An unknown relative of the southern ilk of his family had been hovering around noisily snapping photos with a Sigma digital camera larger than her head borrowed from his uncle, the eldest son, whose duty it had been to organize the funeral of his grandfather. He hadn’t recognized her, and has since forgotten all other details about her, but her presence seemed especially inappropriate as it was time to witness the gathering of the ashes of the deceased and the larger group of core mourners had been trimmed down to just the direct male descendants and his American fiance.

They had been lead to a small back room, he being reminded yet again to hold his grandfather’s portrait in his arms straight and with 2 hands, by 2 Chinese men in their mid-twenties, to a room dominated by the large furnace that had engulfed everything with fire from the casket to the Communist flag to the deceased and the glasses and the false teeth within while he, his fiance, and his father had been drinking iced tea from bottles outside. As the furnace lifted and released the metal cart on which everything had been wheeled in, he thought for a moment he saw the outlines of ashen flowers, their color burned away into a uniform grey, their petals frozen open by fire. Upon closer inspection though it turned out to be all that remained of his grandfather, the larger pieces of bone from the human body, and a smear of melted glass amongst a field of rusted nails that had once held the casket together.

The 2 Chinese attendants had between them 4 metal trays with metal tongs and began deftly if unceremoniously to chip away at and collect the largest pieces of bone they could find: part of a skull, a femur, a crooked spine, a broken pelvis, others. He was surprised at how disconcerted he felt at the rather morbid display, the quick way the attendant’s hands moved, the grind of metal against bone, and for not the first time he questioned the necessity of his presence in the entire affair. The bone collection was interrupted by the cell phone of one of the attendants whose ring was that Smash Mouth song “All Star,” the words “I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed” oddly appropriate as the bone collection was interrupted a second time by the same attendant, the same phone, the same obnoxious ring, mere moments later.

When all 4 trays were filled and the last tiny pieces of bone had been particularly knocked out of and collected from the melted glass, they were lead away, he at the front carrying the portrait, an unsure expression on his face as more photos were taken by the unknown relative. (Later, while he and his fiance looked over the 436 photos taken at the funeral during an interruption in discussing the business they were undertaking with his father by the journalist who brought the DVD of photos only his computer would read, he was relieved to discover that his expression had never been inappropriate; a small smile here, a big smile there, solemn elsewhere.) He reflected that this is not at all how he thought a cremation would be like. He hadn’t expected anything to be left over but ash, definitely not large pieces of bone. The 2 attendants were going to turn the pieces that they had collected into powder to fill the urn with, and the thought of a bone grinding machine seemed yet again morbidly disconcerting. In his mind a cremation was supposed to be a clean affair: a large fire, a body in a casket, and dust all that remained to be swept, the last time one saw the body when it was clean, and at peace, and said goodbye.

There were also at least 4 other funerals going on at the same time at the sprawling funeral home complex on the far West side of Beijing, and theirs had seemed if not the least then at least close to least important of them all, occupying the relatively smaller, more off to the side funeral parlor than the grand, monolith of a parlor that stood at the center of the funeral home complex square, though his grandfather’s funeral still had to finish exactly at 11AM to make room for another right after.

This was his 2nd Chinese funeral, his 2nd funeral ever. Less than a year ago he had attended the funeral for his grandmother’s elder brother, in coincidentally the same complex and in the same parlor even, though they had been less hurried then, and he did not witness more than just the many hundreds of mourners paying their respects. (Later, as he flipped through the photos with his fiance he would get his first look at the massive line that waited to enter the funeral hall where his grandfather’s body laid, that walked in and waited at the direction of the staff, were told to bow 3 times out of respect, walked around the body, cried at the large portrait that hung overhead, shook each and everyone of their hands and nearly a thousand hand shakes later, dispersed into the dusty air outside; Beijing was just dusty in and of itself, but many things were burned there.) He had been 96 six when he passed, his grandfather 98. The woman who married his uncle had also passed away just a few weeks ago, at a much younger age, perhaps mid 60s, due to a self inflicted gunshot wound, a funeral to which he wasn’t invited, whom no one attended, not even her own daughter.

It seemed the tradition in his family; of all the deaths he’s known, his great grandmother dying at 96, setting the milestone by which all further longevity in her offspring were measured so that a dying man may say he is now at peace, having lived as long as his mother, and a cousin, the half British son of his father’s sister who found life of mixed descent too difficult to face in 1960s China and burned a house down around him, that they either greyed and wilted and faded with time from this life at the ripe old age of 96, or were abruptly cut off.

His presence was quite important at this funeral though, being the direct male descendant. Of the seemingly interminable number of names for obscure relatives the Chinese have, ranging from “grandfather’s 10th brother” to “foreigner who married my grandmother’s brother’s daughter,” the one for “direct male grandson,” and his wife, whose auspicious title his fiance now occupied since it was far too complicated and needed far too many words to explain to all the well wishers that they were in fact only engaged to be married, held a special place, especially in the heart of his grandmother, who when speaking of her deceased husband always had a tear in her eye whenever she mentioned her “only grandson.”

