Kaiser Kuo is back at the weblog, and dishing up more fine entries than I'll be able to write in a million years.  For example, here's some of the most <a href="http://kaiserkuo.typepad.com/ich_bin_ein_beijinger/2007/03/old_tang_dynast.html" title="Ich Bin Ein Beijinger: Old Tang Dynasty photos (Jan 99) and Reflections on a Watershed Year">straightforward and honest thoughts</a> on being an ABC/expat that I've heard in a while (with a little Beijing music history thrown in for good measure):

<quote>But there was a lot of other deeper stuff too—things that had mostly to do with me being an American. It started early: I could up and leave in June of '89, I never faced real economic pressures, I could always treat music as largely a hobby. No matter how good my Chinese got, I was never living in the same world that the rest of the guys were. </quote>

It resonates with some of the stuff I read on <a href="http://chinadirt.blogspot.com/" title="Could the [expat] men living in China get any more retarded?">Chinadirt</a>.  What with some of the lifestyle decisions I've made in the last couple years:  getting married, starting a family, choosing a career instead of a job, and saving towards a concrete goal (a home)... I think I "get" what Kaiser wrote about a normal life, about "Bin Ein Shanghailander" and being Chinese (more in the sense of being "American", though).  I'm still working on the Chinese friends; it's been easier as my Chinese has improved and it's possible to pursue hobbies in the local context.  But the barriers that he mentions are still real.

In any case, do yourself a favor and check out his <a href="http://kaiserkuo.typepad.com/ich_bin_ein_beijinger/" title="Ich Bin Ein Beijinger">other entries too</a>.