The Moth is a popular series of "stand-up storytelling" events held in different cities across the U.S. (and elsewhere). Ordinary people get up in front of an audience and tell dramatic, humorous, and often moving stories about their own lives. Some stories include full transcripts.
Read MoreCollections
Complete archive
Baby Name Wizard is a massive database of English names, designed for parents-to-be. It gives meanings of names, as well as other information such as pronunciation and how common these names are.
The most popular feature is the Name Voyager, which graphs the frequency of a name over decades.
Read MoreBased in Shanghai, Sixth Tone is an online magazine dedicated to news and commentary about contemporary China. Different from other English-language media on China, most of Sixth Tone's articles are written by Chinese people.
Read MoreTwo brainy guys, Jeremy Goldkorn and Kaiser Kuo (former guitarist for the rock band Tang Dynasty 唐朝乐队) dish about current events in China. Not just one of my favorite podcasts about China, but one of my favorite podcasts about any subject, hands down.
Read MoreRun by Jeremy Goldkorn and Kaiser Kuo, long-term Beijing expats and hosts of the Sinica Podcast, SupChina is a media network offering daily news and commentary on current events in China.
Read More
Pretending to be a student, anthropologist Rebekah Nathan goes “undercover” to research the culture of American undergraduates.
Read MoreAn illustrated catalog of everyday Chinese objects, with brief essays on their cultural significance.
Read MoreA lighthearted introduction to American customs and habits, written for learners of English and newcomers to the United States.
Read MoreThis satirical collection pokes fun at the typical tastes and habits of younger white, middle-class, educated Americans.
Read MoreA novel in the form of a dictionary, this book paints a portrait of the village of Maqiao through short “entries” documenting local phrases and customs.
Read MoreNovelist Yu Hua (author of “To Live”) attempts to capture the cultural complexities of modern Chinese society in ten essays on important cultural “keywords.”
Read MoreSinologist Boye Lafayette De Mente attempts to capture the features of the Chinese psyche in short essays on culturally specific and difficult-to-translate words.
Read MoreA pocket guide to Chinese culture and customs, intended for foreigners visiting or residing in China.
Read MoreAn in-depth analysis of Chinese habits, customs, values, and communication styles, written by scholars of intercultural communication.
Read MoreA guide to American culture and habits of daily life, written for visitors to the United States.
Read MoreWritten in 1935, My Country and My People is Lin Yutang's magisterial introduction to Chinese society and culture, and remains a classic today. Lin subsequently translated the book into Chinese as 《吾国与吾民》.
Read MoreIn this article published in the British newspaper The Guardian, linguist Alison Mackey overviews the subject of motivation in language learning.
Read MoreRivertown is Peter Hessler's memoir of living and teaching in rural Sichuan province as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1990s. It is one of the most widely read accounts in the English-speaking world of living in China as a foreigner.
Read MoreExcerpts from Motivating Learners, Motivating Teachers: Building Vision in the Language Classroom, by Zoltan Dornyei and Magdalena Kubanyiova.
Read More