So you moved to Shenzhen, China, and you’re doing well here. It’s a thriving city, isn’t it? But life in Shenzhen is lacking something. The shopping, that’s what it is. You can get some decent imported goods, but there are things from home that you just can’t find anywhere. Where’s a vegetarian to get Quorn products, for example? Well,...
It’s fall 2012, my first trimester of teaching English to high schoolers in Abu Dhabi. I’m at an ADEC boys school in Al Ain. There are a dozen English teachers from the US, New Zealand, and England here, and they’re a supportive bunch of seasoned professionals. That’s good, because several of us are new to teaching in the Emirates...
It’s February 2018. The depths of winter; the coldest month of the year. In Russia, we’d have been bundling up in layer after layer to stay warm. In Utah, we’d have been scraping ice off the Volvo windshield before we could go anywhere. In the hills of Malaysia, on the other hand, we are sporting T-shirts and we have...
It’s summer of 2018. Since pulling up the stakes and moving overseas in 2012, Jenia and I have now lived in three different foreign countries, where I’ve taught in three very different schools. We’ve put together some tips for teaching abroad because we’ve had very mixed experiences, which have taught us some important lessons. We’d like to help you...
Back in early 2015, I (Jenia here) wrote an article for Venn Magazine called “On Loving Your Neighbors.” It’s late June 2018 and the Supreme Court has just upheld what’s being oft referred to as “Trump’s Muslim ban.” It feels like a high time for a re-write on why one should love their Muslim neighbor. One day, I saw...
Imagine yourself, a qualified professional teacher who is accustomed to a certain level of, what, decorum? in the classroom. Now, imagine that you arrive at your new job, and you find that all of your expectations are…going out the window. Along with the students. But the story about kids going out windows is for another day. Today’s true story...
This installment of Life in China is focused on an aspect of Chinese culture that stands as a fairly stark contrast to our American culture. Read on for a bit of insight into how the interesting people of this vast city of Shenzhen, in this vast nation of China, approach the outdoors. Specifically, we’re focusing on how Chinese women...
Must-Buy Things Before Moving Overseas So you’re a soon-to-be expat? You’ve signed a contract and you’ll be living overseas, abroad, in an exotic locale rubbing shoulders with fascinating people from cultures new and unexperienced. That’s wonderful! If you know anything about Our Traveling Zoo, we think you’ve made a wonderful decision that will positively change your life. A common...
Life in Shenzhen Means Noise Traveling, and particularly living abroad as expats, teaches us about ourselves and about our own society as much as it does about others. In this entry of Life in China, we’re talking about something which has informed our understanding of ourselves as Americans and Americans as tourists, as well as making a general observation...
Singapore on a budget–is it possible? What about Singapore with a family on a budget? Why yes. Let us tell you how we managed a family-friendly Singapore budget trip. First of all, though, we want to say that Singapore was easily our favorite city we visited during our big Asian Adventure in January and February 2018. Some say it...