looking forward {how it's going to work}

I'm going to continue blogging. I've been asked by several friends to keep it up, and I feel an urge to do so.

But I'm facing a couple of obstacles...

Firstly... quite obviously... we are no longer in China and I dubbed this blog "The Johnson's in China"

My original plan was to document our remaining months in China, which when I first started blogging was going to be less than a year. Enter the recession and our renewed commitment and interest in the region and things changed. So whether or not the name was short sighted, it does present some problems.

Secondly... since we are no longer in China, much of the context of our blog, which was loosely defined as a documentation of our time in the Middle Kingdom, will be noticeably absent.

I am not keen to start a 'mommy blog', there are already a number of great and well read ones going. (And people probably won't be that interested in the great deal I found on boots at Target and what we're having for dinner, anyway!)

However, I do want to keep documenting our family's transition, and how our time in China has changed us and made us into the people we are today.

We are documenting a new culture -- our own.

Even if we are passport holding, amendment proud Americans, there are parts of our home culture we are no longer familiar with. (And this is certainly true for our children who left here so young.) It is important for our readers to remember that this documentation process is not meant to be offensive. We simply will note differences that we see after being abroad.We will sometimes quote conversations we've had, or misunderstandings that generate from our cultural gaps.

There are also issues that are concerning. American's are not often held in high regard in international circles, and if you consider the view points from outside it's sometimes not hard to understand why. Sometimes we will address those issues here too.

Because our focus is changing, there is a good chance our audience will too.

When we were living in China, the blog served as a great way for family and friends to keep up with our growing children and learn a little bit about the language and culture we were learning about. As we come "home", our emphasis will change to documenting repatriation issues, which may prove a little boring to readers who live in the US and don't find the presence of toilet tissue in public restrooms in this country amazing, or the amount of disposable items available here appalling.

And, that, in a nutshell, dear readers, is how it's going to work ....