Chengdu Living

Kung Fu dominates martial arts in Chengdu, but there is a small band of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners in the city. I met with Jamie and he demonstrated chokes on me before politely answering my questions.

I’ve been seeing a graffiti tag appear with ever greater frequency over the past year and I wonder: who’s doing this? I found out and interviewed him. Hear his story and check out his artwork inside.

Over the last 6 months, I’ve been raising my half-Chinese child in China, his home country. Recently I’ve been noticing how they treat him: they love him too much.

Lu Xun, one of the fathers of Modern Chinese Literature, is in the process of expelled from China’s textbooks. Read inside to learn more about what’s happening.

I love Chengdu, but I gotta go. I took a job as copy editor in the antithesis of the ‘Du: glitzy, glamorous Shanghai. Here’s what I think about these two cities after spending 10 years in Sichuan.

Getting around China on a bicycle is a fantastic experience that’s tempered by the eventual realization that bike thieves are everywhere, all across the country. Use these five tips to greatly reduce your chances of unwittingly donating your bike to the local community of thieves.

The Gaokao is the academic guantlet that all college-bound Chinese youth pass through on their journey to higher education. Learn more about what this hugely important day is like by hearing about it from someone who took the exam in 2010. There’s photos, too!

You might have heard of the Gao Kao before. It’s the rigorous week-long exam that Chinese high school students take before embarking on the first steps of adulthood. I find out what it’s like by talking with a recent high school graduate.

What follows is my personal account of the death of my girlfriends grandmother, lovingly referred to as Laolao. Along the way there’s grieving, vacationing, understanding and deception.

I took the American summer camp director’s right flank as we visited Chinese school leaders and forged life-time business partnerships. Through the experience, I assumed a number of different roles which I share with you here.