All the flowers had been freshly cut that morning. Large wreaths bore the names and well wishes of strangers and distant relatives who couldn’t or wouldn’t make the event. His cousin’s name apparently appeared on at least 6 different wreaths, one for himself and his wife, one for his family, some for his multiple companies and business endeavors, and more. He and his fiance’s name adorned the wreath directly in front and to the left of the casket, with the relatively simple declaration that his grandfather was much loved, and will be missed, a rather lengthy concept to be translated and transcribed into but a few short Chinese characters, handwritten by an old man with a grey beard who sat amidst a room full of flowers writing with a felt tipped pen, where they and others had gone to make their flower arrangements and pay in large stacks of cash for the entire affair, the cost of which easily exceeded that of multiple average annual salaries.

A 3-wheeled trash cart had been used to cart all the flowers and wreaths from the parlor to the outdoor furnace across the courtyard. Again, it lacked a certain quality of ceremony as the large piles of flowers were dumped onto the ground in a heap and those willing and able pulled the flowers from their wood and woven infrastructure and tossed it all into the fire. There were 4 such furnaces, each capable of holding a small home, and other funerals burned more than just flowers: books, bundles of clothes and bedding, all the things that reminded them of their deceased loved ones and all the things that those loved ones would presumably want in the afterlife. His father was particularly excited to be able to use a giant shovel and push the overflowing mass of plant matter into the gaping mouth of the furnace. It must be a male trait to want to play with fire. He and his fiance speculated that there must have been some kind of chemical combustible as the water content in the plant matter seemed too high to sustain any kind of meaningful fire.

His grandfather looked very small in his coffin. The casket was made of a light colored wood with an attempt at embellishment in the carvings along the side and general varnishing, though the poor craftsmanship was more than obvious. He wasn’t sure when the body had been moved, but it couldn’t have been too long ago, so maybe it wasn’t important he thought, that the coffin have any ability to last or be presentable. A large Communist flag, a field of red and the hammer and sickle in gold, covered the majority of the casket. A large bed of flowers wrapped all the way up to the upper edge of the box, itself raised maybe 3 feet off the ground; his grandmother had complained that she, being so short, couldn’t really see her late husband’s face and so insisted, as the family of the deceased paid their respects and made their way around the casket, on standing, without help, so she could look upon her late husband’s face. (Later, while looking over the photos, he and his fiance would discover that unfortunately, the photo of them bowing in respect to his grandfather actually cut out his grandfather, leaving only the Communist flag visible in the frame, giving the impression that they were in fact, bowing to the Communist flag.)

These kinds of funerals were actually public events. There were, of course, all the relevant family members in attendance, those that could or wanted to make it that is, and more than that since his uncle had insisted on tracking down all the distant relatives from down south. His grandfather had distanced himself from that family a long time ago, citing 2 reasons for the rift: 1, that his father had impregnated one of the household staff, and 2, that his father had forced his sister to marry someone against her will. Nevertheless, and despite his grandmother’s wishes otherwise, his uncle had summoned them all to attend; his grandmother would later remark that such was the way with the first born son: when the father dies, there is a grab for power between him and the mother. A press release had also been given to many of the national newspapers, and his father had even started an online blog about the event, so the funeral was rather widely and publicly known. (He remembered that when his grandmother’s elder brother had died and he was visiting some relatives in Hong Kong while he renewed his multiple entry Chinese tourist visa, because you need to do things like that when living in China like leaving the country every 60 days, that the obscure likes of the daughter of a relative whom he couldn’t even name the relation to had been well aware of the funeral and all the details of the life of the deceased.) So hundreds, if not thousands, of people had poured in. (His father later joked that it was probably convenient for people to attend; there were at least 4 funerals, and if one were efficient about it, they could pay their respects to all of them.) Large fabric bound guest books had been laid out for everyone to sign, and a giant cardboard bucket of small white flowers with clip on pins sat on either side of the entryway to the parlor. As they all passed and shook their hands, his father would some of the time take the time to introduce people personally as he, and especially his fiance, had no idea who these people were. Some were even very important members of State Bureaus or the Communist Party. Others, no one knew. (It would later be remarked that in the end, they’d shaken the hands of some very powerful people, but would probably never know it, and, upon perusing through the guest books, more than once were there people apparently in attendance whom no one had noticed at all.)

