California Wine

Last night, I met up with Chinese poets/translators/scholars at the HKUST campus near Hung Hau on the MTR line, which is only fifteen minutes away from scenic Sai Kung Peninsula. It was a brillant night filled with books, California merlot, mixed English and Mandarian, Billie Holiday, and great discussions on identity, translation, "Chinese-ness", language, and new Chinese American writing. It definitely revitalized my original purpose of being here, i.e. my Fulbright project proposal on the "messy translation". I arrived back in Central feeling less anxious, wine happy, and thankful for the opportunity to make new friends. And, for the first time since I've here, I felt Chinese for a moment - a diluted, complex, and murky definition of it, but it was certainly different from how I have been feeling (completely American)...