Well everyone, welcome to my blog. It’s been a while since I’ve been down this blogging path, but here I go again.
I am based in China. But I don’t want to have the typical expat China blog, all about “wow its so crazy here and I want to complain!” I may post some funny experiences from time to time, yet what I’m really interested in is sharing my writings.
I’ve lived here for five years. Primarily in Shenzhen, one year in Guangzhou but I like Shenzhen better so I moved back. This city is, by the way, a Special Economic Zone that was the leader of China’s rapid economic rise. It is in the tropical Southern province of Guangdong. Guangzhou is the capital, 3rd largest city and it turned out to be a bit too epic for me. For perspective on how immensely large these Asian megacities are, Shenzhen is bigger than New York and its not even the top ten here.
Shenzhen also borders Hong Kong, which is kinda sorta China but not really kinda sorta China. Don’t get me started on the pseudosovereignty issue, but suffice to say Hong Kong is a great bastion of freedom and I love it (but why don’t I live there?) and its a bit expensive there.
Even before moving here, I wrote fiction. I am a freelancer, and if you guess my main part-time job that pays the rent I’ll give you a prize. I do some English language journalism pieces on occasion, a google of my name and “Shenzhen” will show some that I’ve published, but those are not the most interesting things I’m interested in promoting. I’ll share some links from time to time.
A common question asked is “What brought you to China?” That story involves the Burning Man festival in 2008, maybe illicit substances, and that drunk conversation we’ve all had in which we vow to embark on some big project and then when sobriety comes we forget all about it. This time I stuck with it and came here. I liked the place, so I stayed.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for excerpts, links, and hopefully a good read or two.