Jeff’s Blog

 

Introduction         by Jeff Sheng

 
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The city of Beijing is very personal for me.  When I arrived here on Aug. 5, 2008, the somewhat familiar sights and sounds brought back many vivid memories from when I was a foreign exchange student here five years ago, a time filled with many fun adventures as a 22-year old exploring an unknown foreign city. While I was born in the United States, I am ethnically Chinese and I first came here to Beijing in 2003 to learn more about the culture and how to speak the language better.   Since then, in total I have spent over a year living and traveling through Mainland China, re-visiting in 2004, 2005 and 2007, and it seems that everything I now encounter in Beijing reminds me of memories from these times.


While my main responsibility on this site is for its photography, I have always believed that it is crucial for artists to not only hold opinions, but share them as well.  In this spirit, I am very excited to have this forum to voice my point of view regarding my experiences during these two and a half weeks of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  I am not what most people would call an official expert on anything China-related, so don’t expect complicated academic analyses of trade or international relations.  But I will share my personal musings based on my own time spent here, reflecting on the changes and understandings I’ve observed over the past few years on contemporary Chinese society: its people, government, and way of life, particularly here in Beijing, the host city right now of the Olympics.  Please enjoy my posts, and hopefully you’ll like my pictures as well!