One act of ceremony that he was thankfully spared to was the walking of the ash filled urn around the funeral complex courtyard. He had seen many other funeral parties participating in this what he thought was exceptionally ludicrous display of faux grandiosity while he, his fiance, and his father had waited for his grandfather’s body to finish burning. The urns themselves, or at least the ones they had bought for his grandfather, were very expensive, though there were others whose relative inexpense was astonishing (starting at less than $100.00). There were very specific measurements to which their urn had to qualify, as his uncle had insisted that, when his grandmother dies, the ashes of both be put into the same concrete drawer; there was, apparently, a designated drawer already set aside for my grandfather, some place of import amongst the other Party members, but it was only so wide so his urn couldn’t be too big otherwise a second wouldn’t fit. When they asked the staff whether it was appropriate to purchase 2 urns at the same time, since they knew that 2 of urns they had picked out would fit in the drawer, if snugly, the staff rather superstitiously suggested we not. It’s apparently a bad omen to purchase an urn for someone still alive. They weren’t going to be able to collect his grandfather’s ashes for a while still, but for those other funeral attendants who already had, the urn was placed on top of a crudely red painted palanquin with garish artificial gold embellishments flanked in front by 2 metal statues of storks whose brittle legs were reinforced with what looked like PVC piping. 2 funeral staff members wearing drab costume military uniforms would make a show of goose stepping and saluting in front of the palanquin, held by 2 other staff members wearing equally drab and costume traditional Chinese servants clothes, while a party of mourners brought up the rear. They’d all walk an L shape along the outer edge of the funeral complex courtyard, bow 3 times, then walk back.

The realization from all of this, of course, is that as cliched as it obviously is, life is dreadfully short, and the prospect of working the majority of it in a job he does not enjoy, helping to make other people greater successes than he, just isn’t worth it.

The very first apartment I lived in when I got to the States still exist today in exactly the same condition as it did back then. They’re two stories and built in the faux “Adobe” style to reflect the South Western nature of Southern California. One family lived on the first floor, one on the second. There were no yards, but a small patch of grass in front, and even more apartments in the back though I don’t think I’ve ever wandered through them. There were some trees between the buildings. Back then, we had a neighboring Chinese family who had a son just about my age. I remember spending some time with him playing, mostly after school while my parents were both still working.

Of the things I remember doing:

We played Nintendo; Duck Hunt, Metroid, and 1941, a vertical scrolling one-plane-versus-a-million-enemies type of game. I was never that good at those games, and still am not today, but I remember even then enjoying watching other people play, demonstrating skills that I would secretly be jealous of.

Now this is a little out of order chronologically, but I want to take care of everything I remember about this particular child, but around 5th grade or so I was really into Magic the Gathering, the card game; more on that later. This friend didn’t play, but he had a lot of baseball cards. At some point I became tired of playing Magic, again, more on that later, but for some reason all of a sudden really wanted baseball cards. I remember offering him a deal: all my Magic cards for as many baseball cards as I can wrap up with rubber bands. He agreed, and I spent an entire evening sitting on his carpet, wrapping up neat piles of baseball cards with rubber bands. He was busy doing something else, watching TV I think, so he didn’t notice that by the time I was finished, I had wrapped up all of his baseball cards. He was a little angry at that actually, but I reminded him of the deal and he got over it.

In the trees in between the buildings of the small apartment complex we lived in were lots of different kinds of snails. One time, we found a derelict old plastic rodent cage, the kind one would use to house small hamsters and such, and decided to use it as a snail cage. We ran out to the trees and started looking and it didn’t take long before we found a fine specimen of snail to put in our cage. We filled it also with some twigs, leaves, and a bit of dirt, and were quite proud of ourselves for having created such a perfect little habitat for the snail. We brought it in and set it like a trophy on top of a bookshelf, then busied ourselves with other things. Hours later, we decided to come back and check on our catch, only to find that the cage was empty. Apparently, the cage was so decrepit that it had been punctured in certain places and allowed the snail to escape; in our excitement we neglected to thoroughly examine our find. All along the wall right around the cage were trails of slime where the snail had ran off, trails running the entire height of the bookshelf even before disappearing somewhere in the carpet. We searched for quite a long time but never found the snail again. Even after the escape incident. I remember being paranoid about slime trails on the walls and started seeing them everywhere, constantly on edge and worried that I might accidentally step or sit on a snail; the thought disgusted me. This is the first time I remember being afraid of slimy little things like snails.

There was another friend who lived a little further away but was nonetheless within walking distance of that first apartment. I think they were people my father had met while at Caltech. They also had a son, just around my age, and I also spent some afternoons there when my parents were away. I spent most of the time I was there wandering the grounds of Caltech since they were just across the street. I remember that the large circular fountains were rarely turned on, all the water having dried up, and that I’d climb up into it and play in the dried leaves that stuck to the bottom of the fountain bowl. I remember fishing for crayfish in the large rectangular lily ponds, poking at them with a stick until they were just angry enough to grab on with their claws then pulling them out and getting a real kick out of the splash they made when they let go and fell back into the water. I remember afternoons spent eating deep fried fish that the boy’s mother would make, whole, tiny fish, fried golden and delicious.

That’s all that I remember about these two, though I think years later when I was a teenager I ran into both of them at least once again and completely did not recognize them.

A note:

It’s going to get more and more difficult keeping things in chronological order from now on, especially since I’ve somehow decided to structure this thematically as well as chronologically. I find it easier to group memories together because I can then be sure I didn’t miss one. It’s also a kind of “getting out of the way” type of mechanism so that I can move on to other, more detailed memories; these early ones are still quite fragmentary.

