REPORTS FROM BEIJING
24 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 10 years ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHomepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Report #34 Podcast #7
August 06, 2014 03:16The latest podcast: how not to buy art on a cruise ship.
Report #33 Podcast #6
July 28, 2014 12:28This is the first podcast in a series of episodes documenting our travels over the past few months:
Report #32
July 28, 2014 09:06This is an information-only report to announce that the blog is up and running again. Everything below is Beijing-related....new stuff from elsewhere is above....
Report #31
December 04, 2011 10:15Last October I was sleeping on a couch, confused about what to eat for breakfast, searching for housing, taking Beijing’s busiest subway to work everyday (something I vowed never to do again), and unsure of how I fit into this new world. I’ve come a long way since then. I found an apartment, started taking Chinese lessons, switched to a better job, but I somehow ended up on that damn subway again. A two-hour roundtrip commute is doable when you have to do it, but it is on my list of things th...
Report #30 Podcast #5
September 25, 2011 14:06A self-organized flea market in the northeast corner of Beijing persists over the years despite its status as an illegal market.
Report #27
May 23, 2011 18:36Consider this Report as notice that Reports From Beijing is currently on vacation. Ellen and I are walking the Camino de Santiago for a second time and I will be migrating over to that blog, which is also linked at the top of Reports From Beijing...just follow Peregrino on the Camino: a 500 mile walk across northern spain. Once there, please sign up for email delivery, which will feed each entry into your inbox when I make a post. If I can get really advanced...I will make a new domain name, ...
Report #25
May 08, 2011 18:32As a creature of the night you’re either prey or predator. At least that’s how I feel during my long walks around Beijing. I’m training for the Camino and my evening strolls are pushing the three-hour mark at this stage in the schedule. By the time I finish with work, go home, eat dinner and check my email, I’m hitting the streets past nine or ten at night. And with that, I’ve really learned my area, which I won’t deem as a neighborhood because there is nothing remarkably characteristic of i...
Report #24
April 24, 2011 17:35(This story makes the most sense if you listen to part 2 of my last podcast) It’s funny how we put things off…like the battery that you know your car needs and promise you’ll get soon, just after the engine barely turns over. You accept this lurking threat but keep hitting the snooze button of ‘later’ to prolong the inevitable. And then, when you go out one morning, it just clicks when you turn the key…and you think, damn, why didn’t I get the battery? To append my last report, Podcast #3...
Report #22
March 27, 2011 15:23Dear Chinese Neighbor, Our walls are thin and you must know this. I can hear your TV so you should be able to hear mine. I find this acoustic problem troubling because one night when I angrily banged on the wall I nearly crippled my hand against the concrete. Yes! Concrete! You’d think we’d be sealed up like prisoners in solitary confinement alone with only our thoughts behind walls like these. Maybe our ceiling is made of straw. I don’t know. In any case I need you to pipe down a bit, espec...
Report #21
March 20, 2011 16:23It is rare to find individuals who are uniquely their own character. I think the Coen brothers can say this better than me: Now this story I'm about to unfold took place back in the early nineties--just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the Eye-rackies. I only mention it 'cause some- times there's a man--I won't say a hee-ro, 'cause what's a hee-ro?--but sometimes there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here-- sometimes there's a man who, wal, he's the man for his time'n ...
Report #18
February 27, 2011 15:39Hong Liang came to work for OPEN shortly after Stardy was fired. Both interns have made appearances in Reports from Beijing; most recently Hong Liang was a guinea pig for my first podcast interview. Unlike Stardy, whose charm and confidence made for fast friends, Hong Liang was slow to emerge from his shell. At first he was quiet, very serious, and I only knew him as the guy that picked out all the peanuts from the salad at our evening dinners. His English wasn’t very good, actually the wor...
Report #16
January 23, 2011 16:04Other Jobs I’ve heard about in China, and Imagine myself Pursuing: 1) I’m dressed in a slick black suit that was hand made to fit me by a child with nimble hands. I feel overly proud for once in my life, to be white. My only task today is to be present, because, after all I’m a business escort. Not the kind that performs unspeakable things for cash, but the kind that accompanies Chinese businessmen to meetings in order to gain credibility. I’m the symbol for western modernity, a white face, ...
Report #15
January 16, 2011 13:42There are some stories that must be told: My toilet seat broke the other day. Without getting to graphic, there are those who stand and cleanse and those who take care of the job while sitting. I fall into the latter category, which requires some weight shifting. And with that said, ‘Snap’, my plastic toilet seat cracked underneath me, and a big fragment of the seat fell into the toilet. Now, my toilet is not like others. There really isn’t any water in it, except way down the hole, past ...
