"Reading Boomtown Chronicles"

Shenzhen, the Boomtown
(Wikipedia)

From June to December of 2008, the Shenzhen Daily published a fine series of around 25 articles about the city's history, entitled "Boomtown Chronicles." I spent 70 lessons--plus a couple of "side lessons"--examining the idioms used in these excellent articles.

Sadly, in a restructuring of the newspaper's website those articles have been lost. However, the expressions are still useful, so I will preserve my "footnotes" to them. If nothing else, it might help students learn how to get more meaning from reading the newspaper! The Practices will concentrate on the words and expressions that I singled out in each lesson.

Note that seven times, as I caught up with the publications of the articles and "ran out" of material, I inserted other lessons in between the ones about the "Boomtown" articles. But mostly the second half of 2008 was all about "Reading Boomtown Chronicles."