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‘From travel bug to travel blog’

That’s the title of ShanghaiTalk’s January 2005 cover story — and you may recognize the “cover boy.” Oh, wait. You probably won’t. My face is covered in the photo, which likely explains why it made the cover. The magazine’s managing editor Shamus Sillar did a nice little story about The Trip and the two-page spread also features a slew of my photos and an excerpt from one of my trip stories. I’m pretty pleased with the way it all turned out.

Unfortunately, ShanghaiTalk does not have a real website — it is only 2005, after all — so if you want to read the story, you’ll have to pick up an issue in Shanghai. This may prove to be difficult if you happen to live in, say, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else in the world. The photo is also the cover of this month’s BeijingTalk, but I’m not sure if the story ran in that magazine, as well [UPDATE: The story did run in Beijing … and Guangzhou, as well]. Maybe Shamus can hook me up with a PDF file of the story that I could post here or something [UPDATE: See below … Thanks, Shamus!]. I’ll let you know.

For now, you can check out these not-so-great pics of the story high-quality images Shamus gave me. Just click on the icons, keeping in mind that some of the images are rather large:

But, really, if I were you I’d check out this great video of The Arcade Fire playing live instead (thanks for the link, Daily Refill). And stay tuned for the Shanghai Diaries Top 25 Albums Of 2004 list, which will appear right here very soon — maybe even tomorrow. I have a feeling The Arcade Fire might make it. Yeah, I’m pretty sure about that.

01.02.2005, 2:15 AM · Music, Site News

5 Comments


  1. Shanghai Talk doesn’t have a website? That’s funny. Perhaps they could check with those coders in Bangalore, and get something going. Or maybe somebody in sleepy, ole Shanghai knows how to code a site. Help ‘em out, Dan.


  2. The Shanghai Diaries media blitz continues!

    Unbeknownst to me, the site was also mentioned in this month’s That’s Shanghai cover story called Siteswapping. It was written by Christopher Cottrell.

    He writes: “Wang’s not the only altruist in town. American journalist Dan Washburn, for example, has a blog of his own — shanghaidiaries.com — full of useful travel information, including articles documenting his recent four-month cycling trip across China.”

    Yes, “cycling trip.” Wonder how the hell he got that. I’m afraid to ride a bike in China.

    The site is mentioned again in the same issue, this time in the Reviews section, which doesn’t appear to be available on the new, and rather unimproved, That’s Shanghai site. Writer/blogger John Pasden highlighted six sites in his story. Here’s what he said about this one:

    “Dan Washburn is a writer/teacher who has spent the last several months writing about his somewhat crazed journeys around China. His stated aim: ‘I want to go places not many tourists go, see things not many tourists see, meet people not many tourist meet.’ Washburn also covers a variety of Shanghai-related issues, written in a poignant and endearing style.”

    Aw, shucks. Poignant and endearing. How nice. Good thing I invited John to my holiday party.


  3. No website huh? Perhaps they should give you a job. This site rocks…!


  4. Bravo! you’re famous. Although most people would imajine you as the guy who fainted in the desert because of Mongolian Cheese.


  5. You have a small update in this month’s edition of Shanghai Talk