We’d searched high and low in Greenwich Village, but even New York had let me down. A few years later, it was Beijing that delivered – hidden on the sixth floor of a nondescript office complex in a place I’ll probably never find again, there it was, the coffee house from Friends. I love the … More Out
I’ve never mistaken my mum for a horse. And I hope I’ve never been so drunk in a field that I’ve mistaken a horse for my mum. But in Mandarin Chinese these scenarios can come up more frequently than I’d like, as I learned when I took a basic course a couple of years ago. … More You say tomato, I say xīhóngshì
Once DD leaves in the morning for his Chinese lesson, the thing that wakes me up a while later is the car horns outside. In Beijing rush hour – with its crawling traffic and rule-breaking drivers – the beeping and parping is incessant. From the street below and across the city I hear a disharmony … More TIC
We’d been told this would happen, but I didn’t quite believe it until I saw it in flesh and wood. After going through the line for diplomats at passport control, we walked out into Arrivals and there he was, the driver who had come to collect us, holding a wooden sign with a Union Jack … More 48
“I had a dream,” DD said when he woke up on Sunday morning. “What was it about?” I asked. With three days to go before Beijing, my eyes had unusually sprung open. “I had a dream,” DD said, “that you didn’t want to take the green suitcase.” I thought about it. “That’s really quite boring,” … More Two, one
