One of my ex girlfriends had a “thing” about body sounds. By that, I mean she couldn’t stand “loud breathers” or “lip smackers.” If we sat in a restaurant next to anyone who was a “wheezer” or who made any slurping or lip noises while eating, we had to move. I grew up with a sister who was frequently ill…   …read more.

THE NOODLE CEREMONY After the dawn portion of our wedding celebration that I wrote about here, we were scuttled up to Guo Jian’s parent’s apartment and whisked into the “marriage bedroom,” or their spare room that was decorated with our photo above the bed, framed, and a new RED bedspread, the marriage colour. I was told to sit at the…   …read more.

I had never experienced cold the way I have since coming to China. (And that sentence was written by a Canadian.) I have lived through winters where the lows have dropped to more than fifty degrees (Celsius) below zero. I was even once in Whitehorse in February! Many times growing up, I remember my eyelashes freezing together while playing outside…   …read more.

Newsletter Final Thought: October 2012 Thanksgiving has just passed in Canada. I am here in China where Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated. I had to remind my in-laws and partner that the holiday even existed. While that would have made me irritable and homesick before, now I take these moments as an opportunity to just reinforce my culture with them… as I…   …read more.

There were several language foibles between Guo Jian and I in the beginning of our relationship, some of which I have already written about (like in this blog about the “green beans”!) but the “哼” issue seemed to take a ridiculously long time to resolve. We still laugh about it five years later. When we first got together, my Chinese…   …read more.

On my second trip to Shandong (山东), my partner’s home province, his family asked me if I knew how to cook. Truthfully, I’m an average cook and I don’t really enjoy cooking, but I could see an anxious look in my mother-in-law’s expectant eyes. They flickered a warning to tread lightly in my response. I expressed that I’m not bad…   …read more.

I admit that I’m judgmental of jealousy. I see it as a surface mask for more truthful emotions beneath its glare. Namely fear. Fierce lightening fear. Branching off from fear is insecurity, like splintered tree limbs that have been singed and struck by that same lightning. All together, the solid base of love gets rocked by this storm and it’s not worth it.

People often ask me how it is I could have fallen in love with someone when we didn’t speak the same language. At first I would explain that through my remedial Chinese and his odd English words, we managed to struggle slowly with conversations while limping on my little red pocket-sized Chinese-English dictionary. Then it occurred to me that we…   …read more.

There is something about power tools that gets dykes all tingly. They’re the ultimate “butch” display, especially when they’re paired with a well-stocked toolbox and <gasp!> a bulging tool belt. At least, this is what I’ve witnessed. Having performed at several women’s festivals over the years, it was always the women with the tools who got the most respect, like…   …read more.

Recently, a friend quietly confided in me when we crossed paths in Toronto. It was the night of my gig there this past summer and, though our conversation may not have even lasted ten minutes, it was poignant. She said that returning to Toronto after several years of not living in the city was bittersweet. That the city has a…   …read more.