Since I came to live in Canada four years ago, I have become increasingly aware that the Canadian mainstream culture is descended from that of the United Kingdom, and this awareness draws me towards my first touring destination — the United Kingdom. The British atmosphere in Canada is phenomenal. Canadian soldiers routinely perform the Changing [...]
More»When I landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on January 3, 1988, I realized that for several years during my graduate studies in the Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, I would have to live in a culture which is different from my own of Mainland China. Just like a plant that needs nutrition [...]
More»Baba and Mama accompanied me to Beijing, where we proceeded to go to the best stores in China. They bought me a silk shirt, a Western-style wool jacket, a pair of wool lined boots, a silver, down-filled winter coat that had a spacesuit look, and more. Then I had my hair permed. Now in dark [...]
More»Today marks the 19th anniversary of the end of the pro-democracy movement in China that was highlighted by students demonstrating on Tiananmen Square for over one month. One of their key complaints was the half-secret official corruption, where children of high ranking party officials went abroad to study or set up firms in China using [...]
More»Late evening, I came home after finishing some lab work in the Chemistry Department at the University of Toronto. Tired, I lay in bed wondering about the tense situation on Tiananmen Square. Dinging… I picked up the phone. “Kai qiang le — they opened fire…” It was Guo-chen, my fellow Chinese student on campus. “Enn, [...]
More»As I read and watched the media coverage of Tibetan “protesters” unleashing their “pent-up” anger against Han civilians in Lhasa on March 14, 2008, I sensed sympathetic sentiment from the reporters who portrayed violent acts as a “test” to “Beijing’s grip” on Tibet, while the victims were almost invisible in their coverage. Unbalanced coverage, I [...]
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