Some short memories of my first school in the States, Don Benito Fundamental in Pasadena, for first and perhaps second grade, I don’t remember specifically; these are all the memories I have of that school:

There was one teacher who I liked the best, and who seemed to care about me the most. I don’t remember her name, but I remember she was old, had curly white hair, and wore glasses. She used to help me figure out difficult math problems because she knew that those were the only problems she could help me with since my English was still so poor at the time. I’d be sitting at my desk, she’d be hunched over me, and she take me step by step, showing me by example more than anything, of how to do fancy addition. She’d show me once and I’d understand, and she’d give me a big smile telling me how pleased she was that I had learned something new.

I stopped wanting to speak Chinese as soon as I could speak any English. It was just the nature of the time; my parents wanted me to master English as soon as possible so it just disappeared. I touched on this before, but only until very recently I found the prospect of speaking Chinese highly uncomfortable. I didn’t like how the language sounded, and I didn’t like the idea of having to make those sounds. Obviously those prejudices have changed, but the point was that at that very early age, I stopped speaking it, and never wanted to again. But there was one time, at school, when it became necessary for me to do so. There was another Chinese student there, of all things, not much unlike myself when I was younger who also didn’t speak any English. I had learned English by then and so it fell to me, or so the teachers would like to think, to try to speak to this young child. They wanted to know what time his parents were coming to pick him up. I made some show about not wanting to speak or not knowing how, but they finally convinced me. I was embarrassed. I walked up to the child, unsure of what to do, then leaned in very close to his ear and literally whispered to him, asking in Chinese what time his parents were coming. I was terrified that someone would overhear me so I spoke as softly as I could, to the point where I’m not even sure if the other boy understood me because I don’t remember anything that happened after. I don’t know if I was successful in getting the answer.

The only time I’ve ever cheated in school was during these surprise spelling quizzes they would give us at the beginning of class. There was a big stand at the front of the classroom with lists of words on it that the teacher would flip to a new one of every day. I remember the words as being quite challenging actually, very long with many letters, and I hated having to do these quizzes. I felt at the time it wasn’t actually as if I was learning anything. It didn’t include the meanings of the words so it’s not like I acquired some new vocabulary, it was really more of a lesson in rote memorization and who can do it the fastest because the teacher would flip to the new set of words and only give us a few minutes before asking us to write down again all the words on a piece of paper. Now I’ve always sucked at rote memorization, and still do, and definitely did then. There was no way I could do what they wanted me to, so I would take my mechanical pencil and very lightly, all the while still looking at the words intently as if I was trying to memorize them, write all the words on my desk as small as possible. When it came time to take the quiz then, I had all the words written down and would of course ace the quiz, every time. I’d then lick my finger casually and smear my cheat sheet off the desk nonchalantly.

Even though I sucked at rote memorization of words, I seemed able to do it quite well when it came to spatial patterns. My school at the time had a “gifted” program that I was accepted in to. It took place during a special class session and we had our very own teacher and there were just a few of us. I don’t remember doing very much along the ways of studying, but we did play a lot of cards. Specifically, the teacher she’d lay matching cards shuffled face down on the table and you’d have to pick out the pairs; I’m sure everyone’s played this game, and I was quite good at it. Due to my lack of actual memories involving learning anything special, by which I mean my lack of doing anything in this “gifted” program other than playing cards, I’ve since to wonder whether it was really a “gifted” program or more of a “special” program…I mean, I was an immigrant, with only limited grasp of English (though I did fix that rather soon), maybe I’m painting too pretty of a picture on my early, early education to think that I was already “gifted” instead of just “special” at the time. And by “special” I mean “short bus” special if you know what I mean.

I remember it taking a while for me to get over the jet lag. I’d sleep at weird hours during the day and be awake at odd hours during the night. My father was working a lot of overtime back then, he’s actually always worked a lot of overtime in whatever job he was doing, and he’d be up and awake right along with me in the middle of the night, working away in front of the computer. I remember once I was playing on the carpet behind him, sitting down. I had these wonderfully detailed miniature metal tanks that I was playing with, leaning over them, staging epic battles on that field of beige.

I remember my mother and father getting into fights, usually about things that I didn’t understand. They’d shout at each other in the living room, scream, and my mother would run off to the bedroom in the back. Once, after a particularly bad fight, my father walked me to the backroom to see her and there she was, lying face down on the bed, crying. We stood in the doorway in silence until my father broke it and told me that it was my fault she was crying.

Right around the beginning, it was very important for me to learn English. In the Fall I was expected to start attending school, first grade I believe, and it was vital that I be able to communicate with my fellow students and teachers. My parents stopped speaking to me in Chinese very early on, and I must say I actually picked English up rather quickly. What this meant though, was that I actually found Chinese to be something I’d rather not say. All through my life since then I’ve found the language to sound abrasive, harsh, and by far too loud; I didn’t like the way it sounded. Of course this has changed lots now that I’m back in China and actually speaking it again myself, and I wish that I hadn’t forgotten as much as I had, or rather I wished I had learned more while young, but that’s a separate issue. I may have a greater appreciation for it, even a liking if I dare say, but in those early days, and the many years that followed actually, I wouldn’t for the life of me speak it, and when insisted upon, I felt very embarrassed, almost ashamed at having uttered it.

