Rotten in Rui’an : My personal ‘Catch 22’

Unfortunately I’ve been forced to bring my time in China to a rather abrupt end. Over the course of the last week I’ve been subjected to a series of increasingly abusive messages from the new director of studies (DoS), Elsayed (or El-SiSi-ed as I now call him in tribute to the Egyptian dictator he’s modelling […]

Harbin(ger) of doom! (final part)

The minibus pulled up at a nondescript junction of a duel carriageway and the driver motioned for everyone to disembark. In both directions all I could see were snow covered fields and road, with the exception of the huge billboard marking the turning for Sun Island pointing back the direction we’d just come. As the […]

Harbin(ger) of doom, part 2

Tired, cold, sick and deflated. After being comprehensively defeated by the cold on the previous two days I was staring defeat in the face for the first time in my travels in China. After a second night of virtually no sleep in my boiling hot, windowless hotel room the thought of going out and facing […]

Harbin(ger) of doom! (part 1)

Just over two years ago, sat in a cafe somewhere in Cambodia, Leighton was showing me some pictures from his visit to the Harbin snow and ice festival in Heilongjiang province, China. It looked spectacular, a cacophony of ice, snow and colour with gargantuan sculptures between huge, illuminated buildings forming a mini-city made from ice. I […]

Madness, madness, they call it madness…..

So tomorrow is ‘national day’ in China, a universally celebrated public holiday commemorating the founding of the Communist party and marking the start of 4 days public vacation. In keeping with the way things are done in China, they go big. When the holiday comes around, the cities shut down & everyone heads out either […]

You can take the boy out of Dublin Gospel Choir but……

Singing in Chinese is hard. Especially when you don’t speak Chinese your singing to an all-Chinese audience of Rai’an’s movers, shaker’s & bigwigs And so as I was ‘encouraged’ out onto the stage hand-in-hand with Camille, a 50-something long-time Chinese student of King’s, in front of a few hundred potential new clients at the new […]