“Where are you from? What is your nationality?” are the regular questions I get asked by friendly passers-by (invariably Chinese) as I hasten through People’s Square park in downtown Shanghai, just off West Nanjing road. I say “invariably Chinese” because there are easily one thousand Asians to one foreigner even in cosmopolitan Shanghai. When I […]
Rod MacKenzie
CRACKING CHINA was previously the title of this blog. That title was used as the name for Rod MacKenzie's second book, Cracking China: a memoir of our first three years in China. From a review in the Johannesburg Star: " Mackenzie's writing is shot through with humour and there are many laugh-out-loud scenes". Cracking China is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle or get a hard copy from www.knowledgethirstmedia.co.za.
His previous book is a collection of poetry,Gathering Light.
A born and bred South African, Rod now lives in Auckland, New Zealand, after a number of years working in southern mainland China and a stint in England.
Under the editorship of David Bullard and Michael Trapido he had a column called "The Mocking Truth" on NewsTime until the newszine folded.
He has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. if you are a big, BIG publisher you should ask to see one of his many manuscript novels. Follow Rod on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/Rod_in_China
Posted inLifestyle
“Come on mate, one billion customers in Choina, whadda yer waitin’ for?”
“Excuse me,” the bloke says with an Aussie drawl at a local watering hole, Big Bamboo, near Jing’an temple, one of Shanghai’s few remaining Buddhist temples. (The building survived the tender mercies of the Mao era because the monks astutely pasted pictures of Chairman Mao across its doors along with heaps of praise for China’s […]
Posted inLifestyle
‘The ovary and digestive gland of a crab digs up the cabbage’ and other menu conundrums in China
As you browse through a menu in China, sometimes courteously translated for you into a version of English we all fondly know here as Chinglish, imagine savouring “ants climbing the tree” or “seafood custard”. (“Ants climbing the tree” is tasty, spicy fried vermicelli with finely chopped pork; I haven’t tried the seafood custard.) Either you […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Zapiro and the cliché of violence
Forgive me for resorting to the following hackneyed, worn-out story. Shortly before I met my wife some six years ago, she was dragged screaming and gibbering down the driveway by a gang of strong young men so that they could have the pleasure of her and perhaps leave her for dead in the fields near […]
Posted inGeneral
‘Man-di-LAH!’: Carefully explaining to the Chinese in Shanghai what it meant to grow up in the old SA (part four)
Following from the previous post in this series The entire English department at the Shanghai University of Engineering and Science knew of Nelson Mandela. Should I say “of course” they knew of him? No. People tend to see their country as the centre of everything and can be appalled, perhaps, to realise that in far-flung […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
On Christi van der Westhuizen’s ‘Zapiro’/bless his satirical name, ‘Zuma’/victim and ‘us’/them/women/men
I invite all readers to look at Christi van der Westhuizen’s photo on her blog on Thought Leader. Please note — hopefully without my prior interpretation — that she has chosen a photo where she is looking “down” on you, suggesting she, as a woman, is not looking “up” at you, in other words she […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, News/Politics
“Go for it, Li”: Zapiro in China
On the Zapiro cartoon uproar: I thought the portrayal of Zuma was brilliant but it did not elicit more from me than a grim, black chuckle. Sure, the cartoon is not meant to amuse; it is meant to deliver a heavyweight, jaw-breaking blow to hypocrisy and corruption and the complete disregard for the justice system. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
On Sarah Britten’s “Jacob Zuma, Zapiro (bless his satirical name) and Sarah Palin” article
Sarah Britten made a very astute observation on where the Zapiro (bless his satirical name) cartoon may be taking us all. Zuma may very well be re-written as a victim – for the nonce. Dream on girl – with this kind of writing ye may very well topple the mighty Traps. However, the furore created […]
Posted inGeneral
Mao Tse-tung/Christ comparisons: Explaining what it meant to grow up in the old SA (part 3)
I switched to a picture of a crucifix with the anguished, dying Christ nailed to it in my PowerPoint presentation to my erudite audience at the University of Engineering and Science in Shanghai. “I also grew up in that boarding school with this image firmly planted in my subconscious.” I recited to my listeners the […]
Posted inLifestyle
Carefully explaining to the Chinese in Shanghai what it meant to grow up in the old South Africa (part two)
(Continued from previous post) “… This white child and nanny relationship added to the complexity of the racial situation I grew up in,” I said to my entirely Chinese audience at the University of Engineering and Science in Shanghai. These black nannies, or ousies, as we would also call them, were wonderful people and as […]
Posted inLifestyle
Carefully explaining to Chinese in Shanghai what it meant to grow up in the old South Africa
‘I was brought up on the back of a black woman,’ I said to my dumbfounded audience. I pointed to the picture on the screen in my power point presentation. It showed a black woman with a traditional African kaross on her back, in which was sleeping her baby while she worked in the fields. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Madam & Li: surviving maids in China
There are several wonderful women my wife and I have met in China before whose teeth we stand in awe. From maids and shop assistants to teachers and restaurant managers, we have got to know some Chinese women who make us wince when their faces split into a grin. As their lips peel back in […]