An uncommon story of love in Asia: Victoria and LY

She literally fell at his feet.

It was fall 2005 and Liu Yu and Victoria Stockton were both teachers at the Tianjin Experimental High School. After months of inventing excuses to visit his office, Liu was finally coming to observe Stockton’s English class.

But Stockton mentally mixed up the times and was running late, physically running late. She was sprinting in “tall shoes and a gray jacket,” Liu still remembers, until he appeared in the classroom door right in the middle of her path.

Stockton gasped, threw her hands in the air and did an awkward pirouette slamming to the ground and sliding to a stop just under Liu’s feet.

Shortly after that he fell in love with her.

In July 2008, the couple, an American woman and a Chinese man, were wed in South Africa at the confluence of two oceans, celebrating the union of their two foreign hearts.

Theirs is a unique and true love story. Unique because a foreign woman with a Chinese man is rare. True because this is far from the defining aspect of their relationship.

Read the rest of my column on the Post-Tribune's Web site here

Beijing back alley art

A 20-minute cab ride away the uber-hip art district of 798, an alley way cigarette shop adds its own craftiness to Beijing's usually beige street-scape.

These pinwheels, folded out of used cigarette carton containers, line the cast iron* fence behind the Novotel Hotel at the Chongwenmen subway stop in Beijing. My hotel room looked out on this alley during the March week I spent in Beijing. No doubt the alley was cleaned up because of its proximity to the international-class hotel, but it's still a dusty, grey alleyway, nondescript and slightly blighted. Though the hand-folded pinwheels are not the avant-garde art shown in the now international galleries of the 798 District, this touch of beautification made a big impression on me.

**I thought this fence was wrought iron, which I misspelled. Thanks to the reader who caught my typo and corrected me--it's not wrought iron; it's cast iron.

ESL teachers do the darndest things

A fellow teacher found this on an ESL blog. I'm sure other ESL teachers can understand.

Tourist trap?

On a recent trip to Nanjing's Zijin Mountain, three friends and I took full advantage of one of China's great tourist games. For 20 RMB (roughly $3), I ran around a shallow pond in a inflated plastic ball about 10 feet in diameter. It was great fun...at first. Then I realized there was really no way to move on the water. It was nearly impossible to stand and run like an actual hamster does in a cage. I tried to crawl. I ended up somersaulting. The rest....well, you'll see.