Welcome to this website largely about China from the viewpoint of Chris, which was established in 2015 to raise the profile of Chris as someone useful regarding matters pertaining to China and Chinese. Here you can find lots of photos and videos of the place, along with information on China-related topics. Chris can help with […]

New year, new plan – combine Chinese with spectacle ! London’s Evening Standard newspaper has reported an 81% increase in the number of visitors from China coming to the capital this month compared with twelve months ago. No doubt they’ll all be carrying a smartphone , if not a camera.   When I perform in […]

Testing the waters to ascertain how easy or difficult it is as a foreigner to make my way round China on public transport, I’d succeeded in traveling way out west to Yining where the waters drain westward out of China’s Xinjiang province, and into Kazhakstan. Now three days into the trail back eastward I had arrived in […]

  My first venture into Sichuan province involves a series of bus journeys north from Qujing the largest town of eastern Yunnan. Seriously steep and barren mountains, traversed on sub-standard road surfaces, are followed by the spectacular descent down into the Yangtse river valley.   Cross the river into Sichuan, and the road onward runs […]

“What’s your favourite flower?” was the topic forming a base on which group members introduced themselves at a recent gathering of the London Mandarin Learners Meet-up group. The flowers I appreciate are manifold, but I realised that despite knowing the English names for all that blooms on my allotment, my ignorance of their Chinese names […]

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 […]

Tuesday’s London Mandarin Learners Meet-up session involved participants introducing themselves to the group. One of us turned out to be a ‘swing’ dance instructor. This brought to mind another of Su Shi’s poems – Butterflies Lingering over Flowers

  Living not that far from the centre of London, it is relatively easy for me to get into town to attend regularly at the London Mandarin Learners Meet-up group. Here I get to meet up with others to attempt translation from Chinese into English of a piece of text. Last time we tackled a […]

Another set of Chinese characters I succeeded in memorising whilst waiting at traffic lights in Taipei were those forming the text of one of the ‘Nineteen Ancient Poems’. ‘Altair is Far Away’ tells of the Weaving Maid weeping with grief as she stands parted from her husband and their children who dwell on the far […]