Introductions

Welcome to the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas Saloon in China!!

I spent half a year in Dalian back in 2005. Now dividing my time between the UK and Italy, and more or less making a living as an ESL/ELT materials writer - often for clients in China. That six months spent alternately freezing/roasting in a fermenting-cabbage-smelling apartment directly above Asia's noisiest 24-hour karaoke emporium has paid off after all.

Foscolo, welcome. Greetings and salutations, pull up a chair (if there is a bunny on it, pick another. AMonk is a master of hopping wu gong). It's your round (use Stil's tab, he won't notice. Honest.) Mine's a pint of absinthe

Welcome aboard, Foscolo. Sounds like you got the(almost) ideal life! Congratulations!
If it was truly ideal, you'd be somewhere on a South Pacific island writing your stuff!

Nice of you to join us, Foscolo.  Order up anything you'd like - the wing-ed one will be buying this round.

Thanks for the warm welcome. Just a beer for me. I've given up spirits since hearing this profoundly depressing joke from Finland:

Valentin and Aleksis are sitting in a log cabin in the snow. They've been drinking for three days straight when the vodka runs out. Valentin says "There's a bottle of cleaning alcohol in the tool shed. I'll go out and get it."

Valentin goes out, struggles through the snow, and comes back five minutes later with a dusty bottle. He puts it down on the table next to the empty glasses and says "The bottle's nearly full, but it's methanol, not ethanol. If we drink it we'll go blind."

Alekis looks at the inside of the cabin, then looks out at the snow. "I've seen enough" he says, "fill 'em up."

Welcome to the saloon.  I believe the official hostess has retired her qipao, but I hear Stil has one and might win the runoff election for the new host(ess).  In the meantime, I'll have a diet coke and a good story, please.

Foscolo:

"I've seen enough" he says, "fill 'em up."

Yup, you've been in DL alright. Your next beer's on my tab.

New Member from Nanjing here.  4 years of courteous and friendly behaviour at the other place and put on probabation by Big K for alluding that his moderation skills echo those of the CCP internet police (especially during time of increased big brotherish behaviour).  I've retained viewing rights, but have to pass all everything through him...just like a Chinese netizen!

Anyways, I thought I'd register here.  I'm not a terribly prolific poster, but I comment from time to time on things that I feel I am knowledgable about.  I'm leaving China in about 3 months to pursue a graduate program un related to ESL, but I hope to keep an attachment to China.

Welcome aboard, tingbudong. Refugees are especially welcome. have a beer or three on .........Raoul! It's been ages since he shouted.

Welcome tingbudong.  Glad you found the 'real' forum.  We are mostly friendly but you have to watch out for George and Stil because they both occasionally wear strange clothing normally designed for women. 

Howdy.   Quality of posts matters; the rest of us are holding up the quantity just fine.

Hello, Ting.  Welome to our hangout.  Don't worry about not being PRC-present in a little while, not all of us are in-country, either.  Me, for one.  But the rest of the crew put up with me anyway and are happy to let me buy them drinks as often as possible.

So.  What's your poison?  My shout...again....

Welcome tingbudong

Please excuse me if i call you tan-bu-dun. I sometimes slip into Changsha hua

In a couple of other forums I've visited it's seemed that everybody was a twenty-two-year-old Californian, and as a 43-year-old Brit, I felt a bit like Mr Giles In Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But on reading through the introductions here, I see that there's a good range of ages and nationalities.