Report #14
January 09, 2011 12:31Short Accounts of Things I’ve Seen Recently in Exactly 100 Words: The white painted walls in my office are made of concrete, which makes them thumbtack-proof. Chinese tape sucks and Beijing air dries out the sticky-ness, so hanging drawings on the wall is limited at best. Enter the Chinese carpenter man who screwed 4x8 sheets of soft, dense foam to the walls for a pin up space. He does good work, but what is even more impressive is when he mounted the 6’ folding stepladder like one would a h...
Report #13
January 03, 2011 05:24No carts were available at the Carrefour grocery store, only a few stragglers at the front entrance that were either crippled or just passed up; because who wants to push a cart half a block when you can get one at the door? Not today. I doubled backed and rescued one of the castaways. Inside it was crazy. Carrefour was having a huge New Years Day sale that made Black Friday look tame. I suppose their weekend sale was perfectly timed with the first of the month. Unlike the states, where peopl...
Report #12
December 26, 2010 09:53I threatened myself a couple months ago that I would find a gym, but the threat level has gone from red to orange to yellow. Maybe it’s the cold or maybe it’s the routine I’m stuck in now. However in my defense, there aren’t a lot of gyms out there screaming at you to join. A fitness center with big glass windows and frantic members running like hamsters staring at you just doesn’t happen here like it does, say in New York. If I lived near one of those 24-hour New York fitness centers, I’m su...
Report #11
December 19, 2010 15:37This week's Report is in the form of a podcast. You'll need itunes (or similar) media browser to listen to the podcast. To subscribe to Reports From Beijing Podcasts, follow these steps: 1) open iTunes 2) Under the "Advanced" pull down menu, select "Subscribe to Podcast" 3) copy and paste this URL into the blank field: http://www.firedupness.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default And that's it! Reports from Beijing will download into your podcast library of iTunes, and will update automatically ...
Report #10
December 12, 2010 13:56This is what thirty thousand Yuan looks like. It’s the most money I’ve ever held in my hand before….the most, as in physically, because it’s nowhere near thirty thousand dollars. But it is three hundred of one thing--three hundred bills of money--and feels equally provocative. This is how I paid for my apartment; one lump sum for one year’s rent. That’s just how hot the rental market is in Beijing and goes to show how unscathed the Chinese economy is after the financial Crisis. One of my ...
Report #9
December 05, 2010 06:36Dear Chinese Cleaning Lady, Hey, it’s me the American. You know, the one that showed up too early on the first day and you had to unlock the door after hearing the doorbell ring repeatedly? You were pretty confused, especially when I tried to tell you that I just started working here. We didn’t understand one another, so I just sat at the table and read a book while I waited for other people to show up. Anyway, that was two months ago and I’ve had time to get to know you a bit better. I know...
Report #8
November 28, 2010 05:39Adjusting to Beijing is similar to going grocery shopping in a new store. You know it has all the stuff you need, you’re just not sure where to find everything, and aimlessly circle around the same loops. My existence here is limited to several key locations. I imagine myself a ground squirrel darting to and fro points of safety, those being: my apartment, the office, Carrefore (the grocery store), and occasionally IKEA. This would be my routine if a spy satellite studied me for several weeks...
Report #5
November 07, 2010 04:59Dear My body, I’m sorry. I know this transition must be hard for you. Isn’t it funny how when we told people about our move to Beijing they thought I might let you get too thin as they pegged all Chinese people to be skinny or something? Ha! Looks like we’ve proved them wrong, which is the concern of this letter. You’ve probably noticed by now how I keep you sitting in a chair for about 12 hours a day. What? Yes, I know the 5 minute bike ride to work could have been longer, but I questioned ...
Report #4
October 30, 2010 13:36I’ve spent the last few days researching pedestrian traffic patterns and shopping psychology for the Metro Valley project in India, which is a mega-structure in a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) just outside of Dehli. I’ve filled my head with things like the invariant-right principle (our bias to turn right), merchandising layout psychology (the items we need are always farthest away from the entrance), the male tendency to shop without a list (and therefore impulsively). And with that, I went to...
Report #2
October 19, 2010 13:53There are some things you just have to do, like eating a duck foot when you're out to dinner with your boss. Rubber and cartilage.
Report #1
October 17, 2010 09:35My blog is now up and running with some new features. I've created links to my old blogs below the title page, and best of all there is an email subscription link to receive notifications each time a new "report" is posted (that's for you Janyki) REPORT #1: The Acclimation Period, Two Weeks Chinese From Detroit to JFK and then 5 hours of layover. I had two bags checked in Detroit, which were being shuffled somewhere in the airport system. I took the subway to Rockaway Beach to have one last...