Master Ban Ji wants me to write something about myself. She thinks it might help Chinese people understand my Chinese materials better. She's the Master, who's to argue.
半寄師父要我寫個人簡介，他覺得華人看我的東西會有不同的想法，身為弟子的我當然不敢違背。
I immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan when I was 12 years old. After I finished High School, I have a pretty normal life as an American for 30 some odd years. That is, I worked, I played and had zero contact with Taiwanese society or Buddhist culture. As a result, I pretty much completely forgotten how to speak and write Mandarin. I can still read Chinese, but I had a real hard time forming sentences and writing Chinese.
我十二歲就移民到美國，高中之後，我的生活跟在地美國人沒什麼兩樣。
直到我去上班、放假日的享樂， 我從來沒有跟台灣人接觸、更甭說認識佛教文化。
因此，我幾乎完全忘記怎麼說中文，當然，仍可以讀一些簡單的中文，但寫出一個句子對我來說都非常困難。
When my mother passed away many years ago, my father found Buddhism as an answer. In the 10 plus years, I saw clearly that a transformation had occurred with him. Most visibly, his face changed from a rectangular one to a circular one. Of course, I was young and carefree, I had no need for Buddhism.
我媽媽在多年前往生，我爸爸才開始接觸佛教。在那之後的十多年，我強烈感受到父親巨大的改變。
此外，父親的面相從年輕時有稜有角的方形，逐漸變成飽滿的圓形。
當然，那時我還年輕（二十多歲），每天還是過著無憂無慮的生活，我也沒有理由接觸佛教。
When my father passed away, I took a leave of absence from work to be at my father's place to take care of things. While there, I started reading his many books on Buddhism. One of them resonated with me: Diamond Sutra Explained by Nan Huai-Chin.
直到我父親往生後，有陣子我留職停薪去處理他的後事。
那時，我開始去唸他留下來的佛書，其中有一本對我有很大的影響。那就是南懷瑾先生講述的《金剛經說甚麼》。
Once I left my father's place and went back to my normal life. Of course I left those books behind.
之後，我離開父親的家、回到自己原本住的地方，繼續過我的人生。
當然，那些書還留在我父親生前的住所。
When I met my wife two years ago, I could barely have a conversation in Chinese with her. After we got married last year and moved back to Taiwan temporarily, people thought I talked like a foreigner. In fact, they still do.
沒想到，兩年前認識我太太時，我幾乎無法跟她用中文溝通。
去年，我們結婚後，決定暫時搬回台灣。台灣人聽到我講中文的腔調，
都以為我是香港人或新加坡人。
事實上，到現在為止，他們還是這麼認為。
My wife introduced me to Master Ban Ji last year, and I found her to be wise. Even thought I still had no need for Buddhism at the time, I thought I should follow her path, at least for a time, because it is wise to listen to a wise man.
去年，我太太介紹半寄師父給我認識，我覺得她是一位很有智慧的人。
甚至，當時我跟佛教的緣似乎還未到，但我認為應該跟隨她的腳步一陣子，因為聽她說話讓我很入心、有開智慧的感覺。
At the time, her instruction was as nebulous to me as any Buddhist Texts. I thought and poked at myself and eventually, I evolved.
那時，她的指導對我來說跟佛教經文一樣的模糊。
我反覆的自我思考很久，才慢慢感受到自己的進步。
When Master Ban Ji asked me to help her out with the blog. I agreed, because I thought that I have things that I want to say, and I thought that these things might be helpful for some people.
當半寄師父問我要不要幫她建立一個部落格，我二話不說、馬上答應。
因為，我認為自己可以跟大家分享些東西，且那些文字對某些人會有些許的幫助也說不定。
However, it is still very hard for me to write Chinese. All these articles were written in English first, then I fixed the Chinese version translated by the Google translator. When she has time, my wife helps to make my Chinese article readable, (she complains all the time that my Chinese is very hard to fix.)
Master Ban Ji will review the content first before the article is published.
但是，「寫中文」，對我來說還是件很艱難的事情。
畢竟，我都是先寫英文，再用Google的翻譯網頁知道中文該怎麼寫，然後再去修改。我太太有空也會協助修改中文內容，（她抱怨說我的中文很難改...）
發文之前，師父都看過內容、沒有問題再po上部落格。
Note: She translated this article to Chinese for me. She's great! (I translated this sentence from her Chinese, it was not in the original English version.)
註：本簡介中文，由我太太翻譯，感謝她！
