Introductions and new beginnings

I've been meaning to start this blog for a few months, since just before I arrived in China.  I fully intended to document the experience of being a Chinese foreigner in China, lacking the ability to speak or read the language, but looking for all intents and purposes like I can.  As it is, I have been either too lazy or too busy to do it, and nearly four months have flown by in the meantime. 

I've never written under a pseudonym before, but for whatever reason I decided to do it here.  Partially I don't want my current or future employers, or people I don't really know, to read it, but that's mostly because I intend to express a lot of the emotions I'm really experiencing, which I have no doubt will leave me feeling somewhat exposed, which I'm not entirely comfortable with.  So for reasons that I'll probably explain later, I'll be writing as Starla May Chan. 

My family is originally from Guangdong province in China, but my siblings and I were born and raised in an English-speaking country, with not that many other Chinese around (at the time).  I am third generation on my mother's side, and find I use that as an excuse for not speaking Chinese much more than I probably should.  In any case, even if we did speak Chinese, we would've been raised speaking Cantonese, not Mandarin, which wouldn't do me much good here in Shanghai. 

In any case, I just wanted to say hi to the world.  I hope now that it's a brand new year, I will be making regular contributions here.  Here's hoping.

Nice to have you here, and have a happy 2009!