I have no idea how to operate this blog or what to write or not write. So, I hope all the students and others who access this blog will give me and everyone else involved a little time to acclimate ourselves.

It is important, however, to thank Futuru Ts'ai and Wang Tingyu for all the work they put into this blog and into the first class meeting. They helped us get started and now I and our course teaching assistant Qiu Xingwei (邱星崴) will have to stumble along as best we can. I look forward to meeting Qiu Xingwei and getting his input into how best to work with the other students in this course in terms of the weekly readings and critiques as well as all the other course activities.

I'm about to leave Vancouver, British Columbia for Seattle, Washington. My flight leaves from Seattle and then, after a stop over in Japan, arrives in Taipei Thursday evening. This is the end of a year's sabbatical. The lecture this past Monday was a wake up call for a new beginning.

From my end, I thought using Skype for the first week worked out alright. I sat in the kitchen at 3:00 am and spoke for about an hour. Although I wouldn't want to rely on Skype for a whole semester, I had the feeling that the students quickly caught on to the course's overall spirit. That spirit is for each student to work hard to get as much reading and critique writing experience as possible in a single semester course. No fears and no tears. Not only should a hard working and responsible student expect a good course grade, this course should help them with their other courses. The history of anthropology is especially useful for graduate students because it provides an important context for all their other courses.