An Introduction

Hello everyone! 

Some of you know me as Andy or Andrew, sometimes I also go by 歐

頌安, and more recently a lot of you have been calling

 me 歐老師.  Anyway, you can check the picture to make sure that you've get the right guy and the right blog.  As many of you know, this summer I'll be heading to China to attend an institute for American teachers of Chinese language. The full name of the program is "ACC-CLASS K-12 Chinese Language Teachers' Institute in China" (I can't even remember how many times I've had to copy and paste that title in the last month! 

正正止).  In a nutshell, my travel plans will be as follows:

I depart Milwaukee on June 17 (TOMORROW).    After visiting friends in Zaozhuang, Shandong province for a few days, I'll be off to Beijing where the first two weeks of the program take place. The final three weeks of the program will be in Chengdu, Sichuan province, where I am especially looking forward to trying the spicy cuisine and checking out some of the many tea houses that the city is famou

s for.  From Chengdu, I'll travel directly to Taiw

an on August 9th, where I'll meet up with my girlfriend, Ali. We plan on living in Taipei, studying Mandarin Chinese, and teaching (Engli

sh for me and Yoga for her) for the next year or two.

The purpose of this blog is to hav

e a place to share my thoughts and experiences during the surely adventurous next year.  Its also a great way to keep in touch and anyone can leave comments or questions after each blog entry.  I'm going to try to have updates at least twice a week.  Blogging is definitely new to me since I've never even kept a diary, and oft

en tell people how much I hate writing, so ple

ase bear with me and cut me a little slack if I stink it up for the first couple of entries.  That being said, I'm extremely excited to begin this trip and have been waiting to check out Mainland China since I began studying Chinese in 2001.  (Side note: Did you ever see the Blair Witch Project?  I kind of feel like I'm in the early, enthusiastic part of that movie.  Lets all hope that this blog doesn't become an increas

ingly depraved account of my getting terribly lost on the streets of Beijing, resorting to eating insects (which is common and r

eportedly delicious says Uncle Jim), and eventual disappearance.  Just kidding, this is going to be awesome.

The title of this blog in Chinese is 頌安流浪記 Sòng'ān Liúlàngjì, which translates roughly to Andy's vagrant story.   My Chinese name is 歐頌安 Ōu Sòng'ān, so Sòng'an is my given name, like Andy.  流浪 liúlàng means vagrant or bum and 記 jì means memory, record, or story.  So, this blog is the story of me bumming around in China and Taiwan.  Also, the title is a throwback to a famous Chinese comic strip called 三毛流浪記 Sānmáo Liúlàngjì about a poor, orphan boy (Sānmáo or "three hair") trying to survive hard times in 1940s Shanghai.  Everyone in China knows about Sānmáo and there have been many movies and cartoons about him since the original comics came out in the 40s. 

Right now, it is June 16th, 12:09 PM central time.  My first flight departs Milwaukee at 6:40 AM and it'll be a very early morning, so I'd better get some sleep.  Thanks for putting up with this boring introductory stuff.  I promise my next entry will have more interesting, juicy stuff.

Take care all,

歐頌安