I hate homework.

Well, not personally, as it never really bothered me back in my American junior high and high school. Today we see it in earlier and earlier grades. Here in Shanghai, it starts from grade one, at age six. An hour a day, usually more.

Of detestable homework. What bothers me is not the homework itself, but the concept of homework for kids at this age. And how destructive it is.

The Chinese love homework. At least the parents do. Shanghai recently reduced the amount teachers can assign in the early years, and how did many parents respond…

I saw four doctors today in Shanghai.

Not because I’m sick, but as I’m leaving China to move back to the USA next month, I needed a couple annual exams, a few follow-ups, and to get final advice and prescriptions for a variety of things. I’ve been here 15 years so I have lots of medical things to organize, and I dread finding new doctors in the US, mostly because medical care is so good and easy here.

Earlier this week I simply scheduled all these appointments for the same day, at the same clinic. Sometimes it’s hard to get…

I grew up listening to country music, including the great Johnny Cash. He’s of course the country music pioneer well-chronicled in the excellent movie, Walk the Line, and he passed away in 2003.

As a long-time fan, I thought I knew all his songs, but some years ago I discovered one I hadn’t heard, “Man in Black”, written in 1971 during the Vietnam War and counter culture protests.

This song, which Johnny wrote to explain why he always wore black, still speaks to us 50 years later, describing many of the challenges we still face here in the 21st century…

I’m from Maine, a pretty libertarian and freedom-oriented place.

And while Maine is sadly still the whitest state in the union, we usually don’t care who our neighbors are, as long as they (and the government) don’t bother us. They could be blue and from Mars for all we care. Or at least I’d like to think that’s how we think.

Europe’s recent immigrant challenges, especially the EU’s limited ability to understand and integrate Muslims and other immigrants got me thinking about these issues, including how we look at others, especially conservative religions and their “oppressive” traditions across our history.

…

I’m from Maine, a pretty libertarian and freedom-oriented place.

And while Maine is sadly still the whitest state in the union, we usually don’t care who our neighbors are, as long as they (and the government) don’t bother us. They could be blue and from Mars for all we care. Or at least I’d like to think that’s how we think.

Europe’s recent immigrant challenges, especially the EU’s limited ability to understand and integrate Muslims and other immigrants got me thinking about these issues, including how we look at others, especially conservative religions and their “oppressive” traditions across our history.

…

Helmets are for other people, at least here in Shanghai, and more broadly across China. Few, if any, scooter drivers or bikers wear them. Thus, you would think they are just not necessary, or perhaps drivers are unaware of them.

In an effort to further reduce safety while zooming through intersections and around cards, drivers often pile a kid on the front or back of scooters as they head to school, shopping, etc. Sometimes they add a wife, too, which is quite a sight, with two adults and a child on a single-person scooter, weaving through traffic.

Nuts, methinks. Absurdly…

Let’s talk about periods. The female kind.

As a strong supporter of women and girls, I’m a big believer in removing the stigma of women’s periods, which hurts them in so many ways. After all, half the world’s population has to deal with them a dozen times a year, for 40 years. But it’s something we never talk about.

Menstruation is hardly a common discussion topic, certainly not in polite circles, and certainly not by men. This’s exactly why men need to talk about it and be much more supportive.

Avoiding the topic, making crude jokes, or embarrassing girls are…

Here in a Shanghai beer bar a barmaid is pouring a dozen countries’ brews. She’s in China, but she’s from Kazakhstan. She looks Asian, but her native tongue is Russian. I chat with her in Chinese, but her English is much better and her accent American.

She wouldn’t stand out in any American city, nor hardly in the countryside. And that’s the point. She’s Koryo-saram, something I had to look up. It refers to hundreds of thousands of Koreans forcibly moved by the Soviets to various USSR states in the 1930s, mostly to Kazakhstan. So she’s Kazak, but not really…