The madding crowd in the Forbidden City

Bernardo Bertolucci's 1987 film "The Last Emperor" had some great shots  of the enormous plazas within the Forbidden City. Bei...

Sitting on top of a volcano

Steam vents at the Craters of the Moon, Taupo Here in New Zealand we are perched on a land mass where two continental plates collide. Below ...

How to speak Kiwi in New Zealand

At the moment, the New Zealand accent sounds the same to me as Australian, and its most notable distinguishing features are: The short-e is ...

New Zealand: air and space

Cindy and I have some friends in New Zealand, Daniela Cavallaro, who is a professor of Italian language and literature at the University of ...

Why the Chinese will never drop their written language

As I scratch the surface of Chinese, I now understand why the language cannot be simply converted to the Roman alphabet. They have to keep t...

Impressions of China

Pickup games at Tsinghua, from October. A couple of times a week I go to the Olympic-size pool on campus to swim. There are a dozen outdoor ...

Thanksgiving in Beijing

Cindy on the campus of neighboring Beijing University.  Today I am thankful for having a spouse... ....who is comfortable living in a countr...