Jim in China

I have been working with two students - Zhiyou, with whom I visited Houhai on the night of the closing ceremony of the Olympics, and Hourui, our companion on our trip to Xi’an - at the nanocenter (which I now can say in Chinese: guojia nami kexue zhongxin.
We are trying to find the most economical [...]

19.04.2009
Last night’s closing performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca” featured an all-Chinese cast, under the baton of Li Xincao, conducting the Shanghai Opera House Orchestra, the China National Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and the Women and Children’s Chorus of CNSO, with Zhang Liping in the title role as Floria Tosca, Dai Yuqiang as her lover Cavaradossi, and [...]

I have a new roommate. Her name is Wang Meng.
We have been roommates and co-workers now for one month.
She is our group’s new finance manager, after Mazhen returned to Jinan to help care for her mom’s mom.I miss dear Zhen very, very much and think of her often.
Meng is thoroughly engaging. She is fluent in [...]

I have been completely busy, day and night, between work and music. My life here in Beijing continues to be rich and fulfilling, from scientific exchanges to music rehearsals and on to giving diction lessons to Chinese voice students.
There are many adventures I will write about, many pictures to show you, and many fascinating characters [...]

Monday, December 1
[cross-posted to Beer30]
This has nothing to do with beer. But I have never heard the Queen of the Night hit so many high F’s in a row, so I am sure that beer is involved in some way.
I have been unable to look at beer30 behind the Great Firewall of China until today. [...]

November 11, 2008
I have been here in Beijing a bit more than three months.
There are times when things are a bit difficult for me. It is hard to be so far away from Maureen. We fell in love in San Francisco thirty-six years ago. I had not realized the full extent to which her companionship [...]

I was working in the apartment this morning, when all the lights went out. The bathroom was a dark cavern. The kitchen as well.
Each apartment has a meter with a slot for a card - like a credit card - with a small memory chip embedded in it. One buys kilowatt-hours at a local store, [...]

November 5, 2008
Today Jinsong asked me to buy him two bottles of good red wine, since he was going to have dinner with a Russian scientist and two other Chinese scientists, and he wanted to impress them with a good bottle of wine.
On my way to the wine shop, a young man on a bike [...]

November 3, 2008
We did it! Found found a great apartment - 135 sq m for 4000 RMB/month, a real bargain. We packed, loaded up all of our belongings onto a three-wheeled cart, our bikes loaded, and set off on a beautiful Beijing fall morning, full of sun, clear skies, wafted by gentle zephyrs.

Jinglun said the [...]

November 3, 2008
I took a few pictures of our apartment in Jingshuyuan.
Somewhere between seedy and genteel covers a lot of territory.

I never mentioned this before. The bathroom was decorated with 101 Dalmatians.
One last look at the construction out in the back. I still can’t figure out what they are building.
The construction site is guarded by [...]