My mother was still attending school at that time, earning her Masters. This meant that she also had an apartment on campus. I remember going there for the first time, on the West side of Los Angeles. It looked like any other apartment complex in the area, quite indiscernible really. I remember walking in the front door to her building, a skinny thing with a handful of floors, and being overwhelmed by the smell of it. I couldn’t place it, and still can’t to this day, but it was foul. A sort of sour, musky, herbal scent that one could almost taste. My mother didn’t seem to notice it, so being a good little boy I didn’t bring up how bad it smelled. And this was just in the hall way, so hardly an issue, and we were just there to get her mail that first time, and wouldn’t be staying long. Come to think of it, I’ve never said anything about it until now even.

As I said earlier I was starting school in the Fall. At first I attended the local public school that was in my district. The first day school started, I had no idea here I was going or what was going on. As far as I knew, I was just in the back of my father’s car, being driven to some place like I normally was. Speaking of cars, I think I mentioned that it was a sky blue Subaru, my most favorite car of all time. It’s always held a special place in my heart being the first car I’ve ever been in while in the States. I cried when we had to get rid of it, but that memory will come later. I bring it up now because my parents had another car before I arrived, a beat up old 1980s Volkswagon Rabbit. It was a hatchback and the air conditioner didn’t work, so during the summer months you had to roll all the windows down or you’d be smother to death by the heat and when driving on the freeways you had to turn the radio up as high as it would go to be heard over the roaring wind. It was decided that such a car wouldn’t be suitable for me, so they got the new one, making it that much more special as it was bought specifically because of me. I remember years later being in a car very much like that very first car, the Rabbit, and being told this story. I remember thinking that the Rabbit held a lot of character as well. But actually the point of this paragraph is my first day of school, which I wasn’t told was the first day, and when my parents dropped me off at this wholly unfamiliar place and started driving off without me, I chased after them down the school driveway, crying, stopping only when I realized I’d never catch up to them as I watched them drive down the road.

A member of the school staff came and fetched me out of the road and explained to me what was going on later, that I was starting school.

I’m standing next to a large, well kept field of grass on the campus of Caltech, something like the main quad. I’m standing on a pure white sidewalk that runs the entire perimeter of the field. At the head of the field is a large, white ornate building that looks like any main university administration building, and at the foot is a large, shallow pond that’s filled with lily pads and flowers, thick underwater growth, and crayfish. There’s also a single fountain spout at the center of the pond sending up a constant stream of water. I’m standing there completely still and silent until I realize there’s a large, green praying mantis at the edge of the grass in front of me. I stoop down to get a closer look at it, then put out my right palm for it to climb onto. I stand up with the praying mantis in the palm of my hand, its size dwarfing my palm. It turns around a couple of times as I stand up, examining my hand, then with one quick stroke it cuts a huge gash with into my palm, and I wake up. I look at my hand and wouldn’t you know it, there’s a scar right where the mantis had cut me in my dream. (Oooooh, spooky!)

Now for the context. I arrive in the US shortly after Easter 1990. I am six years old at the time and living with my father and mother in a small one bedroom apartment in Pasadena. My father had finished attending Caltech at the time, hence why I’ve been to the campus a few times and know the layout and can conjure it in my dreams. There actually is a quad there, a nice well kept piece of grass, multiple fountains actually but they’re round and without vegetation, and two shallow rectangular ponds with lilies and undergrowth and crayfish. I actually remember fishing for crayfish when I was young with twigs. I’d poke at them with the twig until they’re angry enough to clamp a the stick with their claws, then I’d pull them out of the water. It’s a running joke that my mother would eat anything; she’s been known to go crabbing at the local beaches for those tiny little crabs that run around the breakwaters; I don’t think she’d actually eat them, or has, but I think my catching the crayfish may have had something to do with that joke. Not that they were ever eaten I don’t think. So I knew the area well and had wandered around it. Now this obviously also can’t be my actual first memory of the States because I would’ve had to have been to Caltech at some point first, but I don’t remember that. As far as the scar on the palm of my hand goes, it’s actually the natural lines everybody has on the palms of their hands; I was just too young at the time to realize that everybody had them and so was rightly scared out of my mind when I looked at my hand after waking from my dream to find multiple scar like lines right where the mantis had cut me. I’ve also been rather afraid of mantises since then, and bugs and insects and the likes in general; this may also have something to do with my earlier memories of smashing then marveling at the beauty of earth worms. Though they’re still really gross. I remember once, having horrible indigestion while climbing up a mountain in China no less being forced to use the most disgusting squat toilet I’ve ever seen in my life, shoes inch deep in I can only imagine, starring in horror at this earth worm stretch then shorten as it moved its way through this rather unholy muck next to my shoes. I also don’t know why this particular dream has stuck with my all these years. I’m sure of the details, I’m sure that it was a dream, and I’m sure of when it happened. I have no such assurance for any other dreams I’ve ever had, though I do have the benefit of having written some of them down in the past, not that I know where they are now. Hmmmm…I wonder if I can find them.

