strikes me as pretty much the cheapest of cheap shots. Plus my Chinese is rather dire, so I'm not really in a position to throw linguistic Read More...
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Adventures in pyromania

Posted Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:38 PM by will
So CCTV burned down their own hotel . That has got to look bad in the yearly evaluation. However, here is what I am pretty sure didn't happen: I am pretty sure that they didn't torch their own building for the insurance money using the year's second-biggest Read More...
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Guest post: A beginning?

Posted Wednesday, January 21, 2009 5:20 AM by will
Note : The following is a guest post by my friend, Shannon Roy, a longtime Beijing resident who recently witnessed something that made a strong impression on him and asked if he could relay the story here. A beginning? It's a feature of expat life that Read More...
10 Comments

Somebody's not smiling enough!

Posted Saturday, January 17, 2009 6:48 AM by will
Spotted at the swish supermarket in the basement of the mall next door to my apartment: In English only I note (and in a very schoolmarmish tone at that), which may suggest something about the differing expectations for foreign and Chinese customers (plenty Read More...
13 Comments

2008 best-of-Imagethief and statistics

Posted Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:01 AM by will
First, Imagethief feels he owes his readers an apology. Anyone who has been with me for longer than a few months will have noticed that the last third of 2008 yielded a sparse crop of posts. For this I blame a very heavy workload and an increasingly demanding Read More...
3 Comments

Helping to create a great impression of Westerners in China

Posted Thursday, November 20, 2008 3:49 AM by will
Wow. Have a listen . At what point does possibly legitimate advice becomes an abusive harangue? Discuss. Read More...
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Illegal Baby part 2: I fought the law and the law won

Posted Sunday, October 05, 2008 4:01 AM by will
Regular readers will recall that Imagethief became a father earlier this year. Having a child requires new parents to undertake many unfamiliar responsibilities. These include the obvious, such as the care and feeding of an infant, and some things that Read More...
32 Comments

Jingjing and Chacha live?

Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2008 6:25 AM by will
These two have been patrolling my housing complex for the past week. I haven't seen them make any collars yet, but I've been surfing much less sm*t than usual, just in case: Note : Don't know who Jingjing and Chacha are? Click here . Or, to see them in Read More...
9 Comments

Will we all burn in a fire made of mooncake packaging?

Posted Friday, September 05, 2008 5:35 AM by will
Imagethief likes the Mid-Autumn Festival. I like it because even though it actually comes in late summer, it reminds me of autumn, and autumn is famously the nicest time of year in Beijing. In any year devoid of Olympic rigging, late summer in Beijing Read More...
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I apologize to Beijing's air, plus how to get rid of an infestation of brides

Posted Monday, September 01, 2008 1:14 AM by will
Snark goeth before the eating of a generous helping of crow. I owe Beijing an apology. On Thursday and Friday I lamented the return of Beijing's air pollution to what I assumed was status quo ante . But yesterday was one of those days --of which Beijing Read More...
5 Comments
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