What’s wrong with this picture? We ate lunch yesterday at a café in Gent. Afterwards, I went inside to use the toilet, followed the signs upstairs, came around a corner, and saw this. Except it wasn’t…
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In Flanders Fields Museum: A review
An effective museum doesn’t just display items drily in glass cases; an effective museum gives those items meaning to the people viewing them. It entertains, but it also makes visitors think. It gives the items an…
Do you miss it? About homesickness
People place their home where their parents are.
The Dutch and their bicycles
I’ve pointed out before that one of the things I like about the Dutch is that they ride bicycles. And it’s not just that it’s politically correct, non-polluting, and good exercise. I’ve lived here for 15…
Skating Mania
The Dutch weather service reported predicted ice thickness along with weather forecasts.
Chinese Tourists
Everywhere we’ve gone so far, there have been very few foreign tourists like us. Most of the tourists — and in some places all of the tourists — are Chinese. Sometimes they’re in pairs or families,…
Toilets in China: On cleanliness and filth
Note added in December 2019: I wrote the following article years ago in Hancheng, China, and I see now how terribly judgemental I was about toilets in China. I’ve added some tips and comments to update…
Intercultural Understanding and Chinese Beds
When I started teaching a class in intercultural communication this past year at the teacher training college, I didn’t actually know anything about it. Or rather, I didn’t know any of the theory, but I’d had…
Conspicuous Consumption
In my last entry, I mentioned how it seemed to me that the Chinese have wholeheartedly embraced conspicuous consumption. Visiting the Forbidden City the other day emphasized that for me. You could say that the emperors…