Nic Gibson

Arrived in China in 2012, trained in Beijing, then taught in Changsha, embracing its wild nightlife and challenges. Moved to Nanjing in 2013, experiencing its history, culture, and proximity to Shanghai, feeling more connected and stable. Returned to Nanjing in 2021...

Nanjing, like most large Chinese cities, hits hard, fast, and relentless. Getting swallowed up in the rhythm of the city just... happens, almost any time you step outside your home. Life can feel like a marathon you didn't sign...

Ambivert: someone with qualities of introversion and extroversion, finding comfort and energy in both social interaction and solitude depending on the situation. Growing up with the internet, as my generation did, I should be comfortable with knowing when to make...

The idea of incongruity carries a bad rep. It's right there, in the word itself. “In” often implies something ineffective, inefficient or incompatible. But the picture becomes muddier when we consider inventiveness, ingenuity and incredibility. Hold that incongruity in...

Staring back on my time in China, the feeling that all was not as it first appears was a near-constant companion as I adapted to the inevitable cultural obstacles any foreigner feels leaving home.  Specifically, though, for me, that feeling ...

I must confess from the get go that I don't have any tattoos. I flirted with the idea of getting song lyrics in my teenage years; I would have gone for somewhere understated, like a tricep or inner thigh....

As an English teacher, I have to fight my natural urge to mock and demean geography, at least as a school subject.  It is all too easy to dismiss it as “colouring in maps” and quizzes about flags, (although I...

Common folk-wisdom runs that happiness is found in community. That we were happier in the past, in smaller, more tightly-knit communities; villages, towns, family units. That a big cause of the modern malaise is the fracturing of communities into...