Great food is a hallmark of a great civilization and China is no exception. The many fine restaurants in Beijing are testament to the broad array of culinary pleasures on offer in the country. Hungry Beijingers can happily feast on juicy lamb kebabs, spicy kongpao chicken, beef noodles, Peking roast duck, fresh seafood and an endless variety of pork dishes. Eating in Beijing is an adventure for the taste buds.
Umpires barked "batter up!" and box scores rolled in. Luminaries tossed ceremonial first pitches as professional baseball's opening day, an American ritual, got under way Monday.
A disclaimer: this is not to suggest that all Chinese have bad manners. Similarly, Westerners certainly don't always possess flawless etiquette.
A graduate course for women offered by a university in Beijing claims to be able to turn its students into "virtuous and caring wives, excellent leaders at work, filial children for parents and elegant beauties in social activities" and all in just 24 days.
Real estate is a national obsession. Wealthy Chinese snap up properties as if they are buying stocks or making savings deposits.
When a salesman is trying to sell you something, he often tells you how much better your life will be if you buy it. When a doctor is trying to sell you something, the usual line is: how much your life will be destroyed, if you don't. It's the most effective selling strategy I've ever seen. After all, it is your life in his hand.
When I was a reporter in Boston, I covered the city's exploding population of immigrants from Latin America. My articles centered on their lives there and how they did, or did not, coalesce with the local population.
Last week I caught a glimpse of a piece of news from the local paper which stopped me from looking through the following pages for a moment: a 26-year-old PhD student at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications committed suicide by jumping from the 13th floor of the university's main building.
I've been in Beijing for a year and I've edited lots of stories about the crazy housing market.
Usually our dreams just clear out the nonessential information we get from day to day, a mental disk defrag, if you like.
A French guy once asked me: "Do
Something awful is happening to Tibetan mastiffs in China.