Intro

I'm out here in Shanghai and always have random thoughts on random topics so I've decided to string some of these thoughts together with a blog. I've never really been into the blogging world, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

So first off, the name of my blog. It literally means dialogue, or conversation, in Mandarin and for those of you who know about my attempt during freshman year to start a magazine called "Discourse" at Princeton (http://www.princeton.edu/~discours), this is my attempt to continue that project.

China is all over the news every day. From climate change to finance, the Chinese government and its policies are always being highly scrutinized. Next week's G20 summit has been dubbed the G2 summit because really the main players are China and the U.S. While the media's interest in China covers various sectors, including military buildup, economic stimulus packages, and avian flu, the reason why I wanted to come out here was not focused on really studying one specific area. Instead, I just wanted to live with the Chinese and see exactly what's going on out here in the everyday.

I don't want this blog to be academic and do hope to share some of the funnier stories I have from living here. But what I really want to do is focus on one idea for each post and see how much mileage I can get out of that idea.

So that's the goal.

To support my stay here, I work for an American law firm where I translate Chinese legal documents and do research for their China-Latin America practice. I basically get to study Mandarin every day and ask my colleagues questions when I have them.

And so this blog begins.