Now that that’s said, I’m quitting the blog. This isn’t in retaliation to the accusations above but is, instead, something I’ve been mulling over for quite a while and am finally ready to act on. Updating this blog stopped being fun early last year as I’ve struggled to post once or twice a month on anything I could think of related to China or immigration. Alas, my site statistics have continued to plummet from their all-time high of only 2,800 visitors/month, and that was back in 2010 when I was at the peak of regularly writing. Those numbers are hard to get excited about when you’ve been doing this for four years without any monetary gain.

I love to write, though, and will continue to do so in other endeavors (like my latest e-book, Dream Stories). I will also leave this blog up and still respond to comments and questions. There is good information here I would hate to throw away. If/when I am ever able to travel abroad again, I may start updating the blog again, too, or I might decide to stay mum about that until the next, inevitable “Yes Name of Country” book comes out. Thank you to those who have supported me over the years, but I ran out of things to say a long time ago, and I’m ready to stop talking.

My wife finds it interesting how so many things in the US are made in China. She’ll always look at the tag on a product, and nine times out of ten, the item in question was made in her home country.

She’d still rather buy these products here, though, because the prices of brand name clothing, make-up, and electronics are considerably cheaper in the US than in China. China doesn’t see the same savings on Apple and Clinique that outsourcing has given us, which is why friends and family frequently ask to be sent gifts from the US.

Speaking of gifts, when I was still living in Changzhou, my parents sent me a Christmas package full of candy, books, and small toys. I gave one of these toys to my wife (then girlfriend). She looked at the bottom of it, noticed the MADE IN CHINA stamp, and said, “Welcome home!”

Skip ahead in time: I’m now married to a Chinese woman, and chopsticks are a normal part of our lunches and dinners. Chopsticks go through the dishwasher, fall off the top rack, and get stuck in the bottom on a regular basis. There are times when we actually run out of chopsticks and have to wash them by hand. Poetically, then, I retrieved the old chopsticks from my parents’ house and, after six years, finally put them to use. See, I knew there was a reason why I bought those.

One thing that has helped my wife’s homesickness for China is watching Chinese TV shows on her computer. She’s even started watching shows she normally didn’t care about, like the multitude of war-time dramas, because, hey, at least it’s in Chinese. One of the shows she’s been enjoying is a Taiwanese “game show” where a group of people sit around a table and play a “find the murderer” parlor game. There are a lot of variations of this, so I’m sure you’ve played it at a party sometime in your life. Two people are killers, two people are police officers, and the rest are civilians. The killers are trying to figure out who the police officers are (and kill them) before the civilians figure out who the killers are and boot them from the table.

It seems silly that there would be a TV show focused entirely on something we play with our friends when we’re bored, especially since the people on the show wear costumes and really ham it up. I recall coming across a lot of similarly goofy and dumb shows when I would click through the channels in China, looking for something (anything!) I could stand to watch. But if viewing episodes of The Soup has taught me anything, it’s that Americans have no room to criticize. We have some truly awful, pointless, embarrassing TV shows right here in our own country. I’m looking at you, Jersey Shore. In comparison, a “find the murderer” parlor game doesn’t seem so bad.

The teaching guide, for instance, has consistently sold 10-12 copies every month since its release and has appeared on a few “things to get before traveling to China” lists. Actual feedback has been scarce, however, except for the occasional complaint that the book is too small. Apparently, people don’t like paying $1 for something that has the words “quick guide” in its title and advertises itself as a 5,600 word handbook that doesn’t end up being a full-length novel. Go figure.

I’m actually a little worried A Quick Guide to Teaching’s presence is hurting sales of Yes China!, since readers may buy the former, thinking they are getting something more akin to the latter but at a steal of a price, then walking away disgruntled. The two books were supposed to stand alone (and possibly complement each other). I doubt everyone else sees it that way.

But Yes China! has still been doing okay. It was originally pushing only 4-6 e-books and 1 paperback every month. Then things picked up in November and December when it sold upwards of 10 e-books and 8 paperbacks per month. For a while, I was thinking the paperback market was dead, so it’s cool to see paperback sales finally competing with e-book sales.

