Big Dumplings in Little China

Big Dumplings in Little China

It’s hard to write about your homeland.   I’ve spent decades honing my skills at describing places from the perspective of an outsider looking in. It helps to not fully understand what’s going on, or if I actually do know what’s going on, to be 

Killing Time in Familiar Places: Notes on Learning to Enjoy Enforced Stasis

Killing Time in Familiar Places: Notes on Learning to Enjoy Enforced Stasis

  It’s been raining for about three days now. The kind of rain that comes with leaden dark white skies, streams of water everywhere, and cacophony on metal roofs. Yesterday, near hurricane winds led to all ferries to and from the mainland being cancelled. A 

Seriously, I Have No Idea What I’m Doing: Notes on Being Knocked Up Whilst in Transit

Seriously, I Have No Idea What I’m Doing: Notes on Being Knocked Up Whilst in Transit

  Back when we first found out I was pregnant, about a million years ago in Shanghai, we thought it utterly rational to carry on with our plan to pack up and leave our jobs, our flat, and China, embarking on a road trip down 

A Totally Impractical Guide to Roughing it in the Wilds of Vancouver Island

A Totally Impractical Guide to Roughing it in the Wilds of Vancouver Island

For those of you used to my usual summer missives replete with food porn photos and freshly gleaned insights and wild tales from exotic locales such as Morocco or Sri Lanka or Myanmar or Indonesia, I fear I am letting you down. And for those 

Things You’re Not Allowed to do in Canada: A Photo Essay

Things You’re Not Allowed to do in Canada: A Photo Essay

A few years back, I read an article about an expat who lived in Greece until he became so fluent in Greek that he understood everything that was going on around him, everything that was being said. Then he had to leave. What he had 

Oh, hey, Canada! Notes on National Holidays for the Globally-Wired Brain

Oh, hey, Canada! Notes on National Holidays for the Globally-Wired Brain

As some of you may have gleaned through recent subtext in my posts, I am secretly Canadian. Secretly in the sense that unless my status as a Canadian actually comes up directly in conversation, I don’t tend to talk about it or write about it 

On Identity and Decontextualization: Notes on Going Home (again)

On Identity and Decontextualization: Notes on Going Home (again)

I’m home again. As a travelling sage once said, if it’s Tuesday, I must be in Belgium. Or in my case, if it’s somewhere near the end of June, I must be in Canada. Vancouver Island, to be precise.   I’m in a much better 

What Does it Take For a Girl to Get a Passport Around Here? Adventures in Being Canadian Abroad

What Does it Take For a Girl to Get a Passport Around Here? Adventures in Being Canadian Abroad

I’m still Canadian. I say this with a certain degree of relief because, well, until yesterday my passport had been in the hands of the Canadian Consulate in Shanghai and I was getting a very strong impression that they were on the verge of revoking 

Final Notes on Having Gone Home- Aw, Dang it, Canada!

Final Notes on Having Gone Home- Aw, Dang it, Canada!

  It’s a funny thing writing about Canada from an internet cafe in Kandy, waterlogged and slightly dizzy from the monsoons, with bejajs sputtering past and Sinhalese pop music blaring. I’ve had a follow-up post fomenting in my head since, well, since about a week 

Not a Top 10 List: My 7 Favourite Posts

Not a Top 10 List: My 7 Favourite Posts

  It’s a funny thing about going home again after a relatively long absence (a year and a half this time), even if it’s only for three weeks: Everything is just so normal and calm and sane and utterly non-extraordinary that I really don’t have 

How To Make Goat Milk Paneer (and a few meditations on place and purpose)

How To Make Goat Milk Paneer (and a few meditations on place and purpose)

  I’ve been back home for just over a week. The skies have been all sparkly and bright blue and the sun shines so brightly that, well, I have to wear sunglasses a lot more often than I’ve ever had to in Shanghai. Have I 

9 Notes on Re-Entering Canada After Quite a Long Time Away

9 Notes on Re-Entering Canada After Quite a Long Time Away

I have evaded jet lag! I have traveled four hundred bazillion light years from Shanghai to Vancouver to Vancouver Island, crossed the International Date Line, stayed up for 34 hours continuously during my journey and initial arrival, and seem to have righted my circadian rhythms