Shaken, but Not Disturbed
I was shaken awake by the earthquake a couple of minutes before 8 a.m. the morning of April 3rd, measured at level 5 on the Richter’s scale
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- Dec 25, 2023
Christmas Eve at Kuma Academy
While the rest of world is busy with Christmas Eve festivities, there's a packed classroom in Taipei learning how to better prepare for...
- Aug 21, 2023
Stand-Up Comedy: Three Shows in NYC this weekend
Opening for Beijing-based comedians Donnie Fan and Kei Gambit This weekend at West Side Comedy Club (map) on West 75th and Amsterdam...
- Apr 1, 2023
#COVIDCatLady, Day 1148
Today is the 1-year anniversary of the Shanghai Lockdown in Puxi (Pudong, across the Huangpu river, started 4 days before). I'm sitting...
- Mar 9, 2023
Farewell to Shanghai
I’m sitting on the balcony of my Shanghai apartment, emptied out months ago by movers. My apartment building has a filthy pool that...
- Jan 21, 2023
Farewell to the Year of the Tiger
Today's the last day of the year of the Tiger. I have survived. While Western astrological signs celebrate their season of birth, I've...
- Dec 10, 2022
Mobility Privileges Temporarily Revoked
It’s been 6 days since my foot surgery, my wounds are healing well and I’m getting pretty good at hopping around on crutches. The Kidner...
- Nov 30, 2022
#CovidCatLady, Day 1026
9 years in China, only got reported once on wechat by a crazy stalker. 3 months out of China, Twitter, the battleground for freedom of...
- Nov 27, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 1024
OK. It was election day in Taiwan. Peaceful transfer of power. University of Michigan versus Ohio State, UMich stomped Ohio 45-23. I was...
- Nov 25, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 1022
Starting around midnight last night, my WeChat moments feed flooded with Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Misérables. Again. The...
- Nov 8, 2022
#CovidCatLady Day 1005
I’m still counting because the Covid cat lady-ing adventures are far from over. I’ve been reluctant to bring myself to the keyboard....
- Aug 9, 2022
#CovidCatLady Day 913
It’s been a week since we left “post-lockdown” Shanghai, and I finally feel like my nervous system has calmed down… I mean, as calm as a...
- Jun 6, 2022
Day 67 of Shanghai Lockdown
One week since Shanghai's "reopening" This past week feels like the week after a layoff. You’re walking around the office/city wondering...
- May 30, 2022
Day 60 of Shanghai Lockdown
I... I think we're going to be free tomorrow? A week ago we were at "1 person per household is allowed limited hours outside for select...
- May 26, 2022
Day 56 of Shanghai Lockdown
A hiring manager recently asked me, “where do you see your career going?” I told her 50+ days into an endless lockdown is not the time to...
- May 12, 2022
Day 42 of Shanghai Lockdown 上海封鎖第四十二天
#COVIDCatLady 離開台灣825天，#ShanghaiLockdown 上海浦西封鎖第四十二天 有陣子沒有中文下筆了，來。封城，封控，防範，管控，靜默，不知道還能變出多少詞來遮掩上海現在的局勢。連著兩天早上7點起床，現在要先做抗原自測，一槓陰性才可以下樓排隊做核酸...
- May 4, 2022
Day 35 of Shanghai Lockdown
For the first time in a month, I ate a hot meal that I didn’t cook myself. Not gonna lie, I got a little teary. It’s from a restaurant...
- May 3, 2022
Day 34 of Shanghai Lockdown
We were supposed to be out a month ago. I have left my compound three times. First, when I read the Shanghai Municipal official...
- Apr 27, 2022
Day 28 of Shanghai Lockdown
How am I doing? It varies from hour to hour. At 11am, I got permission to leave my compound to walk the 3 blocks to my boyfriend’s...
- Apr 23, 2022
Day 23 of Shanghai Lockdown— The Relay
I spent my Friday night in lockdown reposting the same video over and over again. For a video that dominated my WeChat Moments feed for...
- Apr 14, 2022
Day 15 of Shanghai Lockdown
The rain in the last couple of days helped. Its not as inviting as the sunny bright blue skies that’s taunting me right now. The water...
- Apr 11, 2022
Day 12 of Shanghai Lockdown
Infographic by SmartShanghai So my freedom was short-lived. Turns out many communities have taken it upon themselves to "control" the...
- Apr 10, 2022
Day 11 of Shanghai Lockdown
I'm... Free? Official announcements said today the city's neighborhoods would be categorized into lockdown (14 more days), control (7...
