The plate is just one of the relics that followed me back to China, packed in bubble wrap, between Costco size jars of Nutella and cylinders of Parmesan Cheese.
Museum of Me
You Care Too Much
The three words silenced my room: “What the hell?” They weren’t from a junior high student, because the utterance would have been in Chinese. The slip of the tongue was from a second grader. From the same kid who doesn’t know his sight words. I looked at a coworker, who heard it too. While I was thinking about school policies […]
Smoke
There is a famous Chinese proverb: 不到长城非好汉. He who has never been to the Great Wall is not a true man. And after he visits the Great Wall, he picks up a pack of cigarettes. Smoking is huge in this country, even with doctors, including my “no chicken, no OJ, drink broccoli juice” acupuncturist. Before the young doctor light his cigarette, […]
吃货 (chī huò) Foodies
Huǒ guō or hot pot, is to Kunming, China what deep dish pizza is to Chicago. It’s a combination between a meal and a game of Truth or Dare
Never Pick a Cool Name
Bilingual book for Chinese children learning English
Ginger Sinsabaugh MacDonald
Ginger Sinsabaugh MacDonald I grew up in a small farm town in Southwestern Michigan that had more cows than people. After college, I moved to Chicago and worked at an ad agency with more employees than my home town had cows .I lived with him in a small studio apartment with a foam rubber Buddha until he was reincarnated into throw […]
Every 7 Seconds: teen thoughts on sex
While being a classroom teacher in China, I kept in mind that every seven seconds, those boys were not thinking about English grammar but scantily dressed Victoria Secret models. Honestly, how could a power point presentation on diphthongs possible compete with butt thongs? But that popular seven second stat has about as much validity as Big Foot. According to an […]
Rewind. Reflect. Make Friction.
I remember the day vividly in 1999. It was pre-Y2K, pre-iPhone, pre-Tim Bartman getting blamed for the Cubs Play-off-Flub and there still two tall twin buildings standing in New York. A group of us were sitting in a small room at Solheim Center, the swank sports complex associated with Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. The meeting was with Larry the […]
Got B’dunk in your trunk? Flaunt it!
Snoop Dog must have smoked some bad bud when agreed to perform in Wiggle Wiggle. If somehow you haven’t heard, the song is a recycling of back of the bus hit, Our teach is a nut, she has a rubber butt classic, paying tribute to the monster booty, viewing it as a status not a fat-us symbol. Now, I have […]