Pros and Cons
I’m headed to Sanya this weekend to write up some travel stories about the island .. the beaches and some of the luxury hotels. I’ve never been to Sanya and its been a LONG time since i was in the vicinity of beaches and sun and fresh tropical fruits. I’ve heard all sorts of things [...]
Fast, Cheap or Good: You can only have Two
Rumor has it that Tom Waits once said this to Jim Jarmusch over whiskey and pop tarts, but it could have been Ben Franklin. I find it to be a pretty decent appraisal of what is possible in today’s world. In the US, I believe people chose “fast and good” whereas in China people chose [...]
Into a groove
When it comes to blogging and just writing in general, its important to get your groove on. For a while there I was writing wak destination guides using bad reviews from the web and memories — either mine or some one elses. That actually hasn’t changed. part of my job is still exactly that: armchair [...]
An anti-establishment radical caught in a corporate setting
Today I picked up the cash portion of my pay. here at Ctrip.com we foreigners have two different forms of payment: 1) Taxable income that is wired in 2) non-taxable income that is given in cash The non-taxable income is basically our rent. In the initial negotiations with HR, we were going to hand them [...]
What the Wenchuan Quake makes me think of
I still choke up every time I read about the kids that died in the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. I’ll remember the pictures of a girl impaled on rebar as screaming parents reached up to her … one of them balanced on crumbling concrete trying to reach her before she faded out. I’ll see the blood [...]
What the people say