Category: Community

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Role Models:Vitomira Loncar

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

I am a Croat (63). Throughout my life, I have had many different identities such as actress, producer, doctoral candidate, professor, wife, and mother. The common thread is that I am a life-long learner.
I guess you could say my life started when I was 24, I did my first movie and got famous overnight. I was on the front page of all the newspapers and magazines. Money followed easily and for a time that was enough. However, I started to feel that life should be about more than just the spotlight.

Interview with Steve & Dalia of Mina’s Western Restaurant

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new restaurant in town that is serving up some of the best western food that Xi’an has seen in some time. Called Mina’s this restaurant has gained in popularity over the past month, with customers returning multiple times per week due to the authentic taste of home that is near impossible to find elsewhere. So, to find out more, we sat down with Steve and Dalia, the couple making Mina’s possible, to find out more about how this came about.

Role Models:
Justyna Szumigala

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

My name is Justyna Szumigala. I’ve been living in Xi’an for 4 years, working for the same company, EF. I am currently a director of studies at EF Chang’An. I’ve been travelling around the world for more than 10 years, teaching English in different countries of Europe, Africa, and Asia. When I don’t teach, I like to do yoga and belly dance.

Labour Day Endurance Cycling Challenge

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

On the 1st of May (Labour Day) the local Cube Shop at the Stadium organised a 24-hour distance challenge. They announced the event in the local bike community and provided a support car, rest stop, and prizes for all finishers.
Participants could choose between 300 km, 400 km and 500 km as the target to finish within 24 hours. The clock would always be ticking, so any stops or breaks would be counted into the total time. Represnting the Shaanxi Hills International Team, Marcus signed up for the 500 km goal, and Francis signed up for the 300 km goal.

Role Models:Zhuoran Li It’s our responsibility to become ourselves

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

When I was 3 years old, I liked a short-hair girl in my kindergarten. My feelings for girls got more intense when I was growing up. It was very confusing since everyone and everything around me told me I was supposed to like the opposite gender.
I used to wear women’s clothes when I was around 2-3 years old. As I got older I started to wear more and more masculine clothing. I think it was me unconsciously wanted to be a boy so that it would be ok for me to like girls. If I were a boy all my feelings towards girls would make sense and I wouldn’t be a freak anymore, trapped on my own isolated little island. I would be like everyone, be able to connect with the world. I could breathe freely and like girls as the way I wanted. I even considered transgender surgery for a long time, however the cost of transition proved to be prohibitively high.

Changing Jobs: Questions I asked myself

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

As a person who finished their postgraduate less than two years ago, I have changed jobs three times and each time I have entered a new field and familiarized myself with something totally strange to me. People around me have different opinions on it – some disapproving of my behavior, some praising me for my courage and some who were curious about my choices. I respect all different perspectives, and I’d like to share my experience and a few questions I have asked myself before changing. I hope what I write here can be helpful if you are stuck in a working dilemma.

FUN An Enzyme For Learning

xianeaseARTICLES, Community

my five years in China, I’ve worked in an international high school, a middle school, a couple training centers, and a kindergarten. Despite taking my work seriously, I often struggled to achieve the results I desired in the classroom. Most vividly, my first experience in a training center (in Shenzhen) began with me dreading work every day but ended in a difficult goodbye. I want to begin by sharing an anecdote about that experience and ultimately give some answers to the simple question that was incessantly burning my brain during that time: “How to make my teaching better?”.