格雷旅馆是剩下的四家律师学院之一，成立于1370年，是律师生活和学习的场所。这是南广场一号。维多利亚女王期待的作家查尔斯·狄更斯年轻的时候在这里当事务员工作。 Gray’s Inn is one of the four remaining Inns of Court, founded in 1370 as a place for lawyers to live and study. This is 1 South Square. Victorian author Charles Dickens worked here as as a clerk when he was young. Several of Dickens’ novels include scenes set in Gray’s Inn. 广场的尽头是历史学家和政治家弗朗西斯·培根的雕像，他在这里生活了五十年，直到1626年去世。作为大法官，他被认为给英国法律制度带来更大的公平和公正。然而，他自己被判贿赂，因此被罚款四万英镑，并被监禁在伦敦塔。 At […]

Discovery of the italki website, in combination with a renewed spurt of producing stories in Chinese, could prove a winning formula for my literary prospects. As an italki member I write Chinese, post it into the website, and find it corrected by a native Chinese speaker, or two, or three, a few hours later. Translating […]

Hearing a few weeks back of an upper-intermediate level Chinese course organised by the Chopsticks Club, I made arrangements to attend a ‘taster’ session. This taster confirmed the class as being the right level for me, and so I decided to continue with the course for its remaining five sessions. Homework for the following class […]

Chinese people sometimes exclaim “Great name!” upon hearing my Chinese name is Gongsun Hai. Gongsun is a rarity amongst Chinese surnames, and has the distinction of being one of those few formed by two characters, rather than a single one. Noteworthy Gongsuns? There was Gongsun Chou who couldn’t get enough of the wise words of […]

I’ll kick this ChinaChris.co.uk blog off with ‘Why I study Chinese’ – one of the two speeches I prepared for the oral ‘paper’ of my final exams in 1999. I am often asked “Why are you learning Chinese?” It’s not an easy question to answer as there is no single straightforward reason. There must be […]