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b 14 20
10
CNYE in China Lite
Guò Nián Hǎo and welcome to the Year of the Tiger!
A couple cups of strong coffee and I’ve recovered from my 5th Chinese New Year’s Eve in China. Despite living in Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park (SIP) last year as well, this was the first time we celebrated the holiday in this district. Normally I would just hit Shiquan Jie (Suzhou’s bar street) for the big event, as its location in the downtown core puts it smack dab in the middle of all the action.
Because of our pregnancy, and a newborn in our tribe, we decided to keep…
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v 25 20
09
World-renowned author visits Humanaught
Alright, Lisa might not be world-renowned yet, but she’s well on her way. And she’s certainly a well-known fixture in the China expat/blogging circle.
Perhaps best known as “Other Lisa” in the comments at the Peking Duck (or @otherlisa on Twitter), Lisa’s a long-time blogger (her blog, Paper Tiger Tail is one of my favs., she was also a past contributor at the Duck) and has the distinction of having seen a side of China most of us expats have only read about in books.
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p 30 20
09
Dalian vs. Suzhou
Despite the combative title, it’s rather tough to A-B the two places I’ve spent the most time with in China. They are both supported and mired by a number of attributes that make them both rather unique places to live.
Last week Maggie and I grabbed a flight out of PVG and made our annual pre-holiday trip to visit the inlaws and friends in Dalian. That we both work outside the confines of anyone’s schedule but our own, we are fortunate that we can travel when the rest of the country is distractedly focused on tying up loose ends before…
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p 02 20
09
Chinese cities with beautiful women, I seem to know how to pick ‘em
Before moving to Dalian in 2005 I spent a good amount of time on the Internet researching the place to see if it was the type of city I’d like to live in. Looking back on what I read, it was the typical “Dalian is a beautiful sea-side city” tourist crap that I would hear mindlessly repeated to the point of nausea while living there.
What wasn’t mentioned on the Web sites I reviewed, but was added to the rhetoric after I arrived was that Dalian girls are considered some of the most beautiful women in China. I’m betting had…
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g 12 20
09
Suzhou info page finally fleshed + Suzhou district map
In any given week I usually get 2-3 e-mails from people just arrived or arriving in Suzhou. As one of the longest running blogs with a focus on living in Suzhou, Google gives me some love and I in turn do my best to pass it along. In an effort to provide information about the most common questions I’m asked, and to give myself a dumping ground where I can put random Suzhou information, I’ve done up the creatively titled Suzhou Information page.
It’s something I’ve been intending to put together for a couple years now (as the dead-end…
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g 09 20
09
Olive (Delhi Palace) – Some great Indian food in Suzhou
Yesterday afternoon Maggie came home with the latest edition of MORE magazine, one of Suzhou’s handful of expat-geared mags, and a glowing review of a new Indian food place caught her attention. As a yoga instructor, she tends to be a bit of an India-fangrrl.
The review extolled the place as Suzhou’s hidden sub-continental jewel, an unassuming restaurant oddly named “Olive” situated just off Shiquan Jie right beneath Q’s Club on the far eastern end of the bar street. I hadn’t had any authentic Indian food in ages, and being that it was Saturday night and we had nothing…
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l 20 20
09
Holiday Fu’s Suzhou City Guide
Iain Manley, editor of City Weekend’s relatively new Holiday Fu, has just put together an excellent city guide for Suzhou. Most all the large travel portals give Suzhou a mention, but Iain’s writeup is full of a wit and insight that makes it a fun and informative read, even for this laowai that has called the place home for three years now.
Locals half-heartedly bemoan the changes prosperity has brought. The city, they say, is irrevocably different. But Suzhou has hung onto its character, and is an excellent place to witness the contrast and clash of new and old in
…
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y 10 20
09
Murder in the Hood
Murders in the news are as common as the weather report, and are rarely read with any greater attention. It is not often that they touch your life in some way, even if just remotely.
Unfortunately, such is not the case with Suzhou’s most recent homicide, as it happened only a couple hundred metres from where I sleep, and to someone I’ve (if only peripherally) very likely met.
This past Wednesday morning the bloodied and naked body of a girl in her early 20s was found in her Singha Plaza (Xīn Dū GuǎngChǎng) apartment. Despite sharing the apartment with…
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y 04 20
09
My ChinaTravel.net Feature on Suzhou
A while back I was approached by the fine folks at ChinaTravel.net, an English-language travel site about China that is “editorially independent” but strongly affiliated with Ctrip.com — one of China’s largest online travel booking Web sites.
The site’s editors wanted me to put together a summary article on “my Suzhou”, and as of last week it was published on the site. For anyone that’s ever asked my opinion about what to see while visiting Suzhou the content will feel familiar, as it generally just rehashes what I’ve suggested to people many many times over the years I’ve…
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r 20 20
09
WTF, Suzhou 14th worst place in the world to work? Sissies!
A recent article in BusinessWeek featured a slideshow displaying 20 of the World’s Worst Places to Work. Unsurprisingly some Chinese cities made the list – surprisingly Suzhou was among them.
The list, compiled by New York-based human resources company ORC Worldwide, states the major reasons for giving Suzhou the thumbs down are pollution and a lack of culture & recreation facilities. Other problems included disease/sanitation, medical facilities, education facilities, and availability of goods and services.
It needs to be asked: has ORC Worldwide ever even been to Suzhou?
