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 [...]
Note: I am very interested in visual communication and the use of comics and other images as educative tools. Around China, we have seen many posters meant to inform the public on issues from health to disaster response. These are quite distant from the propaganda posters of the past, with cartoons replacing the raised fists [...]
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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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Laughing in Chinese is short essay written for The New School University’s International Student Services Contest. The theme of the contest was: “Global Exchanges: Stories of Your Journey from Here to There.” It was originally published in a printed booklet and in a PDF version on their website. The essay was awarded second place. Read [...]
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 [...]
Art Supply Store is the first collection of photos in a new series called Shelves showing consumer goods around the world. I plan to focus on objects and how they are presented. The Art Supply Store photos were taken on a small street near Zhejiang Normal University in the north of Jinhua city. You can [...]
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 [...]