You are living in the past, mate. Things and situations have changed for many of the former regular contibutors. Some of them are done with China, others hve dropped out of work and don't care anymore, and also this board's policies hve changed somewhat and allowed rule of feminists in censoring contributor input. There is also favoritism towards special contributors. Live goes on, so forget about the old days.

I arrived safely in Nepal. I am typing this message in my Kathmandu hotel, and I had a first meeting today with the Vice Chancellor of Nepal's new Open University. They have requsted my support and assistance in course development. Some days later., they will fix a date and time for a guest lecture they have requested. Tomorrow I will have a meeting with my PhD student and go through his work with him, witb both of us and our laptops. So, I will be busy the next days and do some good and interesting stuff. I am happy to forget about Christmas and all that.

My PhD student insisted of paying the hotel fee for me for the first five days. So I cannot do anything but to follow him in this. I will be able to post some pics within the next days if the internet remains stable and if we donot have any eletricity cuts. Next week my graduate student and I will travel to his home village taking a bus, and the it will take 10 hours to arrive. Roads are very bad here, or better: sometimes there are no roads at all. Travel can be quite an adventure here.

Happy Christmas from Nepal!

Taffy, there was a time when the frequent contributors to this site shared a common experience of living and teaching in China. It appears now that most have abandoned the Middle Kingdom.