- Apr 6, 2022
Shanghai Lockdown, Day 7
As expected, the 4-day lockdown is not just for 4 days. Staying home for 7 days is no travesty. But not being told to plan for a strict...
- Apr 2, 2022
COVID Cat Lady Day 785, Day 3 of Shanghai Puxi Lockdown
The hardest parts about isolation? Not being able to explain to my friend's dog Mocha (covid foster, my friend is in hotel quarantine)...
- Mar 22, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 774 (?)
For the first time since the pandemic started, someone I personally know tested positive for COVID in Shanghai. That gives you an idea of...
- Mar 17, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 769
Our whole compound tested negative and lockdown was *gently* lifted as scheduled at 6 p.m. today. I say gently because we were still...
- Mar 17, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 768
OK, here we go again. There are a few hundred cases in Shanghai and the city is on lockdown lite. Or as I like to call it, rolling...
- Jan 12, 2022
#COVIDCatLady, Day 705
I don't know if I can get any more cat lady than this. (Turns out, I absolutely can.) My boyfriend's building locked down yesterday for...
- Jun 5, 2021
#COVIDCatLady, Day 515—Mobility and Identity
515. This is how many days it’s been since I’ve been home. What used to be a 5-hour door-to-door commute from Shanghai to Taipei is now a...
- Mar 22, 2021
#COVID19 Cat Lady Chronicles, Day 43? Day 44?
Last week, I sort of felt like I was living two alternative realities. One is the Shanghai city that is slowly returning to what’s...
- Jan 25, 2021
#COVIDCatLady, One Year On
A year ago, on January 23rd, I landed in Taipei, home for Chinese New Year, to find that the city of Wuhan in China had been "locked...
- Jun 2, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 132
Guys, remember that one day when Chinese netizens demanded freedom of speech on social media? It didn’t get very far. They couldn’t...
- May 1, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 84
About a week ago, I had an encounter on the metro. To get to my office at Shanghai Disney Resort, it’s a 5-minute e-scooter ride, an hour...
- Apr 27, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 80
Been a while. I’m probably not alone in needing to take some time away from social media. I had escaped to facebook during the early days...
- Apr 12, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 64
I went to IKEA. What's it like shopping in IKEA post-lockdown? Well, since reopening, their hours are still limited, closing every day at...
- Apr 9, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 61
Life in Shanghai is very much back to normal, still masked, much less sanitized. I still smell bleach in the morning when I walk out my...
- Apr 2, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 54
There was no announcement, just a hushed conversation with a colleague. We’ve been asked to start working from home again. No more than...
- Mar 30, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 52
We celebrated birthdays on the team today. I wore a paper crown. Because of recent events, what’s usually a big monthly team dinner is...
- Mar 29, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 50
Celebrated the end of a friend’s quarantine with some American style pancakes, fried chicken, and chorizo gravy. We ended up spending 4...
- Mar 27, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 49
A little bit more normal everyday. After a couple of warm days, Shanghai is suddenly rainy and cold. Had to pull out my parka today...
- Mar 25, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 47
Today is my birthday. It feels appropriate to share the story of my birth, starring my mother, me, and... Well actually my dad was mostly...
- Mar 6, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 28:
4 weeks since I came back to Shanghai from Taipei. Taiwan has kept the number of cases at 44, and Shanghai is slowly returning to normal,...
- Feb 22, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 16
I went out for BRUNCH today, which is almost a normal Shanghai weekend activity, except when I tried to put my “nice” clothes on, I found...
- Feb 21, 2020
#COVIDCatLady, Day 15
I met a pet mini pig today. Her name was either Tofu or Belly, both work. Jing’an district, where I live, has been particularly strict...
- Feb 21, 2020
Day 14 of Self Quarantine
Spent most of the morning traumatizing one of my cats, trying to feed her her medication. Cats really cannot be forced into doing...
- Feb 20, 2020
Day 13 of Self Quarantine
Every time I walk out of my apartment complex, there are more posters. Notices and registration forms and pamphlets. This time I walked...
- Feb 19, 2020
Day 12 of Self Quarantine
I’m trying to remember what life was like after the earthquake that hit Taiwan in 1999. It was a massive quake and killed over 2,000...
- Feb 18, 2020
Day 11 of Self Quarantine
Yesterday an old friend half way across the world sent me a headline: Woman refused to evacuate without her cat. He asked, “is this...
- Feb 17, 2020
Day 10 of Self Quarantine
Self quarantine day 10: 4:00, wallow in self-pity; 4:30, stare into the abyss; 5:00, solve world hunger, tell no one; 5:30, jazzercize;...
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