Well, things posted here mainly are ideas have haunted me for a while before I decided to put them out here, and I was hesitating about the language before setting up this blog. Finally, despite my broken English, I decided to write in a language that makes sense to friends around me and whomever is interested in knowing more about China without being scared away by the exotic Chinese characters!

Being away from my own country not only means a six-hour time differences, for which I need to set a special clock with Chinese time on my desk that I will not wake up my grandpa 3am, also it mentally separates me from the natural environment I was born to belong to, therefore I have the chance to observe the differences between my people and the "others”, in a objective(I guess) way.

I have been working as a journalist after my bachelor for three years in China, based in different major cities. The Life Magazine I worked for was quite an idealistic publication, for which I have traveled around this massive country in the aim of documenting its modernization process. This amazing experience taught me a lesson "How little I understand about my own country".

Coming to Europe at the end of the last summer and starting a course with 44 students from 30 countries brought my life and focus of thinking in a ever fresh direction. I do not remember how many times when people confirmed with me that I am from the China, they would raise questions starting with "Why": Why is your population so big? Why is a country with liberal market economy still fine with its non-democratic political system? Why is the housing price so high while your GDP per capita is actually so low? Why does it claim Taiwan part of its territory? Why...is it so different in so many aspects?

Some questions became clichés after all, and I just used some diplomatic answers if I noticed that they were not actually interested in knowing what I thought. But some did inspired me with further research for answers and my deeper interest in finding out why and how is China(not)different from others. I hope this blog can help me to keep these interesting discussions and findings.

When I expressed my doubt that "Why am I recognized as a Chinese, just for I happened to be born there?" People always tried to persuade me with "Come on, you are holding a Chinese passport which is only slightly more useful than an Iranian's" or "Go and look at the mirror and find out yourself! ". I am not satisfied with these responses. Starting this blog is also a means to find out answers to this and therefore a better way to understanding myself.