At Long Last

It's been a long time since I've updated this blog!

- In March, I went to the mainland to visit family in Taishan, which is about three hours away from Guangzhou. Dan and I took the train, met my cousin at the station, and took a bus south to the small city of Taishan. The last time I saw my family in China was 7 years ago, when I was 16. My grandpa and grandma were also visiting (from Seattle) and it was great to see them again, especially my bad ass grandpa. He started smoking from this crazy old water pipe during lunch, a day before he went into surgery (which I didn't know about until I got there). The second day we were there, we went to the mountain, where my mother grew up. It was the Grave Sweeping Holiday and we all walked up the mountain to family grave sites. We cleared the graves (of weeds, garbage, etc.), offered food, gave respects, lit firecrackers, etc. After going to three sites, we all sat down and had a huge feast. I wonder what it was like for Dan to be there during it all. He was, for sure, the first white guy in the village. Strangely enough, even though I expected to be an outsider, my family treated me as if I belonged there - as if I needed to be there. My uncle told me later to come back to Taishan more often - not to visit, but because "this is your home. And you should always come home." I don't know what to make of this, since I don't know what this "home" means, but I was touched by their acceptance of me: the one who can barely speak Chinese. I also got to see my great grandmother (my mother's grandmother), who is 90 years old. She lives alone in her village, but has many friends, I'm sure. She's super cute and still really sharp. She was cooking rice when we surprised her and she kept moving about, trying to cut us oranges.

My grandmother and my great grandmother (the only one missing is my mom)

Most of our time spent in the mainland was with my family, living the Chinese life: going to my cousin's best friend's nail shop, playing volleyball with some random strangers, grabbing food at midnight at some highway restaurant, yum cha in a crowded, smoky room, staying with my grandpa at the hospital, etc.

I'm planning on going back to Taishan one more time before I leave Asia. My cousin's getting married in June and I can't miss it. She's marrying a Korean guy; on the phone, she spoke to him in English, Korean, and Mandarin.

- The HK Literary Festival (March 2-12) was a blast. I've been volunteering with them since last fall, so it was great to see it all come together. I also participated in a few events, including a reading with local and international poets at the Fringe, an event called "A Sense of Home" with local writers and Yiyun Li (I read fiction), and a PoetryLive! reading for secondary school students. This last event was my favorite. Imagine an auditorium filled with pre-teens and teens cheering for poetry. The energy was incredible.

- I'm figuring out my plans for next year. It was a hard decision, but I've decided to go to Iowa, over Columbia. And the best part? I don't have to take out any loans! I'm going to be teaching in the fall too, in the Rhetoric department. I'm super excited, but nervous. This will be my first time in the Midwest (well, I was in Boulder for a month, but it was such a short time) and far, far away from the ocean. But I think it's time to live in a small town, after living in the city for a year. I also met Xu Xi, a writer here in Hong Kong, who will be a visiting professor in the Non-Fiction program at Iowa next spring.

- Amazing contemporary Chinese novelist Han Shaogong is coming to Hong Kong this month. He's a visiting writer at HKBU and I will be meeting him at the reception/dinner tomorrow! I'm so excited. I read his novel A Dictionary of Maqiao two years ago at Bard and was blown away by. Both innovative and moving, it's the story of a rural village during the Cultural Revolution, written in the form of a dictionary. Read it.

- Check out the new May issue of MiPoesias! It's filled with poems and recipes. It also features a poem I wrote during my lovely summer at Bucknell. You can download it as a PDF or buy a copy from Amazon!