Granted, their list was compiled for BusinessWeek and specifically for…
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v 17 20
08
Karmatic Moment of the Week: Snake Rescue
I got an early phone call from my friend and neighbour Kevin today. It’s not odd that he called, he often calls, but it did seem weird it was only 9 a.m.
“Ryan, can you come outside for a minute, I need a hand.”
In slippers and pajamas I wander out into the apartment building’s entrance to see what’s going on and find Kevin carefully examining what looks to be a couple pieces of paper.
“I’ve got a snake,” Kevin says, too focused on the critter to see my surprise.
Turns out that he had innocently thrown a few stickers…
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t 27 20
08
‘Best Band in Beijing’ coming to Suzhou
Just got word that Woodie Alan, the band City Weekend calls the “Best Band in Beijing”, is coming to Suzhou for a one show performance on Friday night.
The show’s taking place at J&J Restaurant (No.5, Block 11, Horizon Resort II, SIP) and runs from 9 until 11. Tickets will set you back 60 RMB per 人, which seems a bit pricey to this laowai, but fits the swanky venue and up-scale expat crowd and that hangs around Horizon I suppose. Whether such a spot will fit the smokey jam-band blues of Woodie Alan has yet to be seen.…
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p 17 20
08
Yoga lessons in Suzhou’s SIP – Maggie gets a Web site
About a week and a half ago Maggie told me she was a bit worried because there was an unprecidented meeting of a large group of “business people” at her yoga studio when she arrived to teach her class.
Turns out her fears were not unfounded, and last week the whole business closed (it was one part yoga studio and one part female beautification factory).
Details of what exactly happened are sketchy, but best I’ve been able to piece together is that about six months ago the owner of the business realized the place was going down hill (the yoga…
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l 12 20
08
Now that’s a launch party
I’m not sure what our little “Venice of the East” did to encourage it, but in the last six months to a year Suzhou has gone from having virtually no English city/culture magazines to having no less than three – and with the official launch of that’s Suzhou last night, there’s little doubt the mags mean business.
When I arrived in Suzhou back in mid-2006, really the only thing on offer for hungry (and thirsty) literate expats was a couple Japanese magazines that threw in some rough English translations as an after-thought and What’s On Suzhou, an advertisement posing as…
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n 22 20
08
Mailbag: Suzhou, home for cheats and liars?
Being that this blog has been around for a while now, and that it consistently lists at the top of the search results for many things “Suzhou”, I tend to get my fair share of e-mails from readers or random passers-by.
Most of these are e-mails from folks moving to Suzhou, or China in general, and are looking for a man-on-the-ground to answer some of the peace of mind questions the guide books don’t give you. I always try to answer these as honestly and as detailed as I can, as I also did this when coming to China and…
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n 08 20
08
Our Apartment in Suzhou SIP (video/photos)
As I mentioned a couple weeks back, we’re moving to a new apartment at the end of the month.
As it is fully furnished (I’ve yet to rent an apartment here that isn’t – though some call into question the definition of “fully”), yesterday we had to head over to the new place and meet with the landlady and realtor to make an itemized list of all the goodies the apartment comes with.
We had been somewhat nonchalant about getting it done, but the realtor impressed upon us the importance, as they’ve had landlords walk out with major appliances…
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y 21 20
08
Movin’ on up … to the first floor
Well, it’s official. Mags, Addie and I are all moving to a new apartment at the end of June.
We’ve been talking about moving for quite a while now, and with our lease up next month, it was time to either piss or get off the pot… alright, there was no pots, and I wouldn’t piss in one anyway – but yeah, it was time to make a decision.
Our current place is right downtown, and the centrality of it was a huge deterrent for me wanting to move. As little as I actually get out, it is nice being…
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y 14 20
08
How us Suzhou Expats can help quake victims
My friend Rebecca just let me know that Suzhou Bookworm, which also has an affiliated location in Chengdu, is collecting donations to assist those affected by Monday’s horrible earthquake in Sichuan. If any fellow Suzhou expats have means to help, please read the following for details.
The Bookworm’s sister branch in Chengdu has become a focal point for assisting those groups currently providing on the ground support for those in Sichuan affected by the earthquake tragedy.
There is a concern that unless we get urgently needed supplies to the survivors of the quake, more people will lose their lives from
…
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y 08 20
08
Suzhou Bookworm’s East & West Music Fest
I swear, this town gets a little bit more livable every day.
I mean, we’ve got an Irish Pub that serves Guinness on tap, we’ve got one, two, three places that I can get a taco, we’ve a cafe/bookshop/lending library loaded to the rafters with English-language books, we’ve got an English-language movie cinema playing Iron Man, and now… well, now..
We’ve got a frigin’ MUSIC FESTIVAL!
This weekend, May 10-11, the aforementioned Bookworm is hosting the East & West Music Fest (has got a nice ring to it eh?). The event will host more…
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r 30 20
08
Humanaughtahaironmyhead
So, spring is in the air in lovely Suzhou. Yes – our two weeks of paradise have arrived, and just in time for the droves of tourists looking to capture a picture of the city’s tranquil gardens (which are overflowing with tourists looking to capture a picture of the city’s tranquil gardens).
Spring always stirs in me a desire for change. Perhaps a remnant of my primordial past, or just the fact that I spend most of my days indoors with a slowly dwindling connection to the outside world…
Whatever the reason:
Before: Grizzly Adams
…
Jarrod Wakley: 
Yeeling: 
AJB: 
Ping Pong: 
ccddmj: 
