为什么 《东游记》？/ Why "Journey to the East"?

中国人一定懂我为什么叫做博客《东游记》。

因此我用英文给别人讲解。

The name of this blog is a play on name of the novel 西游记 Xīyóujì Journey to the West, substituting 东 dōng "east" for 西 xī "west".

First published ca. 1590, Journey to the West is one of the four great classical Chinese novels; these are often sold in sets (as in the photo of a children's edition below, where the other three novels are propping open 西游记).

Journey to the West tells the story of a Buddhist monk's trip to India with his disciples, one of whom is the Monkey King (the two are pictured below, with the latter riding a cloud). The Monkey King is a popular figure in Chinese culture; part of his story is retold in Gene Yuen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese (more on that book in another entry).

Read more about 西游记 Xīyóujì Journey to the West on Wikipedia.

Language note: While Journey to the West is the usual English rendering of the title, the meaning of the characters 游记 yóujì is literally more like "travel record/notes".

我介绍一下

大家好！欢迎来我的blog。
我的中文名字叫林爱。
我是美国人。
2005年开始学习中文了。
去年我不上课了，
所以我要找到办法练习。
也要试试写blog。
结果就是这个。

Bi-lingual blogging

I've decided to try blogging, partly about my experience learning Chinese. 

我决定试试关于我学中文的经验写blog。 

This will also be a way to practice my Chinese, so some posts will be in Chinese, some in English, some a bit of both.