I think it’s going well, the project that is. It’s gotten me writing, at least more, and though I’ve not uncovered any new memories, it’s good to affirm the ones that I do already have. It lets me take stock of my life in a way. It’s been suggested that I tie these together more with who I am now, offer a reflection on each memory, but I’m not entirely sure I want to do that because I’m afraid it will sound, whiny. I mean, they’re my memories, no reason to fret over them in any great detail. No particular reason to analyze or dissect them too much. I actually like the stark approach, the simple presentation. This may actually reflect a writing failing on my part. It’s also been said that when I write, I’m afraid of giving or putting in too much, that I leave too much for the reader to figure out. That instead of expanding upon a work, I prefer to shorten and tighten. I think my earlier writing professors would be proud as it was like pulling teeth in the past to get me to be the least bit concise. Now, I fear, my concision may be affecting my clarity. Nevertheless, I don’t think I want to change my approach to this project. Simple it shall be.

I know some people are reading this, and for that I’m grateful. It helps to allay my fear that I will die unremembered.

I’d also like to take this time to update some things in general. Maria had her interview with BiMBA yesterday, and though it went well, she found it sort of odd. She said it didn’t seem “fun.” She is going into business with my father, don’t tell anybody, and she and I are going to go into business for ourselves as well doing…wait for it…SEEDS! We bought lots and lots and lots of vegetable seeds, things that you can’t normally get in China. Our hope is to be able to grow and harvest them at the farm that’s available to us, where we’re also going to make CHEESE. We will become the number one purveyor of fine salad greens and cheese in all of Beijing.

I had just spoken to my parents for “the first time” a few hours before on the phone. I was very excited, so much so that I couldn’t sleep. I spent some time lying in bed, waiting, then went out into the living room to sit on the couch. I turned on all the lights and sat there watching the clock, listening to the rhythmic sound of the seconds ticking by. Lights in China back then were all yellow, and the living room was a bright shade of orange, tinted by the moonlight shining in through the windows.

My grandparents had called for a taxi to take me to the airport. I had very little baggage, none at all actually the more I think about it. The only thing I did have was a sign, written in English and Chinese, that said who I was, what flight I was getting on, and where I was going, which was hung from my neck with string. That morning, I gave my grandmother a hug goodbye, and got in the cab, and as it drove off towards the airport I waved to my grandparents through the rear window of the car, crying.

When I got to the airport, I did a little bit of random wandering before someone caught sight of the sign around my neck. I was directed towards an airline attendant of some sort who helped me get through the necessary channels and paperwork. I don’t remember any of this, but there would have been check-in, immigration, customs, and then the gate. I do remember being amazed at how many people there were though in the airport; I’d never seen that many all in the same place before. I was led by the attendant to where I needed to be, and boarded the plane.

747s were all the rage back then, before the prominence of Airbus airplanes. The particular one I flew in that first time from China to the States had one of those domes in the front for the really fancy people to fly in. When I got on the plane, a stewardess saw my sign, took my ticket, and directed me to my seat. Now, both my grandparents are quite noteworthy within the Chinese government and the Communist party. Granted, at one point my entire family was arrested by those same people, but afterwards they were given a very heartfelt apology and eternal subsistence basically. As I mentioned before, my grandparents lived in government housing. From what I hear, my grandfather in particular is of note. I’ve been told that he helped sort out China’s first space program, helping to launch their first rockets and satellites in the remote deserts to the Northwest. He was also apparently invited by Castro to go visit Cuba, where he was given a box of Cuban cigars (later confiscated during the Cultural Revolution) as thanks for his help in reverse engineering a crashed US cruise missile. He did his studies at Caltech, earning a Masters and a PhD; apparently he was recalled to China before his program finished so he wrote the remainder of his dissertation while on the plane back to China and mailed it in to complete his coursework. The point though, is that someone else, equally prominent within the Chinese government and Communist Party, somehow got wind that my grandfather’s only grandson was traveling, alone of all things, in coach since my parents and family are not wealthy, for the first time to the States. He took pity on me, and invited me to join him in first class. And not just first class, but in the dome.

What I remember of it is not at all like what it must actually be, having never actually been upstairs before on a 747. But I remember a vast space, though most spaces must seem vast to a six year old Chinese boy, and at one end was a huge buffet table, full of exotic foods I’d never seen before and lobster. I specifically remember the lobster. I did not recognize the elderly gentleman who had invited me up.

