Because we never met a challenge we didn’t like, Hello Uncle Foreigner is taking on the live stream. We had a few technical glitches in our very first one, but we’ll get it right soon enough!

We celebrated Children’s Day this year with a blowout, school-wide performance. Theme: 12 animals of the zodiac. Fun: as much as you can have at a children’s dance recital.

Phones are a very tricky species. I recently had to take mine in to good old Computer World to change the battery. But we’ve got friends in high places.

Luzhou has such wonderful fruit, really all year round. And sometimes the grocery store gets environmentally minded about it.

Ever wonder how we do what we do? Our “Please Like Us” video introduces you to the world of Whoop wu studios: our staff, our equipment, our process. It’s fun making videos about living in China, but it’s also hard work.

So we are looking for more eyeballs! All this month, on YouTube, we have some special subscriber incentives:

• First-commenter incentive: A fortune cookie fortune.
• Subscriber incentive: Tote bags — go get a tote bag out of your closet, and write our logo on it!
• All-commenters incentive: A sense of satisfaction and sophistication.
• Like-a-video incentive: A baby in China will learn one word of English.

Subscribe today, you’ll be glad you did. Or we will be glad you did … someone will be glad you did. And, tell a friend, maybe?

I get the best advice from text on hats.

It is what it says: It’s hard for me to buy soap in China.

We celebrated the opening of Starbucks in Luzhou by taking a look at their competition in the caffeine game — from the tea house, to the “western” coffee bar, to the local cafe, to the big mermaid chain herself.

I’ll stand by what I said about cutesy cafes featuring “fake-kitsch” decor. (Can kitsch be face? I submit that if you order it from a warehouse, then, yes.) But the fact of the matter is that Mango, the local cafe we featured, is actually cool. We chose it because we genuinely like going there. And it’s close to our house.

But, in researching this story, I found out that Mango is not decorated via internet, but, in fact, was designed by a big ol’ Chengdu architecture firm. You can even read a review of the architecture on this blog, hosted by a Hungarian interior design company. Luzhou, it’s a city on the rise!

Luzhou’s pizza options have really improved over the past year and a half. We have an actual Italian restaurant, now, with a chef trained by Italian people. But, for delivery, the easiest is Pizza4You. It’s perfect in every way … except there’s no tomato sauce. I used to put on sriracha sauce, but now our grocery store regularly stocks marinara (and siciliana, and basilica …), so I use that.

And, while we’re at it, why not sprinkle on a little more oregano and basil. And some of that shaker cheese. And pop it back in the oven. And … this take-out pizza is a lot of work, actually. But it’s worth it for a slice.

How do you get a room full of kindergarteners to be quiet? Tell them there’s a lost phone in the classroom. They get it.