A Single Grain of Rice Can Tip the Scale

When I was ten, I had my first introduction to China through the Disney movie Mulan. Fast forward thirteen years and I have studied in China, written my deeply-researched senior thesis on China's "soft power" (a nation's appeal to other nations and peoples), and now stand on the edge of returning to China for one more year as a teacher of English and a student of experience. Since I have begun to study Chinese culture, I have observed how the Chinese value the art of embedding multiple levels of meaning in the most simple of phrases; hence the title of this blog also has several layers of meaning. At the top, it is simply a quote from the Emperor in Mulan: "A single grain of rice can tip the scale. One man may be the difference between victory and defeat." Applied to modern times, China is at such a place politically, economically, and domestically that a single event or action could drastically change their situation...and ours. On a personal level, this blog will contain my "single grains of rice" selected from bowls full of experiences and lessons. Perhaps you will see another level yourself...

So join me as I labor, learn, and live in XinZheng, China.