With our lives rapidly migrating into the cloud and the distinction between online and offline becoming evermore blurred, I’ve become increasingly paranoid about the security and integrity of my data (maybe I’m just getting old!). There are two scenarios that worry me the most:
I don’t generally give much credence to management or lifestyle books which propone to provide the secrets to success; we are all defined by unique sets of circumstances and experiences which ultimately propels us down one avenue or another. What works for you is unlikely to work for me and visa versa – we are individuals, not robots.
I thought I’d take a break this week from relaying my travel tales to bring you some useful info for anyone planning a trip to Japan themselves. For me the planning part is as much a part of the holiday as the time spent travelling itself – there’s something innately enjoyable about working out where you want to go, how to navigate your way around and where to stay.
For folks living and travelling in China having a VPN (Virtual Private Network) has become a necessity if you want to leap over the great firewall and access sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to name but a few. While personal VPN providers like Witopia and 12vpn provide easy to set up packages which you can install on your computer many people will still intermittently experience slow or unstable connections (through no fault of the provider) which can dampen the experience.
Without a doubt the iPhone is the most useful electronic product I own. Aside from its plethora of inbuilt functions the ability to download and install apps basically gives you unlimited scope for what you can do with it and with over 85,000 you’re spoilt for choice (even if 70% of them are rubbish). Living as an expat in China presents its own unique challenges but as the advert says “there’s an app for that”. Below is a list of what I consider my essential apps for helping with everyday life in China: (N.b. If you brought your iPhone abroad you’ll probably need to unlock it first to accept a foreign SIM card – PwnageTool usually does the trick but be sure to back…
I’ve given a couple of presentations recently at work about understanding the cultural differences between East (US / Europe) and West (China / East Asia) which I thought I’d share today. The first is aimed at Chinese to understand Western Culture (with lots of nice pics) while the second is aimed at Westerners to understand Chinese Culture (more wordy): Understanding Western Culture Yes, that’s a picture of my sister in Africa killing a goat for dinner towards the end – a perfect example of dealing with uncomfortable situations (in this case quite an extreme one)! The presentation itself had lots of talking over the top – if you download the file you can see my notes with more information about the content. It would…
Last weekend I learnt how to cook Chinese dumplings. For those who might not be familiar with these tiny parcels of deliciousness a dumpling consists of minced meat and chopped vegetables wrapped into a piece of dough and then boiled, fried or steamed. There are also sweet varieties but I made the traditional type and for your entertainment filmed a short video of the process: Pretty simple but somehow I don’t think Jamie Oliver has anything to worry about! Ingredients needed: Minced pork (about 1:1 ratio with vegetables) Spring onion & cabbage finely chopped Soy sauce & rice wine (or vinegar) Dumpling pancakes (some people make their own but it was too much hassle for me) Instructions: Mix together the minced pork and chopped…
Being an expat with multiple bank accounts in different countries, important documents such as passports, visas, life insurance and other contracts I seem to have amassed a huge collection of important but private information which is essential to the smooth running of my life. Whatever the documents may be if you’re like me then keeping track of it all is a headache made even it’s made even more complex as conventionally it’s a bad idea to store it all in the same place which would make identity theft much easier if that information was compromised (i.e. stolen). Added to this you need this information to be easily accessible as it would be pretty difficult to memorize it all (e.g. online bank credentials, emergency contact and policy numbers…
Expats who live and work in China will attest to the hassle banking can be. From opening an account to making deposits and transferring money it’s not particularly foreigner friendly and frequently requires the patience of a saint. Things gets even more tricky if you get paid in Renminbi (RMB) and want to transfer some of your earnings back home. In general China is adverse to money flowing out of the country and due to the complexity of the process bank staff will often look for any excuse to deny you being able to so. Photo by David Dennis I’ve recently completed the rather tortuous process successfully for the first time so thought I’d share how it works in the hope that others might be able to avoid…
If you ever wanted to know what it feels like living in the dark ages come to China right about now. Seemingly in timing with the 20th anniversary of the 1989 “incident” (as they call it around here) many popular international websites have been blocked (including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, Blogger & Hotmail) and anything that isn’t blocked is loading at a snails pace probably due to extra filtering/monitoring going on. As a citizen of the internet this makes me mad and not just because I can’t share my inane thoughts with random people online any more but because I know full well that the anniversary will pass here and no one will bat an eyelid. Whether they don’t know or don’t care…