Three days of lectures about teaching Chinese, curtesy of Chinet, had me travel to Palacky university in Olomouc eastern Czech. My interest had been especially aroused when I learned that most of the presentations were to be given by staff from the university in Taiwan at which I studied twenty years ago.   The first […]

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 […]

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 […]

“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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]