Category Archives: Uncategorized

06-May-07 at 3:16pm

Just yesterday I was asked by a local “does Ireland have Eskimos?" It took me a while to figure out he was referring to Iceland, or perhaps Greenland. On a separate occasion another person was blown away when I told her Ireland was an island.

Which reminds me of a trip to Gateway 2000’s HQ in North Sioux City, South Dakota, USA, about 8 years ago. The taxi driver bringing me back to the airport asked me where I was heading to. I told him I was heading back to Gateway’s Asia HQ in Malaysia. He stops the car outside a US Air Force base and says to me: "You know why there are no USAF jets in them hangers? It’s because they are on their way to nuke that motherf****r Saddam over there in Malaysia".

20-April-07 at 6:52pm

What are we drinking? Before Christmas an Italian friend of mine, who takes his cooking very seriously, put some tomatoes into a pot of water to boil…. Came back 10 minutes later…. The water was like red paint, and the tomatoes were all white…..  The water?

Formaldehyde in the beer?

Why is my hair falling out? Any nuclear power stations around here?

What are we eating? So if a broccoli looks too green, that’s because it is….a tomato looks too red, that’s because it is…. all tainted with pesticide. All that shiny and succulent carefully arranged fruit in the fruit shop downstairs…. Coated with…?

And the fish? A local Hangzhou Ren (native) once told me that as long as it was alive before they cooked it than it was safe to eat

What about so called beef? I mean…when was the last time you saw a heifer in China? Water buffalo, or?  And, as for pork?

…. The thought of what we are eating and drinking here just doesn’t bear thinking about…. Ignorance is bliss, other we’d starve.

However, I really would love to know what is in the air, and how many nuclear power stations are powering Hangzhou?

Suddenly the foreign food aisle of Hangzhou’s Carrefour seems like heaven. Tinned tomatoes from Italy, olives from Spain, plenty of imported pasta, and wine..

05-March-07 at 5:09pm

[A grumpy party pooping Niall after a sleepless Lantern Festival]

“Whatever the hell was creating the turmoil in our tranquil pond over the last two nights wasn’t all just a huge waste of money? Seriously, every neighbourhood trying to outdo the other in a cacophony of noise, with increasingly sophisticated weaponry that would impress your average Baghdad citizen…  So bang, crackle and whoosh all in the space of seconds. Money well spent?

I know someone is going to advise me to get with the program, but seriously the amount of money that is being wasted around here blows my mind!”

24-November-06 at 11:38am

I met the founder of this company (www.chinesepod.com) Ken Carroll in Shanghai the night before last. His is a story of "can do" entrepreneurialism at its best. Started off in China as a foreign teacher from Ireland, before landing a job as a radio presenter apparently he is as famous to Chinese as Da Shan is). From the horse’s mouth, he saw the Chinese Pod opportunity with the arrival of iPod. Now Chinese Pod has about 20,000 subscribers who have already paid the US$200 + (yeah that’s US$ 4 million already) for the suite of downloadable products (mainly to US and Europeans clients), and the website has received up to 2 hits so far, and they have just raised a huge amount of funds from investors.

[Ken Carroll has been in Shanghai for 11 year. Started off as a teacher, also had his own breakfast time program on Shanghai radio 101.7FM, and founded Ken English training centre]