About me: My real name is Chris Waugh, Chinese name 王博/Wáng Bó, born the Year of the Dragon. From Wellington, New Zealand, educated at the University of Otago, where I majored in French. I’ve also studied German and Russian and, of course, Chinese. Lived in China since late 1999, first in Changsha, then Taiyuan, then, apart from a spell in Tianjin, in Beijing.
About the title of this blog: “Bezdomny” is that name of a character, a poet, in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. It means ‘Homeless’, and it’s a name I always liked, so I decided to start using it in my various blogging ventures. “Ex patria” should be fairly obvious.
About the blog: Life as I experience it, that simple.
Want to contact me? Leave a comment or send an email that is obviously not spam to chriswaughnz [at] gmail.com.
Chris-
I’ve been enjoying your blog of late. Wanna trade blogroll links, or is that just too cheesy to ask? I’m still a little new to the whole blogging thang.
-Ben
Updating blogroll as I write…
hey, i came across your blog accidently when i was searching for an appropriate English word for ‘隶属’. google links me to your blog dated July 12th 2007. to by frank your Chinese is excellent. i was amazed at reading your english translation of the history of Yanqing county.
sorry, the blog i read was dated July 11th not July 12th, titled after the Shanrong:)
Wow, Leigh, that’s high praise indeed. Thanks very much. Personally, I can’t help but feel there’s still too much Chinglish in those translations. And I wouldn’t say my Chinese is excellent, you’d be amazed at how many hours of flipping through dictionaries, banging my head against the wall, and checking things with my wife it took to get those translations done. But thanks for the vote of confidence.
Chris,
I’ve been reading you blog for a while and see your posts on tons of other sites I read. You interested in swapping links on blog rolls?
Josh
Hey, Josh, sorry mate, I don’t know how your comment got held up for moderation. Spam Karma has normally been good to me and my commenters. It’s good to know my little contribution to the blogosphere is being noticed, thanks, man. Links are good, let’s swap, adding you to my blogroll right away.
Hi Chris!
I noticed that you posted on another board that you used to live in Taiyuan.
My name is Michael, and I work at a Beijing company called Exoweb. I’d be interested to know if you know of any cool places in Taiyuan to take about 44 Chinese and Foreigners for a good meal + pool or other activities after a trip to Mianshan?
Any suggestions or keywords about places I could search for would be much appreciated. (taiyuan and nightlife don’t come in the same sentence a lot, and when it does 60% of the time it seems like a zero-content site meant for generating google ad revenue)
If you have any ideas, please let me know!
Regards,
M.
Hi Michael. It’s a difficult question for me to answer, it’s been a long, long time since I was in Taiyuan, and I imagine all my old haunts have either gone or changed beyond all recognition. Basically, I lived there from August 2000 to July 2001 and went back twice in late 2001 and May 2002, so it’s been five and a half years since I was in the place. The only places I can think of to recommend are Jinci and Twin Pagoda temples (but Twin Pagoda is only good in the summer- bloody depressing the rest of the year) and neither of those places are good for meals and pool or any activity other than looking at old buildings. Sorry about that.
I guess you could try the immediate vicinity of the Shanxi Grand Hotel/山西大酒店, or perhaps the Yingze Hotel/迎泽宾馆, but that’s the best I can come up with after such a long time. I have… memories… of both hotels. The Shanxi Grand was often the starting point of some adventure or another. The Yingze Hotel used to have a troupe of Russian “dancers”. My school took me to see those dancers- that was quite a trip.
Chris,
How are you? Enjoying your posts as always and saw your comment on Daily Tea Leaves. In a few weeks I won’t be writing on that site anymore, but I’ve added you to my blogroll on my new and soon to be awesome site. Posts aren’t up, but you you know what I write…
Josh
Cheers, Josh. I assume the link you’ve left here is the new site?
Hello Chris,
I am the Web Editor of ChinaTravel.net. For some time, I have been sifting through hundreds of China-themed blogs, looking for the right combination of strong writing, quirky humor and relevant travel information. I have enjoyed reading bezdomny expatria and would like to invite you to contribute some of your blog entries to ChinaTravel.net. Your experiences living and teaching in Beijing, I believe, would provide our readers with personal incites into life in China.
Who we are: ChinaTravel.net & CTRIP
ChinaTravel.net is a new English travel website that will launch soon, focused on domestic travel for international visitors to China. We are an independent venture affiliated with CTRIP, rated by Alexa as the most popular online travel website in China with over fifteen million registered members. Our aim is to draw from CTRIP’s commercial and export resources in order to provide the best information on a variety of topics which include: destinations, attractions, history, accommodation, transportation, shopping, restaurant reviews, entertainment and festivals. In addition, we wish to bring foreigners and Chinese travelers together by creating a Travel Buddy function. But far more than just being an online travel guide, we will supplement excellent travel information with blog entries, travel stories, opinions, images and reviews.
What we want you to do:
We would like to add some of your blog posts to our travelogue entries. They will appear on our site as a news feed that will constantly be updated. A link to your blog will be listed on our site with every blog post that we use. This will increase traffic and publicity to your blog.
As a general travel site, we must consider a broad audience so we would only use appropriate content.
What we offer as incentives:
Through our close relationship with CTRIP, we are in the process of developing a rewards program for our participating bloggers. The details remain to be worked out, but we expect to offer the most successful blog entries such incentives as travel points, flights, travel discounts, and VIP cards.
All eyes are focused on China at the moment. ChinaTravel.net would like you to be along for this journey. I look forward to hearing from you,
All the Best,
Rebekah Pothaar
Web Editor
[email protected]
Ctrip Computer Technology, Shanghai Co.,Ltd.
No.99 Fu Quan Road, Shanghai, PRC, 200335
Tel: (86 21) 34064880 x 13218
Mobile: 159 0199 5801
Thanks for the words of praise and kind offer, Rebekah. I’m sending you a reply via email.