Okay. I admit, I missed it. I should have celebrated the anniversary of my blog on August 7. But the occasion totally slipped my mind until one day I clicked on Timo’s post, “Second Blogaversary.” You see, Timo started his blog Crazy Chinese Family a few days after I started mine. And he kept track of the date. (If you haven’t already, check out his blog for cute baby pictures, funny stories about his mother-in-law, and the ups and downs of life for a young man from Finland and a woman from China living in Germany.)
Gulangyu, China
So today, approximately five weeks late, I’m celebrating the second anniversary of my blog. I named the blog “Behind the Story” because my original intention was to talk about subjects related to my first novel, Tiger Tail Soup. I stuck to that goal pretty well during my first year. Three of my first four posts were about Gulangyu, the setting for my novel. Here’s an example: “No Room at the Inn.”
by B_cool-from-Singapore
During that first year I wrote about Chinese food, bound feet, tigers, and the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I also wrote about the Chinese civil service exams, famine survivors, and Chinese dresses.
Iron Goddess of Mercy Tea
During the second year, my focus changed somewhat. I didn’t totally neglect topics related to my novel. I wrote a post I called All the Tea in China that highlighted oolong tea and its origins in Fujian Province. I wrote about “The Great Tiger Hunter of Fujian,” and also about a ghost in a wartime cemetery who had a bit part in my novel.
Looking back, though, I see that gradually my blog became more personal and varied. I wrote about how I became a writer and how I met my Chinese husband.
Tulips meet daffodils at RoozenGaarde.
I shared photos from my wedding and from trips I took. I wrote about winter and springtime and my grandson’s graduation from high school.
As for year three, I expect it to be similar to year two. When I’m far enough along on my second novel, I’d like to include some background information on the novel’s setting—Manila during the coup attempts that followed the People Power Revolution and Vanuatu as it was twenty-five years ago.
I’m looking forward to that. But knowing my writing speed and my penchant for revising, I may not get that far until year four.
What kind of posts do you hope to see on my blog during year three? Did you have any favorites from year two?
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Dear Nicki, I’ve visited your blog because you left a comment on mine and I wanted to return the favor. But I can see now that I’m going to enjoy reading the varied stories you’ve told and maybe plan to tell in your third year of blogging. I’ll look for your book also as it sounds most interesting to me. Right now, I’m trying to visit each of the 70 blogs I follow and so I’m not going to read some of your highlighted postings within this anniversary posting. But I will do that later. Peace.
Congratulations on your second blog anniversary, Nicki. I’ve only discovered your blog this year but I’ve enjoyed your posts so far. In particular, the one where you talked about traditional fashion and the ghost-cemetry one stuck out to me. I am certainly looking forward to more in the next year 🙂
Interesting to say that you began sharing more personal anecdotes on your blog. Coming up to my third year in blogging, I notice the same about my blog too. What began as a blog about commentary on multiculturalism in Australia has turned into something much bigger, a blog about how culture impacts on the way we make choices.
Good luck with the second novel.
Thank you, Mabel. I enjoy reading about Australia’s multicultural experience on your blog. I have several friends that I knew in Manila and Vanuatu who now live in Australia, but they’re not bloggers so their news is less detailed.
Nicki, congrats on 2 years! I will have to go back and read some of those earlier posts.
Thank you, Michelle. I think you must have more blogging experience than I do. How long have you been at it?
Two years, 3 months. It seems like I’ve been at it forever.
Thank you for mentioning me in this article. Sometimes in can be hard to keep track of all the different anniversaries which tend to happen. Afterall I don’t remember on which date I got my first car or was allowed my first alcoholic beverage..same goes to my blog which is not one of the main things I follow. So finding out about my second blogging anniversary was only by chance. At least I am good in keeping track of few more important thing such as my families birthdays or wedding anniversaries 🙂
I’m glad you did by chance remember you blog anniversary. But you’re right, family birthdays and anniversaries are more important.
Happy Anniversary.
Looks like you fixed the links so people could comment on this post. Yay!
Thanks, Nancy. I wasn’t clever enough to fix it. I just posted it again.
Congrats on your blogiversary, Nicki.
I am looking forward to hearing more about your life, family and married life in the good old days.
Thanks for your good wishes. It’s nice to know what you’d like to read. I’ll do my best.
Congrats on your blog anniversary! 🙂
I would definitely like to read more about your life in Asia back then!
Thanks, Marta. I see that’s what people want to read, so I’ll have to write more posts about what it was like being an expat in the Philippines and Vanuatu.
Happy second blogoversary, Nicki!
Thanks, Linda.
Happy blogiversary Nicki!
I always love reading stories about you and your husband, and being married/dating back in the day. It’s just so interesting to me because you don’t hear a lot of stories about interracial/intercultural couples from when you two started dating and got married.
Anyhow, keep up the wonderful blogging. 🙂
Thank you, Jocelyn. When I think back to the time when Eugene and I were dating and a young married couple, we did know several other interracial couples. A Chinese doctor of psychiatry and Eugene’s Japanese friend were both married to white American women. And when Eugene worked at Asian Development Bank, interracial couples were not that uncommon. In a couple of weeks I have a post coming about Bruce Lee who married his white wife a little before Eugene and I were married.