I don’t want to engage in piling on here. Achelle has written a provocative article about Chinese food preparation methods, and I will let that stand and fall on its own merit. I am merely here to provide some perspective. And the perspective is this: Writing a column about the danger that food preparation in China poses to health is a bit like writing a column about the danger that lawnmowers pose for global warming. True, lawnmowers do emit carbon dioxide and so do contribute in fact to global warming, and the way food is prepared in China (especially here in Sichuan) does pose a threat to health (I guess I did wade into things). But in both cases there is a much bigger danger that is being overlooked. Lawnmowers are not the real problem and neither is food preparation. When it comes to life in China, the problem, unfortunately, is the food itself. If you don’t believe me, Google “Chinese food scandals” and see what comes up. It is literally something new every week. This week the news is all about rat meat being passed off as lamb. According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 900 people were arrested in the crackdown and 20,000 tons of product was seized. Read more…

Part of what this blog section does is to try to prepare you for your trip to China should you decide to fly over here to meet in person one (or more) of the women you have only known online at this Chinese dating site. Although most of the preparation takes the form of a primer about Chinese women and what to expect, we also discuss various elements of Chinese culture from things like guanxi to the importance of the family and countless other subjects, all to improve your chances of finding and courting the woman of your dreams. But one thing I have not seen anything written about is the actual project of air travel, the act of getting here. Read more…

PART I - They were seated in a McDonalds. Daylight was on its last legs as they stepped inside to get away from the cold Kunming wind. They were talking about Chinese literature, a subject she was very interested in. He had just finished reciting a list of books he had read by Chinese writers. In order to demonstrate that he was sincere in his study and truly interested in Chinese culture, he showed her his copies of a couple of novels of Mo Yan, the recent Chinese winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his collection of the complete short stories of Lu Xun, considered by many the greatest writer of Modern China. Read more…

There is one thing that every Western man--well, sane Western men--who are dating Chinese women in Sichuan province fears. It's not carrying their girlfriend's purse in public to the inevitable stares and snickers of fellow Westerners; it's not meeting their girlfriend's parents, knowing that at the same time they are smiling to your face they are wondering out-loud in words you cannot decipher just where they went wrong raising their child; it's not going anywhere with their beloved that a line might form--a train station, a supermarket, or a phone store--fearing that you will be forced into a near Darwinian state simply to get your vegetables weighed, your phone charged or your ticket purchased. All of these admittedly nerve wracking experiences fail to induce fear and trembling anywhere near that of the most heart palpitating of all events you can undergo out here: I am referring of course to hot pot. Because if you going out with a Chinese woman here in Sichuan province, Chongqing or the surrounding territory, you will inevitably find yourself invited to a hotpot restaurant, and there are only so many times you can turn them down. Read more…

If you don’t live in China, then the first time you meet someone from China Love Match in person will probably be when you fly over here. And if you fly over here, you may find yourself considering the possibility of taking a trip with a Chinese woman. It’s a natural enough desire given all the great places to travel in China. Read more…

Erin is there to greet me at the arrivals section of the Shanghai Airport. She is wearing a long, blue nylon winter coat with a hood that has fake fur around it and dragging behind her a pink hardshell suitcase that is almost as big as she is. Read more…

Where were we? Oh yes, on the island of Putuo Shan, one of the four Buddhist mountains and a well-known destination for China travel. As you may recall, I had grown rather disenchanted with what I saw as the level of spiritual hypocrisy on this allegedly Buddhist island, culminating in the cold-blooded murder at a restaurant of a cold-blooded fish right before my eyes. The values I associated with Buddhism seemed nowhere in evidence here. Read more…

Chinese culture is simply not suited to Buddhism. These are not my words. This is the sentiment of the Chinese scholar and government official Han Yu (768-824 CE), who had watched with trepidation as Buddhism, which had been introduced to China probably in the first century, steadily grew in popularity. To Han Yu, Buddhism struck at the very core of Confucianism and hence at the heart of China. While Confucianism emphasized the importance of the family, Buddhism saw the family unit as an obstacle to spiritual development. Hadn’t the Buddha abandoned his own wife and child in order to take up the life of a wandering ascetic? Read more…

If you see her say hello she might be in Tangier / She left here last early spring is living there I hear Read more…

“I won’t sleep with any man who can’t beat me at chess.” Read more…