Category Archives: Life

Somebody Else’s Problem — Decision Making in China

Once long ago I was inter­viewed for a job as lan­guage direc­tor of the Defence Coop­er­a­tion Lan­guage School in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. (The place pre­tends to teach Eng­lish in three months or so to exchange mil­i­tary offi­cers from places like Indone­sia). … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Big Parade At Dragon Lake

The deal was 8am. I’m a just-in-time guy, but here she was knock­ing on the door at 7:15. Jeez. Can I offer you some break­fast? We sat look­ing at each oth­er across a big wood­en cof­fee table, the gold­en drapes … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Cigarette

Win­ter morn­ing light had bro­ken clear and cold, so ear­ly that night’s shad­ows were still about and a wispy moon hung in the sky. A small col­lec­tion of street food ven­dors had already parked their hand carts by the col­lege … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Iron Rooster and The White Dragon

Chi­na has one of the world’s biggest rail net­works. With 20% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion that is hard­ly sur­pris­ing, and it still comes nowhere near meet­ing demand on exist­ing net­works, or on actu­al net­work cov­er­age in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed provinces like … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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