I visited a new cultural center in Shanghai in 2005 that was pretty much perfect, except for the really badly translated Chinglish signs: a handicapped restroom that said Deformed Mans Toilet, that kind of thing.

There's a reason why the form was originally silent

This is the ultimate cruelty, isn't it? That I can talk and talk and to anyone listening, it's only air--too rich a diet to be swallowed by a mundane world.

We are all prisoners of our time and place.

It's the stories that make my heart beat faster ...those are the ones to write about

Ive studied Chinese in college, but basically, Im not bilingual.

I define the American dream as the ability to imagine a way that you want your life to turn out, and have a reasonable hope that you can achieve that.