WSJ.com: The Expat Life

Alan Paul can count his remaining weeks in Beijing on one hand, and he's in a flurry of furniture shopping, farewell parties, CD recording -- and grappling with the huge changes ahead.

An event in Beijing was intended to show the locals how American-style democracy works, but observing the locals participate in a mock election was eye-opening for Alan Paul, too.

NBA rookie Joe Alexander followed an untrodden path from international school to professional athlete.

Alan Paul likens shepherding his children around India, and back home on a 3 a.m. flight, to the "gold-medal decathlon match of the parenting Olympics."

Playing traditional American music to an all-Chinese crowd gave Alan Paul new understanding of how music breaks down barriers.

The middle-aged, married, luxuriously compensated expat is becoming endangered, as a younger, cheaper, more nimble species takes its place.

As foreigners swarmed Beijing during the Olympics, Alan Paul found himself acting as a cultural ambassador to visiting journalists and locals and even, in a major role reversal, his Chinese bandmates.

After years of anticipation, the Olympics have finally arrived in China, and Alan Paul finds himself covering them in a strangely American-tinged, bubble-like enclave with little relation to the Be...

China's earthquake brought down many barriers between locals and Westerners as people came together to help.

China is gripped with World Cup fever, and Alan Paul gets caught up in the excitement.