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Snark goeth before the eating of a generous helping of crow. I owe Beijing an apology. On Thursday and Friday I lamented the return of Beijing's air pollution to what I assumed was status quo ante. But yesterday was one of those days --of which Beijing gets a mere handful each year-- that make you realize how time here erodes your standards for ...

From the ''you couldn't make it up'' department here in Imagethief Towers, an old-school China Daily gem:City gets tough on foreign jaywalkersBy Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is taking stern action against foreigners who break traffic rules, the public security bureau said Tuesday.It follows tough measures ...

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'' just doesn't capture. The simple phrase ''bad air'', despite its elegance, leaves far too much ...

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 sprawl of the Yangzi delta before you find anything that looks remotely appealing for a ...

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 stamp in my generously stamped passport. It’s Macau. There are only two reasons why I would be ...

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 Airport for an available electrical outlet with the relentless, methodical ...

Imagethief has rather a sweet tooth. Hence my long acquaintance with the gym and the pleasures of the long run. One of China's under-appreciated pleasures is the enamel-stripping joy of a chewy White Rabbit Milk Candy. I'm not the first to be smitten, as a quick Googling will reveal. White Rabbit even has a Wikipedia entry. My friends are aware ...

A good friend of mine pointed out that a post I put up the day I got back from Italy and that remarked on a soaring fistfight that broke out near my apartment has disappeared. I didn't even realize it. Lest anyone feel that this was a craven act of self-censorship or a craven act of imposed censorship, don't worry about it. As near as I can ...