I grew up as a picky eater.  Then I moved to Asia.  My eating habits had to change or else I would literally wither away to nothing.  Then I met “hotpot”.  It is a meal that espouses a wide range of opinions.  To some, hotpot is a “meal of the gods”.  To others, it is a culinary disaster.  This is my story and the “competition” we have created around this unique local food. [Read more…]

(This post is part of a series I am doing called “First Impressions. . . my first few months in Asia“. If you would like to read about this series and other articles, please CLICK HERE.)

Coming from the south in America, hospitality is something that is valued to me. This isn’t just a saying, but a reality. My mother is one of, if not the best, hostess that I have ever known. She loves having people over. Some of my fondest memories as a child are of our house being packed with guests, laughter, tons of food, and Mom & Dad providing a wonderful environment.

One of the many things that I have loved about Asian culture is their value of hospitality. They are wonderful at it and place massive amounts of effort into hosting guests. Additionally, it is literally a Confusion teaching to honor and take tremendous care of foreigners in their land. The result is that these people have, by in large, gone out of their way to be good hosts me in every conceivable way during my time here. It’s been wonderful.

Though I have been in the homes of many of my Asian friends over the years, the following story is of the first time. Nothing dramatic during this day, it was just my first such experience so I went to greater detail in chronicling it. Many others have followed in a similar fashion. . .

I had met the managers of the local weight room on my second day in county. They were nice guys. Their English was limited to a handful of “weight room words” and my Chinese was non-existent at the time.

[Read more…]

(This post is part of a series I am doing called “First Impressions. . . my first few months in Asia“.  If you would like to read about this series and other articles, please CLICK HERE.)

One of the job hazards of living and working in Asia (for a foreigner) is sickness.  Food, preparation and many other things make maintaining health a constant issue.  As I often say, I really only have two states of heath here. . . I have a stomach virus or I am about to get a stomach virus.  It has gotten much better over the years.  I think this is both because standards of cleanliness have increased and my body is more acclimated.

However, my first few years were rough.  This is about my first sickness and visit to a local Chinese medicine doctor.

People refered to it simply as “the East Asian Wall”.  It seemed as if it happened to everyone that arrived in East Asia from America.  It was as if after 1-2 months of living here, your body would just hit a wall and completely shut down.  Body to self, “wait one minute. . . what is going on here?!?!?”  The food is different, [Read more…]

(This post is part of a series I am doing called “First Impressions. . . my first few months in Asia“.  If you would like to read about this series and other articles, please CLICK HERE.)

Within a few months of living in Asia, I appeared on national TV on three different occasions.  This was my second such appearance and easily my most humiliating.

It was our entire group of six foreign students from America.  The story began about two weeks after our arrival in this country.  Our teacher informed us that part of our “cultural teaching” would be learning how to do this exercise named Tai Qi.  You have probably seen this.  It is the slow, almost hypnotic motions/exercise that you see being practiced mainly by elderly Chinese people.  It is the exercise that looks like Kung Fu, but only in mega-slow motion.  It was of absolutely no interest to any of us, but this was one of those “requests” from our university that we were not given the option of refusing.

What our teacher did not tell us was that we would be on TV doing this exercise with about 30-40 others during the National Day festivities.  She also didn’t tell us that everyone [Read more…]

I moved to Asia permanently in 1999.  At the time, I had no idea how long I would be here, only that it would be “long-term”.  With the exception of a few US based years in the middle, I have been in East Asia since.

It has been an incredible journey of which there have been many ups and downs. Those first few months were packed with new people, experiences, sights, sounds, and lasting impressions.

As is the case with anything new, I wrote more about my experiences those first few months than I have in the past few years combined.  This was a world before Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and everything we have now at our disposal.

Since there were no platforms to share those first few months with a broader audience than family and a few close friends, I thought it would be fun to write a series of posts on this topic. So. . .

During the coming months, I will write a series of posts on some of my FIRST IMPRESSIONS of living overseas.  Most of these will be based on emails written during that time.  I have since edited them and written in some perspective that I now have looking back at each experience.

Hopefully you will enjoy getting a closer look at some of the everyday occurrences and experiences of life in Asia as a foreigner though my first few months.

The following are the titles of the posts.  I will probably add to these ever few weeks as other memories come to mind of which I would like to write up.  So . . .

• Chinese pick-up basketball
• Tai Qi on National TV and Asian parties
• Z-land and the Z people
• Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Asian hospitality
• Culinary Expolsion. . . Shao Kao

Also see. . .

• Brutal beginnings. . . my first trip an Asian hospital