More China-related thoughts

I've actually had a lot of things I wanted to write about over the course of the last month or so but I can't seem to find the time. I think my prioritization could use a bit of help sometimes but I guess that is something I'll just have to work on.

I have become much more enthralled with one of my original passions recently - China and Chinese (language). My own language skills have been languishing at various levels of disuse in recent years as Mini-Me only uses it when speaking to his grandparents (when they're here) and my better half has spent much of her time trying to take care of the various things as they pertain to daily living rather than trying to help me expand my knowledge. Of course, this makes it more incumbent upon me to try to find the time to do so on my own but it's hard to sometimes find that motivation after a long day at work and then trying to take care of other things at night where I'm too tired to do much.

I have come across some very good blogs and have discovered that there is a great deal more China-related material on the net than was there even a few years ago. Reading through many of those blogs has helped to rekindle my passion for the subject and I hope to perhaps be able to add in my own studies and thoughts on various lessons as I can. In the meantime, I'll list here some of my favorites in case others are also interested.

The one that really brought me back into the fold was one written by an American named Tom living in China (actually, many of these blogs are written by foreigners in China) who provides an open-minded point of view on things in the country that he sees or encounters - SeeingRedInChina. I have been very impressed with his blog and even went back to read it from the very beginning when I first found it.

Others that I found through him were Tim Corbin who has his own viewpoints that I find interesting - plus he's living in my wife's hometown. HaoHaoReport is a site that has a compilation of various news stories that relate to all things Chinese and has helped me to find a number of other China-related sites as well as more than the run-of-the-mill news stories that might be found in Western papers.

And my first place to find Chinese language info is ChineseHacks which is how I first found some of the information I relayed in my previous post. There are others that I have also come across via the ChinaBlogNetwork and I hope to go through more of them as time permits.

And truly, therein lies my biggest problem - time. With a full-time job and a family - not to mention finally getting started with the book idea I've had in my head for a while - time is not something I currently possess a great deal of (yes, I know I just ended that sentence with a preposition but I'm too tired to consider it at the moment). But perhaps this will be a good method to move into a new direction - or at least a more familiar and preferred direction.