I am American. I moved from Singapore to China in 2022.
I went with my mom, dad, and husband Siqi to visit the Longquan Celadon Museum, which tells about the history of celadon, a type of green-glazed porcelain or stoneware.
Off to the museum we go to be tourists!
See below for 14 more photos of our visit to the celadon museum.
For quite a while, I’ve been wanting to go to Longquan, a city of 252,000 people located about 4.5 hours southeast of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province. Why Longquan? They’re famous for kilns that make Longquan celadon porcelain:
Longquan celadons were an important part of China’s export economy for over five hundred years, and were widely imitated in other countries, especially Korea and Japan. Their demise came after they were overtaken in their markets by blue and white porcelain from Jingdezhen. (Wikipedia)
I’ve seen celadon all over Asia (in shops and museums in Singapore, Japan, and Korea), and it’s pretty stuff. I wanted to see where it came from. So that was the first destination on our family road trip.
See below for 21 photos taken on the road to Longquan.
My mom and dad came to visit me and my husband Siqi in China. My parents visited China and saw the sights in Shanghai, Suzhou, and Beijing some years ago, but I’m so glad they came to see where I live now and spend time with me and Siqi. We had a great time together!
Mom and Dad flew from Atlanta to Shanghai (via Seoul) and stayed in Shanghai overnight. A van brought them to Hangzhou; we hung out at home and then ate dinner at the local mall. Starting the next day, Siqi drove us in a big circle from Hangzhou to Longquan to Huangshan and back to Hangzhou, and then we all spent a little time together to Shanghai before my parents flew off again. Phew!
Our road trip looked more or less like this:
I have soooo many photos from our time together (though not as many as my dad)! So I’ve split them into 18 separate posts. Enjoy!
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Siqi and I went with his parents for a walk in Xixing Ancient Town. It’s a historic neighborhood surrounding an old canal that used to be important. A couple of old houses have been renovated and decorated as trendy coffee shops, and we saw a few people posing for photos on an old bridge like tourists, but it’s largely still a pretty quiet residential neighborhood (according to the Wikipedia page for Binjiang, inhabited since the Spring and Autumn period, which ended in 481 BCE), complete with unmentionables and other laundry hanging out to dry. There are a few signs in Chinese and English describing the landmarks.
See below for 18 photos from our stroll.
Continue reading Xixing Ancient Town, Binjiang District, Hangzhou
It was a Saturday. Siqi and I took a walk near where we live.
Looks pretty dense and urban, right?
Yes and no! Yuhang District is developing so fast it makes my head spin. And there were already a lot of these tall housing blocks in the town of Yuhang before the latest wave of tech company offices and transportation infrastructure got built. But Zhejiang Lab, where I work, was plonked down in the middle of a bunch of farms on the other side of Nan Hu (South Lake).
I commute from one side of the lake to the other five days a week. It takes about 20 minutes by car. Siqi drives me or I summon a car and driver using an app, which costs 15 to 25 rmb (3 to 5 Singapore dollars, 2 to 4 US dollars).
Now that they’ve opened up a bike and pedestrian path beside the lake on the east side, we can actually try to enjoy living near this lake. Eventually I think they’ll build a path that goes all the way around.
See below for 13 photos from the peaceful water’s edge.
Again, a journey of many pieces, though not nearly as many as to arrive:
See below for photos of:
We did not go to Albania on a train. That was just the first part of a long journey!
For the first time in a long time, I got on a plane (two planes, actually) to go somewhere for fun that wasn’t my hometown. But first I got in a taxi, and on a train, and in another taxi, and spent the night in an airport hotel, and took a shuttle bus, lol.
Why Albania? Siqi was invited to a workshop, and I decided to take leave from work and go too. I’d never been to Albania!
We left on the evening of Tuesday, January 23 and returned in the afternoon on Monday, January 29. We had three full days in Albania, which I’m posting about separately, and then we did the whole journey again in reverse.
See below for more on the journey from Hangzhou (to Shanghai to Frankfurt) to Tirana, Albania.
Continue reading A Trip from Hangzhou, China to Tirana, Albania
In 2023, the memory of strict Covid travel restrictions was still fresh, especially at the beginning of the year. But as time passed, people in China (myself among them) were more encouraged (and more inclined) to go out and move around (and spend money).
Siqi and I went on two big trips in 2023: one to his hometown, and another one to my hometown, where we got married! 🙂
See below for an illustrated overview of where I went in Hangzhou, other parts of China, and the US.
After spending over 2,000 pages with a trickster god, I find myself wondering what the appeal of the trickster god is. I don’t think I like tricksters.
Clever underdogs, yes. Arrogant tricksters? Not so much.
This post talks about my impressions after reading a complete translation (and a modern retelling) of the classic Chinese story of the Monkey King and his companions.
Visit We Love Translations: World Literature in English for a complete list of translations:
» What’s the best translation of Journey to the West?
Continue reading Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en, translation by WJF Jenner
Signs, product packaging, clothing… sometimes I notice weird English here in Hangzhou. Sometimes the cause is a typo, sometimes it’s negligent copy/paste, and sometimes it appears to have been a complete shot in the dark. Sometimes the result is close-but-no-cigar, sometimes it’s hilarious, and sometimes it’s mystifying.