At some point during the flight, I must have fallen asleep because I remember being woken by the sunrise. Now, when flying from China to the States, you’re chasing the sun, so at some point it will be night, then sunrise, then perpetual day until you land. This particular sunrise though was very noteworthy. We were flying above a thick layer of clouds, completely white and looking very fluffy, very thick and dense. All of a sudden, a circular patch literally burst into flames and melted away, downwards, like molten metal, and from this ring of fire rose the sun, unlike I’ve ever seen it before or ever after. It looked like a literal fireball, nothing like the bright circle of light one would normally see. I could see the licks of flame flying off in all directions, see the curvature of its spherical shape, see it spin, suspended in the air, feel the fire upon my face as I gazed at it. It rose through the burning clouds, sending off small flares of flames, catching other patches of clouds on fire which melted away as well. Before long, all I could see was a sea of flames.

Obviously, this could not have truly happened. Although it would be really cool if it did.

The next thing I know, presumably twelve hours later, I had landed at LAX, the international airport in Los Angeles. I was greeted by a very nice looking American airline attendant who directed me through the necessary channels, immigration, customs, etc. Seeing as I had no baggage, she pointed me in the direction of the exit to where all the visitors were eagerly waiting to pick up their loved ones. I remember walking through a glass hallway with tropical trees and plants all around. I remember the sun shining through this canopy. Little by little though the plant life began to be replaced by people, more and more, until instead of a rain forest around me, there was nothing but people pressing their faces and their hands and handwritten signs against the glass hallway. I could hear them shouting. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be looking for, didn’t know how I would recognize them, so I just kept walking. And then in front of me stood a woman with medium length blond hair and a box of chocolates in her hand. She smiled at me, as if she recognized me, and I thought that this was it, my mother. This would turn out to actually not her but a good friend of hers; the woman I wanted was next to her, where stood my mother, an even bigger smile on her face, with long black hair. She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

We walked out to the parking lot where my father was waiting for us in a light blue Subaru station wagon. We got in and headed out. Apparently I was underweight to use the child seats that one is supposed to for kids my age. I think we fudged it and just had me sit in the back, using the lap belt one would normally use to hold down a child seat. As we drove on the freeway, I remember seeing billboards for the first time in my life. I remember asking my parents what these massive, brightly lit and colorful signs along the side of the road were, literally wide-eyed at all the new sight around me.

My parents were living in Pasadena at the time, in a small apartment. There wasn’t a bed for me yet, no place for me to sleep, so that first night I spent on the couch in the living room. I didn’t realize this, but I was horribly jet lagged. Usually, when traveling from China and the States, one gets completely turned around for a while due to the time difference. But I didn’t know about this, and no one had told me, so that first night was terrifying for me. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t fall asleep. I laid there, on the couch, in a brand new apartment with brand new parents, looking out an unfamiliar window at unfamiliar trees lit by streetlights, and I was terrified. I thought something was horribly wrong with me because any normal person would be able to sleep in the middle of the night. I remember pulling the blankets up over my face and telling myself, “It’s alright, don’t worry. You’ll be dead in the morning and everything will be alright.”

The let’s call it the first time then was over the phone. I was going to meet them for what I considered to be the very first time, very soon. Again, supposedly I had met my parents seeing as my mother didn’t leave for the US until I was around 4. I again, unfortunately, have no memories of her from before the age of six. So the let’s call it the first time I heard her voice was just before the let’s call it the first time I’d get to meet them. It was very late at night, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time but have no come to understand as due to the time difference. It was at least very late for a child of that age to still be up. I was told that the phone call I was about to make would be very expensive, and that I shouldn’t talk for too long, even though I would want to. I was very excited to be talking to these people who are my parents, so it was no difficulty for me to stay up that late. I watched the clock tick by, counting the minutes until some late hour in the evening. I’m not sure why we were waiting for on the hour but we were. When the time came, my grandparents dialed the phone for me, and I eagerly picked up the receiver.

As I said earlier, I have no recollection of what we talked about, what they sounded like, or my reaction to the conversation. All I do remember is that as we talked, my eyes were fixed on the clock on the wall. I was determined to keep the conversation to only one minute in length. I’m not sure why or how I decided on that interval, because I’m pretty sure I did not know that phone charges were by the minute. Perhaps it was just arbitrarily short. I deduce from this though that mostly what I did during the conversation was listen since I was counting down the seconds. When one minute had passed exactly, I hung up.

My grandparents must have called them back later because I remember hearing them laughing on the phone at how silly I was trying to keep the conversation to just one minute long.

I believe though that that was the last night I’d be in China. It makes sense in my mind that the night before my flight to the States would be the time for me to call my parents, in my mind for the first time. China flights to the States also happen mostly in the mornings because of how weird the time difference is; when you fly from China to the States you arrive on the same day, a couple of hours earlier, so it’s convenient to leave at like 11 in the morning because you’d arrive around 9 in the morning that day. I also make this assertion because I remember being tired on the flight because I hadn’t slept all night due to how excited I was. I had never flown before, and I was going to meet my parents in a whole new country. It makes sense then that I was up late first to call my parents, then up all night before my flight.

