Finding Myself in Northern China is an account of my life in the Northern Chinese city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province from 2002 to 2008. I have gathered together stories from over one hundred and fifty pages of newsletters I sent back to friends and relatives in North America and Europe, from ten notebooks of personal journals kept while on this adventure, and from countless memories, some of which I mentioned in one or both of the above and many of which remain indelibly imprinted on my memory of those times. This book is very much about a personal journey toward understanding myself, but its reflections and musings may also serve to increase the reader’s awareness and perhaps understanding of the lives and ways of the people of China as a five- thousand-year old culture negotiates the rocky road to modernity.