镜子 - Chinese: mirror

People ask me why I'm interested in China and Chinese.  They've been asking me for 5 years.

I tell people that I seek contrasts, conflicts, contradictions, because where these things are, there is much to learn from.  I also think to myself that there is something about China that I feel I relate to - something that I see myself in - but of course that doesn't make much sense.  It makes more sense today, though.

I was reading this article ( http://www.theworldofchinese.com/magazine/articles/how-to-like-cheese-as-a-chinese-person/ ) about things that I have never experienced, but still desperately wanted to understand, as if this article about the 80's generation in China could tell me, as a 80后, about myself.

Do you remember that everything is a mirror?  I think that, as narcissistic as it sounds, one of the more compelling actions is to look oneself in the face - in the eyes.  I think that's why I'm interested in Chinese.

To seek myself in China is to explore the nature of this mirror.
And, I suppose,
to discover the nature of the mirror is to see myself. 

There are many many mirrors - China and Chinese just seems to be the one that's most fascinating to me right now.

For 5 years, that didn't make sense in words.  It still doesn't quite, but it's much closer.