The Italian attitude to rules and regulations -- that they exist only for other people -- is one of the most maddening things about living here; except, of course, when it works for you.

It is always such a relief when the hotel room safe not only opens on the dimly remembered code but also still contains everything you put in it on arrival. I do sometimes wonder, though, what the point is. I suppose to make it more difficult to steal things. Doh! But every place I've ever stayed sp...

It was pure good fortune that I read Victor Mair's guest post over at Language Log a couple of days ago. In it, Mair treats with loving respect the details of a sign seen at Silk Street Market in Beijing. The sign lists the Recommended Words and Forbidden Words for the benefit of the salesgirls at...

Yesterday was full-on tourist travel day. Summer Palace first thing in the morning. Then the Great Wall. Then lunch in an authentically exotic restaurant hard by the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park. Then the Forbidden City and finally Tiananmen Square. Nothing I could say about any of those places wou...

At last night’s banquet I sat next to an old China hand; he’s been coming here since 1985. He really appreciates the changes that have taken place. For me, the China of memory is a childhood picture. Huge squadrons of identically clothed androgynous workers bicycling through the smog. Drabness and g...