A new start

That's it. A new blog.

I've already got one for the past three years and keeping a blog quite often occupies my mind (http://www.wretch.cc/blog/babuccino). The idea, keeping a blog when the frenzy of everyone having a blog kind of peaked already, struck me at a time of mini-depression. I had no clues where my life was heading with my work and the unavoidable loneliness in a foreign city. That's why I decided to write about it. By writing, I had assumed, that one would have to look around harder, think about what is worth of mentioning on that platform of communication and then talk about it. And because of this additional 'assignment' one gives himself he may start to appreciate his life just a little bit more than he used to.

That's what happened to me and my tiny blog with my tiny audience has become an essential part of my life. 200+ articles and it still gets going. It was initially a personal way of reconnecting with friends back home; amusingly this function was hijacked by Facebook once it offered the possibilities of users having fun with it in Mandarin among multiple languages. So, what originally meant for me as the website between overseas friends became my chatting, posting & 'LIKING' ground with home friends when I am abroad.

Everyone seems to have switched to mini-blogging these days and abandoned their lovely blogs. I kept mine nevertheless simply because it would have been too much to just let go. Even though 80% of (young) people I know appear to be facebooking - can't deny there are some senior people trying to break in the new world of technology and social networking, my professor at Uni as an example - I know that many of them still came to my blog. These friends may no longer be writing about it, but they read. And as long as there are people who are willing to read it, I am more than happy to keep the blog going. It's fun and much easier just to upload photos, post any thoughts as an one-liner on Facebook. But it's also fun to just bank the thoughts in my head, muse over how to share it, get the photos, eventually set them out in longer pieces.

The only problem is that the blog is in Mandarin. It was meant to be in this language and will probably stay as a Mandarin blog/中文部落格 forever. Felt awkward writing in English at that time and I also hoped to make sure my mother tongue will not just get downgraded to a merely functional level. Gradually the blog becomes my medium to see, to live and to showcase London. My audience is mostly my friends and some odd strangers from the Mandarin-speaking world. Then it hit me that my non-Mandarin-speaking friends are cut off from this. Babel tower they call it.

So I decided to get a new one started. It is still about a foreigner living in London (hardly anything particular or new, ha!) but as I just came back from holidays home, there's a lot to talk about on my lovely island.

And if you happen to not to know me, I am a Taiwanese living in London. I.e. pardon me for any typos, spelling 'irregularities' and funny sentences. Don't know whether "Taiwan" or "London" matter to you; I'll try hard to make it that way.

P.S. Speaking of Facebook, I really loved the film 'Social Networking.' Hopefully I will have time to write about it as well~