Becoming 'a little more Chinese'

5. I've embraced the Taobao lifestyle.

I never did much online shopping when I was at home in America, and when I found out that most of my students make the majority of their purchases without leaving their dorm rooms I was skeptical. But then my students hooked me up with a Taobao.com account and I discovered I could buy virtually anything from boots to ukuleles to imported butter, generally for less than 100 RMB. Since then, I've converted to Taobaoism and even was one of the shoppers that put money into Jack Ma's pocket on 11.11.

A Taobao.com billboard at an auto show in Beijing. The Hangzhou-based website has become the biggest online trading platform in China as well as the most important platform for thousands of online entrepreneurs. [Photo / China Daily]