As of 04:22 GMT June 4, 2009, the birthdate of this blog, you are one of 6,784,247,775 grains of sand in the dune of humanity. This blog intends daily to catalogue some of the adventures and thoughts of a humble college graduate studying Chinese in Harbin, China. American tax-payers have graciously funded my summer exploits, at the discretion of the US Department of State, through a "Critical Language Scholarship."