My apologies for the long silence - I have been suffering from a phenonomen known as 'Dalian fatigue'. Its not precisely been a bad few weeks, although it has involved increasing amounts of preparation for my various dissertations, but it has simply paled by comparison with the months I spent travelling. Subsequently, everything has felt very routine, despite a collection of birthday parties, and various outtings, as well as the more usual drag of classes. Dalian continues to slowly get warmer, my host family remain delightful and infuriating in almost equal measure, and my Chinese continues very slowly to improve. Due to recent international affairs, I am now also remarkably well acquainted with Chinese vocab relating to Libya. My attempts to explain to taxi drivers that technically China is involved in it all as well, via the UN, have fallen on somewhat deaf ears though, no matter how well I think I explain that.

In other news, the political situation here is looking dire - Ai Weiwei being merely the latest in a series of disappearances or arrest of prominent dissidents and intellectuals. I did try explaining to my host family about Ai Weiwei (unusual in the list of the missing as there is a reasonable chance ordinary Chinese will know who he is), who were not in the slightest bit surprised, before my host mother interrupted to tell me and my host father to be quiet, 'just in case'.