It’s been a couple of busy weeks as I traveled from Wenzhou, China back to America, from Los Angeles across the country to Philadelphia, and then off to Mexico.

It started with a one hour flight to Shanghai to stay with my good friend and former EnglishFirst Wenzhou teacher Matt for one night before leaving my Asian home of ten months for good. We celebrated my new book and his new job and talked late that night to catch up on everything. No surprise that we started again the next morning where we had left off. Matt and I need to get together more often to keep up to date. more…

On this, my last day in China, I’m looking ahead to how being back home in North America will seem somewhat foreign at first. Long-term expats—those who’ve been gone for several years or decades—are often warned of the culture shock of re-entry into their own societies.

I don’t expect a stunning surprise since I’ve been back so often. But do I look forward to those first few weeks when special insight is granted travelers to see their own countries and people through the eyes of outsiders. If in China I’m always impressed by the sheer number of people, I will surely find California with its green wooded hills, wide boulevards and large suburban malls a sparsely-populated space. more…

Another expat experience is about to come to an end as I pack up my things to leave China and return to North America. It occurs to me—as my book about traveling and living abroad is about to be sent to the publisher—I’ve written a chapter on what to expect when going but not on returning. Oh well, material for a future book.

Whenever I reach this stage of the expat life—as I did in Mexico and Costa Rica—I always look back at all the things I once found strange and have gotten used to and now know that I will miss: more…

Going through my photos for last week’s blog about food, I found so many pictures of restaurant menus that I knew I just had to do a piece on all of the fun things we’ve found in Chinese eateries. And, when we went out on the weekend with English teachers who told us that the new menu item at a local favorite Arabian restaurant was “fetus” salad, the deal was sealed.

The best Chinglish you’ll find anywhere is on labeling and restaurant menus. Sometimes it’s just cute like the Kwepie Doll mayo and jams featured in last week’s blog. At other times, it’s really confusing because you can’t figure out what it is they’re trying to say. We sometime spend most of the meal—long after we’ve ordered—trying to decipher what the menu items are supposed to be. more…

I just wrote a guest blog for Wandering Educators and am posting the article for you here as well as invite you to visit the site if you might consider teaching as a way to fund your travels around the world. You need to become a member but there is no cost to join.

After several manic decades of career building and child rearing, many baby boomers are now at a point in their lives when they’re done climbing corporate ladders and raising kids. They seek enriching experiences and many are finding these by going abroad to travel, live, give or learn. more…