<h3>Hey. I'm Kendra.</h3>
I'm an American writer, designer and interface consultant living in Beijing. I first pitched camp in China around 2002, and I've been studying the language on and off ever since. When I was first starting out, I had no idea how to make the leap from memorizing characters to actually reading. I spent a considerable amount of time searching online for Chinese reading materials and finding nothing suitable. Though there are plenty of dictionaries and flash card sources out there, I had a very difficult time finding something that was at an appropriate reading level, was presented in a way that was easy to read, and that I was sure I could get through. I ended up spending more time looking for material than actually doing any reading. Even worse, I'd often get through a few paragraphs only to hit a phrase I couldn't decipher and, with no one to ask, would have to put the reading aside. The struggle almost killed my interest in the language. 

I am not a grammarian. I'm not a linguist. I've studied Mandarin for over 10 years and I still can't tell you what a "predicate" is. 

<h3>Who this site is for</h3>
I didn't create this site to teach you Chinese from scratch - there are plenty of sites and programs that do that - so if you don't have at least a very basic grounding in Chinese, this site probably isn't for you. But if you're looking to make that transition from memorizing characters to understanding texts, welcome. We have mooncakes. 

<h3>About the Reading Levels</h3>
Again, if you've never studied Chinese before, even the easiest of these texts will be hard for you to get through. This is because for any story, article or essay to really take shape, it usually must involve some intermediate grammar or intermediate vocabulary. This is why most truly beginner textbooks stick to dialog as opposed to actual articles. In order to do any real reading, you've got to at least know the basics of sentence structure. So, reading levels on this site are a little relative. If you think I've incorrectly categorized a text, please tell me in the comments, and if I agree, I'll move it to a different level. 

<h4>Super Easy</h4>
I will classify something as "super easy" if it meets at least a couple of the following criteria:
<ul>
	<li>It's extremely short</li>
	<li>There are no long sentences</li>
	<li>Minimal grammar</li>
</ul>

<h4>Beginner</h4> 
I will classify something as beginner if:
<ul>
	<li>The sentence structure is easy throughout</li>
	<li>It contains mostly simpler words that are in the dictionary</li>
	<li>There is no modern slang</li>
	<li>The subject matter is basic / or for children</li>
	<li>It's not too long</li>
	<li>It contains few or no idioms</li>
<li>It contains intermediate vocabulary but the story structure is very repetitive, so you can pick up the thread more easily as you go along.</li>
</ul>

<h4>Intermediate</h4>
I classify something as intermediate if:

<ul>
<li>It's a longer piece that you have to hold a narrative thread through.</li>
<li>The language is intermediate or upper-intermediate.</li>
<li>There are some light idioms.</li>
</ul>

<h4>Advanced</h4>
Most of what's out there online is advanced reading. I classify something as advanced if:

<ul>
<li>It contains many specialized or technical words (technology, health, beauty, geography, etc.)</li>
<li>It contains high-level structures, like newspaper-y or literary writing styles.</li>
<li>It contains any archaic words.</li>
<li>The sentence structure is very complicated.</li>
<li>It contains a lot of modern slang.</li>
</ul>

<h3>Where I get my material</h3>
Material is taken. I don't always post the whole, particularly 