Oh, What A Wonderful Web Okay, so let’s start this off easy with things you shouldn’t find on Amazon, but can definitely find on Taobao. After that, it will get increasingly weird so don’t say you weren’t warned. (The items were kept PG13 and relatively SFW - trust us when we say it can get [...]
7 Mesmerizing Secrets About Chinese Food This week the Hutong School blog was visited by a guest blogger: Operation:Falafel One day or the other, most of us try to cook Chinese food that we find comfort in. Whether we take a stab at the egg-fried rice with Szechuan chicken or the chow mein [...]
Chinese Customs What are Chinese customs? What can you expect to get used to when moving to China? What might be rude in your country but completely fine here? Here’s a heads up on what to expect from the largest population in the world. First on the list, spitting. Maybe you [...]
Dating in China 101 Ever wanted to know more about dating in China? What are Chinese men, women and, most importantly, parents looking for? Are marriage markets real? And what with all the singles? The dating world is unlike that of one that you’ve ever seen before so prepare yourself and use your Chinese skills! [...]
What is Spring Festival? Time to put on your red socks! Bunches of red socks are being wrapped as New Year gifts and Chinese migrant workers are already queuing up to buy train tickets to return back home for one short week at the end of January. During this week all manufacturing and business stops in the [...]
A new global market study has shown higher growth rates than expected for Chinese language learners. The founders of Hutong School, Mr. Jeremie Rossignol and Mr. Jan Wostyn, announced the results of the study which showed substantial growth in the number of learners both within China and globally. As numbers of Chinese students continue to grow [...]
Is there a logic behind Chinese characters? For a Chinese learner who has just started to get introduced to characters, the combination of strokes seems arbitrary at best and ridiculous at worst, without any major logic behind. However, that is far from true. A very long time ago, characters were actually often images of the object or an [...]
Embarking on a new language is not too different from scaling a mountain. You start at the very bottom, looking up and the whole thing is towering above you. You cannot even see the top as it is covered in clouds and you are asking yourself what on earth was I thinking, can I really [...]
During June and July, the people of Beijing voted on the annual That’s Beijing Lifestyle Awards. With categories in food, drinks, entertainment, language learning, and many more, this award is the most encompassing of all the expat oriented awards in the city. Voting takes place on their website and on WeChat, and the results are [...]
The first challenges When I went to China end of February this year, it was my first time ever being in Asia. So everything was new to me from the moment I left the plane. The first challenge started when buying a metro ticket. Was it Changshu Road or Changshou Road, I was wondering where [...]
