Category: Beijing

  • First Quarter 2007 – 10Q

    At some point, I went public. Not sure when or why, but turns out I have shareholders (or should I say stakeholders?), and responsibility to them to accomplish, well, something. Oddly I’ve had a lot of conversations recently about the little things, like what are we supposed to do with our lives, and whether we should try to save the world (and pandas) or just enjoy life as it comes (like pandas). As much as I loved the laid-back panda life in Chengdu, I found that I couldn’t just loll around all day. I had the ambition chip planted in me a long time ago, and still have a deep sense that indeed, with great privilege (thanks mom and dad!) comes great responsibility. In short, I feel I owe it to you, my stakeholders, to do something meaningful. (Eeps!)

    And of course, I want to live a reasonably comfy life back in good old New York one of these days, which doesn’t come cheap.

    So I’ve settled on energy and pollution (more…)

  • 798 reasons to like chartruese

    Red China is slowly becoming chartreuse.  In February my life-long friend, fashion follower and now Doctor Kristina Perez (having just gotten her well-deserved PhD from Cambridge for her dissertation on the occasional-goddess and Arthurian character Morgan La Fey) came over to China for the first time, with Wallpaper* and Elle Decorations magazines in hand.  So we went on a tour of a part of China that I knew almost nothing about:  the trendy part.

     

    You know you are a trendy place in China when there’s lot of chartreuse. (more…)

  • Cold Feet

    It was when the chocolate melted that we realized we weren’t being picky — our air-shaft facing room at one of Beijing’s top hotels was unacceptably hot. So my Dad (the lawyer) smoothly advocated for an upgrade. And it was in the new room, sipping green tea, with my feet up on our new balcony watching a true blue-to-red sunset settle in over Tiananmen Square, while thousands of silhouetted black birds soared through the sky seeking a perch for the night, that I finally felt ready for the next leg of the adventure.

    It seems silly to complain about heat. In Beijing, everything is heated and front doors are closed. In “southern” China, where I’ve been for the past year and for much of our travels, it just isn’t. (more…)

  • Bombed. James Bombed.

    I get Google news alerts in my inbox filtered for “China,” and everyday the past week or so the top article has been about Bond’s debut last night in Beijing. Ignore the fact that movie has been “out” on pirated DVDs and Chinese websites since it first played in the US. Last night was the first time it showed in theaters in China! It was the talk of the (cyber)town! (more…)

  • Being Jing

    I love Beijing.

    It was predictable I suppose in the way that Scarlett falling for Rhett was predictable. The way Sally ending up with Harry was predictable. Even before I got here, I knew I would hate this city. But after just a few days under its azure skies (I kid you not! azure!), I’m in love. (more…)