http://www.thechinaexpat.com Sun, 10 May 2009 08:41:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu Learning Chinese is hard, but not too hard. Especially if you know the mistakes to avoid. Seven years after taking my first crack at tones, I'm no closer to mastering Chinese than any serious learner of Chinese.  And I've ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/mistakes-when-learning-chinese/ It seems America's days of free lunches are drawing to a close. Today the news came out that Chinese banks have been given a directive from the CBRC (China Banking Regulatory Commission) to stop lending to American banks while the crises is still going on. Also comes news that China may be ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/china-to-america-no-more-money-for-us/ China knows where its interests lie. But could they be with regular Americans? While many in China praised the bailout of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, many others are correctly damning the bigger bailout being passed for Wall Street. Strangely enough, the interests of China's government align strongly with the interests of America's ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/china-belittles-bigger-bailout/ Melamine has been found in all of the major Chinese milk brands, not just in Sanlu baby milk powder where this crises started. The question becomes:  Which Chinese milk brand is safest? The answer might be none for now. But after a suitable period of time has passed, I'd go with the biggest ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/is-china-milk-safe/   What the heck happened in three years? It's been that long since I've been to Kunming. The first time was part of a three week journey across Sichuan and Northern Yunnan during my first spring festival in China - as a stopover between Dali and Lijiang, Kunming was great. At the time downtown ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/kunming-and-changes-in-chinas-cities/ Has the mainstream media ever been right about China's future? For as long as China has piqued my interest, there have been articles prognosticating over China's coming decline. You've seen the claims that China will slip and fall into a Japanese style bog, perhaps even plunge into chaos and darkness by way ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/is-china-doomed-2/ Do you remember the Chinese girl with enormous apple cheeks? Apparently she faked the song she sang, "Ode to the Motherland": [HTML1] Personally, I think they made the right decision (note:tongue somewhat in cheek) - the goal was to present a flawless version of China to the world, and they did an outstanding ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/how-a-cute-chinese-girl-faked-the-opening-ceremonies/ Back in 2004, I remember very clearly all of the newspapers and news outlets (in China) claiming that China had come in second place in Athens. This was repeated for months on end, long after the Olympics had ended. But did China really take second? Yes, but only if you measure 'winning' by ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/2008-olympic-medals-will-china-take-the-gold/ The US has built a massive new embassy in China.  According to the MSNBC article this picture is from, President Bush will cut the ribbon to open this $434 million, 500,000 square foot compound on the opening day of the Olympics. Similarly, China is opening a 250,000 square foot compound in ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/is-the-new-us-embassy-in-china-a-trap/ Do you know the real history of the Great Wall of China? Despite thousands of years of scholarship about the history of the Great Wall of China, no one seems to be getting its story history right, so hopefully this article will help clarify things for you. You see, the Great ... http://www.thechinaexpat.com/the-real-history-of-the-great-wall-of-china/