Dave’s Wagon

If you haven’t already heard, the Chinese government has apparently unblocked Wikipedia here.
I failed to notice this initially as I’ve been viewing the encyclopedia through a mirror, but when I saw this article in my Slashdot news feed today, I punched up the site, and it loaded without problem. Not surprisingly, certain “sensitive terms” still […]

Seen near Tiananmen Square: this sign.
What does it mean? I can only guess. Neither our Chinese guide nor our Beijing bus driver knew what it stood for.
The final consensus from our group: “no car bombs allowed”.

Having read the blogs of many a laowai, a common complaint from them is the sometimes-persistent harassment they receive on the street by Chinese looking for a chance to practice their English. With that in mind, I’ll probably sound crazy then when I say that this past Sunday I willingly walked into just such a […]

Coming up with a strong password can be as hassle. It has to be something difficult to guess, easy to remember, and must incorporate numbers in some way. For those who know Chinese, however, the solution is simple: pinyinized Chinese words.
Examples: ni3hao3 (hello), zai4jian4 (goodbye), shui3guo3se4la1 (fruit salad), etc
Surely I’m not the only one to […]