Foundation

CONCEPT: My parents are from Taiwan. I was born here in the states and have only visited a few times, always with family. I want to explore it for myself to see what it means as an Asian American finding a new home overseas. My own pace; my own decisions; my own consequences. I want to discover what Taiwan means to me and see how it holds up to my parents’ childhood. What has changed and what has stayed the same. This is my version of exploring the ‘homeland’.

INTRODUCTION:

Hello. My name is Thomas Chang and I’m here to write to you, my readers, my views on an interesting concept I thought of. Now I’m sure that everyone has – at one point – thought of doing something similar to this. But sometimes the best ideas are ones that people see and think to themselves ‘I knew I should have done that’. My concept is stated as clearly as it gets up top.

I want to be real here. I’m here to address my ideas and findings of my ‘homeland’ in the most informal way possible and using the only English I know – bad English. Proud to be an A.B.T. -a play on the popular ABC- or American Born Taiwanese who failed miserably in anything to do with English. Maybe an after-thought will be to send this to an editor, but those won’t be my words exactly. Maybe I’ll release this one to the world first and then release a ‘Discovering A.B.T. v2.0’ for all those grammar freaks out there. I’m stuck in-between with decent English and Mandarin Chinese, without excelling in either.

Read it if you’d like. Use this as a way to put you asleep. If it turns out to be a book it will do wonders as a coaster for your drink. But if anything [if you’ve even read this far] take time to understand your roots.