One day in the fall of 2013, I listen to two co-workers talking. One is a guy from Northeast China who’s 24, the other one is a woman in her mid-30s who has a 3-year-old child. She tells us how hard it is to find a place in a kindergarten in Shenzhen. The guy says: […]
Tag Archives: Northeast China
July 1975, my mother-in-law is sent to the countryside in what is called the “Up to the mountains and down to the countryside” movement during the Cultural Revolution. She is one of many young adults who are referred to as educated youth (知识青年 zhīshì qīngnián). She didn’t go to university, but it doesn’t take more […]
“Canadian.” “German.” “American.” “British.” These are all nationalities I’ve been associated with in Northeast China’s Jilin province. Often, people don’t say it directly, rather they’ll tell their friends: “Look, a German.” I don’t really mind if they say that I’m German, after all, it’s as close as it gets. Even many Chinese who know me […]
Y is different from most Chinese I know. Well, I know, of course he is – to me, right? What I mean is that his eating habits are different from most other Chinese people I know. He loves eating raw vegetables. He had never been to Europe before our wedding, but he still loved eating […]
Many of my friends from Northeast China tell me: “We don’t really have a dialect, we do speak a very intelligible Mandarin. Maybe there are some words that are different, but that’s about it.” Oh, the beloved “er” Northerners use in any possible way one can imagine! Having learned Chinese in Austria and in Kunming […]
After having traveled around Jilin province and meeting my in-laws in July 2013, Y and I take the train back to Shenzhen. We spend 36 hours on the train. Y shares his 6-bed compartment (there are no doors, so I’m not sure if you can really call it that) with three ladies in their 50s […]
Four years ago, my in-laws bought an apartment in their hometown Siping in Northeast China’s Jilin province. Two years ago, they should have been able to move into their new apartment. But the apartment had not been finished at that time. It’s still not finished now, two years later. When my husband and I walk […]
One day, my in-laws and I are waiting for my husband at the market in his hometown, Siping. I take a picture of a basket with string beans. When one of the women working at the market sees this, she points at a basket with tomatoes she sells and says: “Take a picture of these. […]
One day in late June 2013 my husband and I visit gugu. Gugu is my father-in-law’s older sister and I like her immediately. She is an elderly woman in her late 70s who lives with her husband, son, daughter-in-law, her grandson and a few chicken and geese in the countryside of Northeast China’s Jilin province. […]
China elevator stories 