š September update & dates for your diary
Monthly meet-up details, dinners, new intermediate content
Hello all:
Iāve not been great at keeping in touch with you recently. Please accept my apologies.
August was a crazy month. I took my family on hols to China.
It was great to be back there and closer to the things I write about.
Like actually trying to order a coffee in a Luckin Coffee outlet in Lanzhou (Didnāt go wellā¦.).
A highlight was going back to Xiahe å¤ę²³ in southern Gansu, which is where I began an epic walk across Qinghai, western Sichuan, and Yunnan 20 years ago.
At that time there were only two hotels in what was a tiny dusty town clinging on to the edge of a huge temple complex, surrounded by green mountains.
Xiahe is now a small city with clean paved roads, street lights, loads of hotels, a huge blue sports centre, and more.
There was something else which blew my mind even more than all of those changes.
Something new to Xiahe this year according to the locals.
Itās called cosplay, or ę ę lĒ pÄi.
I wrote about Cosplay here last August which is one of my favourite newsletter issues.
If youāre new to the idea, cosplay is when tourists dress-up in local traditional costume, have make-up professionally done, and have their pictures taken professionally at tourist sites in that area, such as temples.
Xiahe is now also full of cosplay studios, or ę ęåŗ lĒ pÄi diĆ n, and cosplayers.
So, what should we doā¦?
No, we didnāt get dressed upā¦.
We photo-bombed!
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Dates for your diary
Anyway, Iām looking forward to getting back into our calendar of events.
Dates for your diary below.
Click the links to RSVP or find all events on the Slow Chinese calendar.
Monthly meet-up
This monthās live member meet-up on Zoom will be this Wednesday:
Thereās no specific agenda. I thought it would be just good to catch up, bring any questions youād like to discuss.
Iāll also give an updated review of the member resources on the Notion site, including the new intermediate content (see below).
Leave a comment on this post if you have any questions to send us before the session.
Member Dinners
If youāre in one of these cities and youād like to connect with like-minded language learners, try one of our member dinners:
Thu 28 Sep: Member dinner in Bern
Fri 29 Sep: Member dinner in Barcelona
Tue 10 Oct: Member dinner in Frankfurt
Thu 9 Nov: Member dinner in London
šØāšBeta Testing Intermediate Content
In yesterdayās newsletter I mentioned Iām trying ways to adapt the newsletter to intermediate level content.
This link to the member site is where youāll find the full intermediate lesson from yesterdayās newsletter including audio, a short text, word list, and exercises.
There are two lessons to choose from on this page which is in the member site.
If you have 2 minutes, and if you havenāt done so yet, Iād love to know what you think!
Please share your feedback here.
Thatās it from me for now.
Hope to see some of you on Wednesday evening! (Iāll be sending out a recording after if you canāt make the live session).
As always thanks so much for supporting my work. I really appreciate it.
Cheers,
Andrew
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Ps - Iāll be running a course in October including six live sessions, followed by a 21-day reading challenge. Join the waiting list here if youāre interested!