Joann Pittman is Vice President of Partnership and China Engagement and editor of ZGBriefs.
Prior to joining ChinaSource, Joann spent 28 years working in China, as an English teacher, language student, program director, and cross-cultural trainer for organizations and businesses engaged in China. She has also taught Chinese at the University of Northwestern-St. Paul (MN), and Chinese Culture and Communication at Wheaton College (IL) and Taylor University (IN).
Joann has a BA in Social Sciences from the University of Northwestern-St. Paul (MN), and an MA in teaching from the University of St. Thomas (MN).
She is the author of Survival Chinese Lessons and The Bells Are Not Silent: Stories of Church Bells in China.
Her personal blog, Outside-In can be found at joannpittman.com, where she writes on China, Minnesota, traveling, and issues related to "living well where you don't belong."
You can find her on Twitter @jkpittman.com and on Facebook at @authorjoannpittman.
She makes her home in New Brighton, Minnesota.
A new blog in China called iWorship is giving voice to Wang Mingdao, one of the great evangelists and leaders of the Chinese church during the twentieth century. Last week, on our Chinese Church Voices blog, we posted a translation of one of their posts, called “Slow to Speak.” In it, Pastor Wang reminds us of the importance of using our words for God’s glory.
A ChinaSource "3 Questions" interview with Dr. Fenggang Yang, director of the Center on Religion and Chinse Society at Purdue University.
What is the most beautiful place in China?
"Mentoring in the Chinese Context" is this month's ChinaSource Converstations podcast.
Anyone who comes to you claiming to be a "China expert" is either deluded (and thus to be pitied), lying (and thus suspect), or out to separate you from your money (and thus to be avoided).
A look at the news and analysis about President Xi Jinping's US visit.
While living in Beijing, I came to know well a migrant family. They had arrived in Beijing in the mid-1990s and had managed to find good jobs and earn enough money to buy an apartment and start a family. Even though they did not have a Beijing hukou, they managed to get their children into a decent school. It was interesting to watch the children grow up, because clearly they saw themselves more as urbanites, even though they technically weren’t.
If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend reading Builders of the Chinese Church: Pioneer Protestant Missionaries and Chinese Church Leaders, edited by Wright Doyle and Carol Hamrin.
It’s not entirely true that I love parades in general, but I must admit to having a strange fascination with Chinese military parades. I’m not sure why, but perhaps it’s because they are multi-layered and there are interesting things going on at every level.
Earlier this month, ChinaSource launched a new podcast titled ChinaSource Conversations. The aim of the podcast is to bring together those with Chinese expertise and experience to discuss timely topics impacting China’s church. We hope that it will be a useful resource for those serving in China.
The fourth cultural element that Huo Shui highlights in his article “Living Wisely in China” is zhong yong, or “being moderate, which helps us understand what’s going on in situations where things are not seen in black-and-white terms but more in shades of grey.
The third element that Huo Shui highlights for us in “Living Wisely in China” is the Chinese notion of “face.” This one is arguably the most important and the most difficult for westerners to grasp. He gives us a glimpse into how “face” plays out in everyday life in China.