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You are liable for any misuse of the contents of the advice

Posted Thursday, May 15, 2008 12:51 AM by will
I've been looking at this message for the past four years: "You are liable for any misuse of the contents of the advice". Some of you may recognize this as the warning that all Chinese ATMs give you if you have the temerity to ask for a printed transaction Read More...
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Armageddon in my neighborhood: Photos and video from Chinese New Year in Beijing

Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 6:14 AM by will
When Imagethief was a lad he was (as his father will gladly tell you) something of a pyro. I always looked forward to the fourth of July, Independence Day, when fireworks are traditionally set off in the United States. They were banned in San Francisco, Read More...
7 Comments

2007 best-of-Imagethief and statistics

Posted Tuesday, February 05, 2008 11:01 PM by will
There is no such thing as a dull year in China. 2008 is well underway and already looks like another whopper. We're only a month in and we've already had the biggest storms in half a century. The Olympics, the mother of all China events, is now a scant seven months off. God only knows what will happen in between. Read More...
4 Comments

The storm

Posted Saturday, February 02, 2008 6:43 AM by will
I feel I owe the people of China an apology. About a month ago I accused this winter of being a "pansy" winter. As many people have since reminded me, I was tempting fate. Fate has obliged by throwing China it's worst winter storm in more than two decades Read More...
11 Comments

Ich Bin Ein Beijinger: Beijing reloaded

Posted Sunday, January 27, 2008 9:26 PM by will
I pinch-hit for Kaiser on the back page of That's Beijing's January issue. Thanks to my stint in Shanghai it's the first time in nearly a year that I've written something for them. Fittingly, I wrote about moving back to Beijing from Shanghai. The column Read More...
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Blue sky days: If at first you don't succeed, change the metric

Posted Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:27 AM by will
You really didn't believe that things were getting better, did you? And you didn't believe that it fate that led Beijing to squeak past its 2007 blue-sky target by a margin of one whole day, did you? Conspiracy theorists, rejoice. Via Danwei , the Wall Read More...
10 Comments

Is it warmer or is it just me?

Posted Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:10 AM by will
I knew it was getting warmer. This is my fourth winter in Beijing. The first one was a near-death experience. Of course, I had been living in the tropics for nine years, so I had some adjusting to do. But still, it was brutal. The north wind ripped through Read More...
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Bad air

Posted Thursday, December 27, 2007 9:06 PM by will
There is really little new that can be said about Beijing's air pollution, so I am generally reluctant to write about it. Nevertheless, I feel the last couple of days merit special notice. It has been bad. It has been bad in a way that the word "bad" Read More...
12 Comments

Secret Santa's revenge

Posted Monday, December 17, 2007 12:06 AM by will
A few days ago Imagethief, in maximum Grinch mode, wrote a long rant on the miserable office ritual of " secret santa " gift programs. In that post I agonized about how awful I am at buying cheap presents for people I don't know. It seems I'm not the Read More...
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I hate secret Santa

Posted Tuesday, December 11, 2007 3:09 AM by will
Imagethief likes the holiday season. He is not one of those December curmudgeons who bah-humbugs his way through Christmas. Give me trees, tinsel, candy canes and a big dinner with my friends. My dad used to roast a goose for Christmas. How traditional Read More...
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Hairy crabs, the hill of pain and the boulevard of a thousand massage touts

Posted Wednesday, November 21, 2007 6:14 AM by will
Imagethief went for a hike with some good friends on Sunday. Hiking is one of the things that I was sorry to give up when I moved to Shanghai, and that I've been most eager to rediscover upon my return. In Shanghai you can drive for days through the industrial Read More...
23 Comments

Further adventures in glamorous international travel

Posted Monday, November 12, 2007 10:17 AM by will
Having arrived in Macau, the romance continues. First was immigration, where the lines crawled as officers stamped arriving passengers in with the indifferent sloth that seemed circa Vietnam, 1996. My immigration officer painstakingly inspected every Read More...
7 Comments

Reconsidering a glamorous life of international travel

Posted Monday, November 12, 2007 8:25 AM by will
In the cold and revealing light of hindsight it seems that aspiring to a life of international travel and adventure was, perhaps, not the wisest possible choice. This revelation dawned upon Imagethief this afternoon as he patrolled Beijing’s Capital International Read More...
2 Comments

Just what Beijing needs: A giant Ferris wheel

Posted Tuesday, November 06, 2007 6:46 AM by will
Proving that there is no idea so unoriginal that it can't be rejuvenated by making it bigger, Beijing has announced plans for a colossal Ferris wheel . This, it is claimed, will be larger than both the famous London Eye (destroyed by the Fantastic Four Read More...
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I like you OK, but oh, those hairy crabs!

Posted Friday, October 26, 2007 7:14 AM by will
Imagethief celebrated his birthday in the office in Shanghai today. True, it was a bit late, but better late than never. We had a nice cake and various other naughty treats. At the party the Shanghai Managing Director announced that I would be moving Read More...
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