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Category Archives: Comics
National Birds – a Comic
&Sketchbook Tagged Angry Birds, Cambodia, drawing, illustration, symbols, travel, webcomic
Who We Are and How We Got Here – New WAIJIAO
While to many people it may seem that living in China is a wild idea, there are a huge number of foreigners here in various occupations – lawyers, brokers, students, journalists, and, of course, English teachers. While most of the more glamorous or well-paying jobs generally land people in the major cities – Shanghai, Beijing, [...]
Posted in Comics
New Comics – WAIJIAO: The Blackboard
As a language teacher, I rely heavily on visual communication – flashcards, pictures, and, most of all, the blackboard. Trying to avoid direct translation and encourage my students to find other ways of understanding, I find myself constantly drawing as I teach, aiding my images with simple words, gestures, and sounds. The blackboard and chalk [...]
Posted in Comics Tagged chalk, China, drawing, illustration, teaching, visual communication, webcomic
Two New Waijiao Episodes
China is full of cities of negligible differences, with buildings just like other buildings, parks like other parks, shopping districts like other shopping districts. And within each city are numerous schools, all of which more or less comply with the trend of repetition. In this episode, School Tour, see the typical elements of a Chinese [...]
A Couple of New Things
1. “Home” is a short descriptive story about our living conditions in Yichang, where we first lived upon coming to China a few years ago. It first appeared in Pif Magazine on September 1, 2011. 2. Though Waijiao is told through a first person perspective, I am thankfully not alone here. The most recent episode [...]
&Essay, Updates Tagged buildings, China, construction, drawing, expat, illustration, photo, sichuan earthquake, webcomic, yichang
Three Comics About China – a Review
With so many books and articles on the topic of modern China, one trying to understand this complex country can almost get lost in the sea of competing words. China is not easy to describe, with so many old stereotypes mingling with constant change. Photography and film help to fill the gap, but there is [...]
&Reviews Tagged books, China, drawing, graphic novels, guy delisle, herge, illustration, mao zedong, rius, tintin
A Short Lesson on Vocab
Where am I? What am I doing here? What does Waijiao mean? In a brief lesson at the blackboard, all of these questions are answered. If you are new to Waijiao, or don’t remember what you’ve seen, you may want to go back and take a look at some of the others before reading this [...]
Posted in Comics Tagged chinese language, drawing, hangman, illustration, mandarin, vocabulary, webcomic
Waijiao Asks the Big Question – New Comic
Teaching is often about tricking one’s students into saying something without having them realize it, but is also a more obvious battle at times. A battle against teenage laziness, cultural reservations, or individual doubts, among other adversaries. I am constantly asking certain questions in order to induce more complex language, and one particular word finds [...]
New Waijiao Episode – The Classroom
Working in Chinese public schools, the classrooms we foreign teachers are given are often bare, minimal spaces, with dirty plaster walls, dangling fluorescent lights and unmaintained wooden desks. Compared to the regular rooms, which are by no means lavish or tidy, ours are forsaken. The furniture is older and less sturdy, the technology dated or [...]
Posted in Comics Tagged China, illustration, teaching, webcomic
New Beginning for Waijiao
I have redrawn the first episode of Waijiao and posted it here. The original was posted on This Ridiculous World – feel free to read through the archives, it gives a pretty good background for the comic. There are a few more episodes already finished, which I plan to post soon. Right now we are [...]
Posted in Comics Tagged China, illustration, teaching, webcomic