There are a handful of reviews on Amazon for the book, but only a few third-party websites have officially reviewed it, including Seeing Red in China, Books and Novels to Read, Lost Laowai, and Mark’s China Blog. It’s a lot harder to get someone to review a book as opposed to a movie or game, and many of the active China bloggers out there don’t typically cover non-political, tongue-in-cheek teacher stories.

That said, reception of the book has been fairly divided. The emphasis on teaching, the humor, and the disjointed order of events were all conscious choices but have been met with as much praise as they have criticism. These features were my way of separating Yes China! from the multitude of other “American in China” stories, with Peter Hessler’s trilogy being the biggest competition. But when it comes to China, maybe readers don’t want different.

I’m not taking that to mean there is no market for silly travelogues, though. Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods and even David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day were both big inspirations when writing Yes China!, and people who enjoy those kind of half travel books should find something to like here. If I write another “Yes Country” book, though, it looks like I’ll have to cut down on the self-referential jokes and talking about whatever work I’m doing there. In this case, it was teaching, and most people felt those chapters were the weakest parts.

Spring Festival (a.k.a. Chinese New Year) is the biggest holiday in China. Christmas is the biggest holiday in the US. My wife just experienced her first American Christmas, and her #1 observation was: it’s a pretty quiet holiday comparatively. Spring Festival is a non-stop, week-long barrage of fireworks. Noise is a big part of the celebration, as the origin of the tradition was to use fireworks to scare off a monster.

She did find it interesting, though, how people would hang lights on (and station inflatable snowmen in front of) their homes. It’s vastly different than the Chinese tradition of pasting red banners around the door. Her favorite was a house in Salt Lake that’s notorious for syncing its lights to the radio. I’m always amazed how “all out” people go for Christmas decorations.

The practice of giving/getting lots of presents on Christmas day was also new to her. In China, they do give each other gifts, but it’s in the form of a red envelope with money inside. When exchanging Christmas gifts, however, you’re never quite sure what somebody’s going to give you, which is what makes it so fun.

My wife enjoyed the presents aspect of Christmas but still felt Spring Festival trumps it overall. Her reason: the food. While candy and cookies and big dinners are certainly a part of Christmas, they don’t quite match the 30+ dishes you would find in a typical Spring Festival meal. To her, it would be like having Thanksgiving dinner without turkey. There’s no substitute for traditional food.

My family and I went to Disneyland over Thanksgiving weekend. As much as Sarah has been looking forward to finally seeing this place, my parents warned her that it would be very crowded during the holidays. “I’m Chinese, I can handle it!” she said. Yes, Disneyland was busy, but we both joked how the lines were still shorter than those at the Shanghai Expo, and at least you got to go on a ride at the end!

Amusingly, after only a few days in Los Angeles, Sarah was ready to go back to Utah where it was quieter. LA was too busy for her. It’s only been eight months since she arrived in the US, and she’s already grown accustomed to the smaller crowds. We are so easily spoiled here! It’ll be interesting when we make our first trip back to China, then, where every Saturday and Sunday is “Thanksgiving at Disneyland.”

It’s no surprise that using the Internet in China can be a pain. Desperate expats will pay for a VPN service, but cheapskates like myself either do without our favorite websites or hunt for free proxies to use. The problem with proxy hunting is that, as soon as you find a good one, the Chinese government blocks it the next week. In all my months of living in China, the only proxy I could consistently rely on was called hidefap.com.

I know, I know. It’s not a very respectable name. At expat parties, it was always embarrassing when we would discuss what new proxies we were using, and I had to admit, “Yeah, I’m using this site called… um… hide… fap…” For some reason, though, it never got blocked, so I always used it.

Back in the US, the first time I needed to test a script from a different IP address at work, my instinct was to go to hidefap.com. But then I realized it probably wouldn’t look good if an employee was frequently visiting a site called hidefap. At first, I thought finding a new proxy would be a hassle, but when every other site you visit isn’t blocked, it’s actually quite easy. Man, I love having full Internet access again.