Introducing Myself... Greetings. My name is Shawn. I am a U.S. citizen, native English speaker, and currently live on the east coast of the U.S. in the state of Maryland. I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year in 2009. I learned some very basic Thai. However, while living there I had a Mandarin tutor because I wanted to travel around China and go to Taiwan. I was interested in learning BaGua in Taipei. I have studied some Aikido from Japan. However, I am not studying Wing Chun 詠春拳. My girlfriend is Taiwanese from Taipei. She speaks Mandarin and English fluently. My goals are to be conversational in Mandarin Chinese by the end of this year with my immediate goal of being able to SURPRISE my girlfriend at the end of August with a 10-minute all Mandarin conversation. She is in Taiwan and does not know I am studying right now. I prefer to work with people who have a southern Chinese or Taiwan accent since Taiwan is my goal for where I will live and the people I will be talking to the most. I am learning pinyin now, and then will learn zhuyin (bopomofo) and traditional characters. I am more interested in speaking at this point, then learning hanzi. That will happen in time, but right now, it is to speak Mandarin.