Xiaoping Li

The recent death of the Canadian model Diana Gabrielle O’Brien in Shanghai is a tragedy.  The tragedy of this tragedy is that after Chinese police have arrested the suspect, Chen Jun, following four days of intensive investigation, Ms. O’Brien’s family refuses to accept that the arrested suspect is the culprit.  Their refusal is based on their assumption [...]

I was climbing the “MacMaster” route at Rattle Snake Point yesterday.  As always, I had my Nokia cell phone in my leg pocket which was buttoned by velcro strips.  The cell phone never fell out of my pocket.  And I sometimes answered calls while on the cliff.  As you can see from the picture that [...]

A child volunteers to help clear the green algae that re-bloomed at the Olympic sailing venue in Qingdao after heavy rain in the past weekend. The area covered by the algae is vast, like a small sea in a child’s eye.  It is simply an optimistic and daring imagination for him to believe that his two little hands can [...]

I met a woman who immigrated from China one and a half years ago today.  I was impressed by how well she spoke in English and how hard she had been working on improving her English.  While working full-time, she is attending English classes in the evening twice a week.  She attends Toastmaster sessions in [...]

The Globe and Mail reported today that the G8 summit failed to take strong action on climate change, due to resistance from two of the world’s biggest polluters (on per capital basis): United States and Canada. This is really sad.  The world’s leaders have postponed actions on climate change again and again for economic reasons.  [...]

Today, after climbing at Kelso, I sat in my car in the parking lot to log the routes I had lead with traditional gear in the climbing guide book that lists the climbing routes in Ontario.  Thirteen years ago, I met a gay climber through the Crag Crux Climbers group I had started in the gay [...]

Today, for the first time I saw a natural live birth of a little human being in a home environment on a TV program produced jointly in Quebec and Ontario.  As I saw the baby coming out head first and then the shoulders and then the whole body, I remembered the scenes I had seen in TV [...]

In 1991, after three years of home-sickness, I quit my newly-found job with the City of Toronto, left Canada for China, with a remote hope of settling in China.  During my stay in China, one of the many events that persuaded me to return to Canada was my experience with a bottle of sesame oil. A Bottle [...]

This time, it didn’t happen in Lhasa, Tibet.  It happened in Weng’an county in southwest China’s Guizhou province.  On June 28, 2008, an estimated 30,000 people rioted – burning cars and taking over part of the local police building – in protest against perceived corruption where the police exonerated a pair of murder suspects because one [...]

I was practicing Yoga on the morning of a beautiful Canada Day.  I had my fours on the floor, my belly facing the ceiling and my back arching away from the floor.  My limbs quickly became tired and I began to slowly lower down my back towards the floor. Suddenly I imagined myself being tortured by Japanese [...]