United States

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"Are things still good there?” a man asks. “At least they are better than here,” Eraldo responds as he prepares for his third venture to the United States. Eraldo Pacheco, a Chilean shepherd, is starting a contract to work as a sheepherder in the plains of Idaho for the next three years.

BEIJING - About a week and a half ago a co-worker sent a message in Chinese that army vehicles were spotted in east-central Beijing near where I used to live. That day and the next rumors swirled, in no part due to the fact that Bo Xilai, the Mayor of Chongqing, the largest city in China had recently been dismissed. In subsequent days there have been articles in a multitude of news sources about Bo Xilai, following earlier articles about Wang Lijun, his dismissed police chief who created news by fleeing to the United States Embassy in the nearby city of Chengdu.

(下面有中文)

BEIJING Last month while home for  Christmas I attended a ninetieth birthday party for my Grandma with family and friends. Like others returning from China I went through that process of trying to explain the unexplainable fascination with China. Yet more than once I sensed a certain fumbling for questions from my interlocutors, it was them for a change struggling to small talk, not me.

The FX TV series American Horror Story presents an intriguing portrait of America in the new millennium through the distorting lens of the Gothic mode. Essentially a haunted house story, the series (now 2/3 into its first season) refuses to play by the rules or adhere to the mythology of the sub-genre.

I have always found myself between two worlds, not always belonging in either, but always fortunate to have both.

I grew up in Mexico City with an American mother and a Mexican father.  Amongst my friends at home, I was always the gringa which, depending on the day, seemed mildly offensive.

BEIJING - Last Saturday I spent a moment staring at a picture of a naked man pulling a cart of coal in an underground mine. Throughout the 3 Shadows Gallery, designed by the Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, you could see the juxtaposition of coal + ice (煤＋冰), a show produced by Asia Society’s Orville Schell.

"When the Towers Fell,"* by Galway Kinnell.

This week has left me in a pensive mood. With the constant barrage of remembrance specials and slideshows in the media, even those of us living outside the country are very aware that the tenth anniverary of September 11, 2001 is this weekend. As one who was thankfully not directly affected by this tragedy, such an anniversary does not stand as a time for me to remember lost loved ones. Rather I find myself desiring to step back and take a long look at what our country was before September 11, 2001, and what it has become today. Politically, how have we changed, and what caused this change?