My name is Shawn or Chinese name 沙万. From 2008-2012 I lived in Beijing, China. In that time I studied at a language University, worked, and started three businesses, two failed and one is still in operation today. I also purposely lived with only Chinese people and tried to interact with the local Chinese as much as possible. (To really focus on learning the language and culture for the first two years I told everyone that I was from Costa Rica and not America. This was because I did not want anyone to know I could speak English so they had to either interact with me in Chinese or not interact with me at all.) With all this effort I can safely say that I have only on a rare occasion met another foreigner that has had nearly as much interaction with the Chinese culture as I have and no American whom I have met so far. Now, I am not claiming to be an expert in China. China is such a large country with so many ethnic groups and different traditions that go back thousands of years that I don’t think anyone can claim to be an expert on all, but I am claiming that I have had a lot of valuable life experiences in China, and I want to share those with everyone.