Ok, so I've resurrected a photo I shot a few years ago of a scene looking over the Huangpu River toward the Pudong skyline, which you'd expect to see when somebody writes about Shanghai. Notice that the Shanghai Tower, which now dominates the skylin… — Ok, so I've resurrected a photo I shot a few years ago of a scene looking over the Huangpu River toward the Pudong skyline, which you'd expect to see when somebody writes about Shanghai. Notice that the Shanghai Tower, which now dominates the skyline, was then still under construction. Changes and vicissitudes.

Ten Reasons Why Cities are Grand (Especially Shanghai)

October 22, 2017

If I were asked to write down a list of the top ten reasons why I find cities so fascinating and such wonderful places to live, it would not be easy. Well, here I go anyway, and I'm sure at least some of these will be obvious to anybody who has lived in cities:

逆流上水 Paddling Against the Current: On Rethinking Asian Language and Culture Studies and on Re-Orienting the Study Abroad Experience

October 15, 2017

This is a message especially for my American and European colleagues in Asian Studies and in the field of Study Abroad: The ways by which we learn Asian languages need to be rethought, and we also need to find better ways to enable more students to learn more Asian languages to study abroad in Asia. Here’s why.

Bustin’ Beijing: Subways, Schwarzman Scholars, and a Whole Lotta Breakdown in Sanlitun

October 13, 2017

I have a very special relationship with China’s capital city. I have lived there only twice for 6- month stints, once in 1996-7 and again in 2007. Yet I have a deep fondness for the city, and some of my oldest and dearest friends in China have lived or still live there. These days I manage to pay a visit to the city at least two or three times a year, for different purposes. Lately I’ve been going there to recruit university students for our DKU GLS program, which is what I was doing this past week. I visited the campus of Peking Foreign Languages University or Beiwai 北外 on Wednesday. On Thursday I gave a talk at Peking Normal University or Beishida 北师大. Today I headed out to Tianjin to talk to students at Nankai 南开 University (as I write this I’m on a high-speed train or gaotie back to Shanghai). In between these visits, I also managed to pay a visit to the Schwarzman Scholars campus at Tsinghua University, and also caught up with a few old friends.

One of many deities gracing the Lotus Pond in Kaohsiung

Still Taiwan After All These Years

October 3, 2017

My first study abroad experience at Dartmouth College was in Taipei, back in the summer of 1988. I remember the excitement of flying over there from Boston via Tokyo, and embarking on what would turn out to be a nine-month-long life-changing journey. It is therefore fitting that my last recruiting trip of this year was to Taiwan.

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