Since I’ve been here I’ve seen a parade of disgusting everywhere I go. It’s relentless and it’s exhausting. Here are just some of the notable ones: As I came up the escalator from the subway, a woman was crouched on…

You’re going to need one. You’re going to want a smartphone. And you’re going to want a data plan and GPS. China, like the rest of the intelligent world, uses GSM for cell phones, and the cell and provider are…

If you look at a map of Shenzhen, you’ll see the Shekuo area is a huge jutting out of land into the sea, and there is a lot of coastline. I thought I’d take a long walk and see how…

This is exactly what it looks like. A public bus being used to transport a few dressers and shelves. I can’t imagine the bus driver was amused, or the other passengers happy that they had to navigate around this set.…

I’ve decided that it’s totally possible to get by without talking at all, and in fact may be preferable to trying to speak. When I try to initiate a transaction and say Hello in Mandarin, people assume that I can…

KFC is HUGE in China. You’ll find one on just about every other block. They have delivery bikes, a breakfast menu, and many are open 24 hours. One night, partly because I was tired and hungry and didn’t want to…

The most popular phrase in the Luohu shopping market is “Hello looking handbag watch?” Sometimes this is shortened to “Hello looking?” or mixed up with “You buy glasses?” Where the electronics market is filled with booths of people who sit…

On the recommendation of a mentor, a few of us took a quick trip to a prototyping company called A-Tech. The company’s focus was building prototypes of toys. With big names for clients such as Hasbro, Mattel, Tiger Electronics, Hallmark,…

My Mandarin is awful. I just spent the whole subway ride, about thirty minutes, with my little book on Mandarin, trying to figure out what to say to order my buns this morning for breakfast. I hate that every day…

China has a problem with tax evasion. Stores often keep at least two sets of books (and sometimes three). There’s the actual books, and there’s the government books. When people go to a store and purchase something, the purchase may…