Edit:

I realize I’m skipping Day 10. As I was writing this I realized I have one more memory that happened before, but I was already mostly done with this one, and it’s late and I don’t want to write the other one, and I’m already messing around with the actual dates these things get written anyways so I figured what the heck, I’ll just write this one first. Speaking of which, I am messing around with what WordPress says is the date I wrote these; I like things to be neat so I’m putting them all in the appropriate order as if I had written one every day. It’s close enough :P

So maybe not the world’s realistic memory, but that’s how I remember it. I did sit on those stairs, and there was a Ms. Pear still waiting with me. We were the last ones. We were waiting for someone from my family to come and pick me up, though we didn’t know who it was going to be. The person who ended up coming was my uncle, the middle aged man riding the bicycle. Apparently there had been a big argument back at my home over who and how they were to come and pick me up from the school. Nobody drove, the streets weren’t safe, and the public transportation systems were also closed. It was finally decided that my uncle would come on his bicycle, in place of my father, he being my father’s older brother actually, but then his bike wasn’t meant to have anybody else riding on it. You see, in China, most bicycles have that rack attached to the seat that hangs over the back wheels. You know, the racks that say are not meant for carrying people. It’s quite common for that to be exactly what they’re used for and it’s common even today to see three or more people somehow all attached to one bicycle heading down the street. Either way, so they were arguing over how my uncle was supposed to put me on the bike, and it was taking a very long time apparently, so long in fact that my uncle just up and left them all in the middle of their conversation. I’m not entirely sure how I rode on the bike then, since the concern wasn’t resolved, but ride on it I did.

There was gunfire, and tanks, and bullet strewn streets though, and we did ride down them on our way home. I actually knew nothing about what was going on at the time, and I didn’t for the longest time. I’ve always had this memory and it’s always confused me about what’s going on. And running the risk of getting my blog blocked, but I think the Chinese version of events are different from the rest of the worlds, not to say that I believe in or endorse either, so please don’t block my blog. But it was only after internet research, and the advent of doing research on the internet, that I finally found out what had happened that day. I remember once in middle school, on a field trip to Alvera Street in Los Angeles, when the rest of the boys were all very impressed at seeing the spent bullet shells they sell there on necklaces, that I couldn’t understand what they were so fascinated with. It was just bullet shells.

My great grandmother lived to be 96 years old. My grandfather is already that old, with my grandmother, 93, soon along the way. If there’s one thing that can be said about my family it’s that we are indeed long lived. As I mentioned, when I was growing up there were at one point four generations all living under the same roof, a fact that my grandmother took a lot of pride and joy in. Though I don’t actually live with her at the moment, she can still claim such moments of joy when I come over to visit with my father, though short one generation obviously since my great grandmother is not still alive. My grandmother does hope to one day have four generations under the same roof again, though I think she may have given up that particular hope.

Being 96 meant that my great grandmother was basically in-firmed and stuck in bed. She was a very short woman, not quite five feet if I remember correctly. She’s also lived a fascinating life, one that I only know bits and pieces of. My grandmother is attempting to finish up a biography of her mother before she dies. Of what I know, part of it is that she served in a hard labor camp during the cultural revolution, moving large pieces of stone from one place to another. She also had her feet bound, a tradition I’m sure some of you may know. She was also a beautiful woman in her youth, and very refined in her old age.

One night it was just she and I in the apartment. I’m not sure where my grandparents were, and it must have been the maid’s day off. My great grandmother had been recovering from some illness recently and was even more bedridden than normal. My grandmother had told me specifically that while they were out, my great grandmother was not to get out of bed under any circumstances. I’ll leave out any snarky comments about the intelligence of leaving a five or six year old in charge of a 94 or so year old woman for now, but I think, obvious enough, and quite expectedly, my great grandmother wanted to get out of bed. I don’t remember what it was she wanted or needed, but I knew I couldn’t help. All I could do was watch as she got out of her bed, which was in the back where my grandparents now sleep, put on her sandals, and shuffle across the tiled floor. I managed to see her through the hallway and into the living room where she promptly slipped and fell. I was panicked. I was five years old, unable to lift her up, and completely ignorant of what to do. She laid there on the floor until my grandparents got back. They were so angry at me. They scolded me for letting my great grandmother get out of bed. They scolded me for not doing anything and leaving her on the floor. They had to call a doctor to come and examine her, and he found that she had scraped up her lower back on a piece of furniture as she fell and was bleeding. As she laid on her side, the doctor cleaning up and examining the wound, I looked in from the doorway to the bedroom. My grandmother told me that it was my fault that she had gotten hurt, and years later, though completely irrational and not even close to being able to be related, when my great grandmother finally died the first thing I thought was “I shouldn’t have let her get up that night.”

One of the most popular drinks in China is ??, “suan nai,” “sour milk,” yogurt. It’s a little unlike US yogurt because it’s much thinner, meant to be consumed with a straw. And there’s no such thing as “plain” yogurt, something quite popular in the States right now; there least flavor you can get is “sweet.” And when I say consumed with a straw, I meant it; you know how in the States some times yogurts come with little plastic spoons so it’s convenient for you to eat? Well I have a fridge full of tiny little straws that can attest to just how much yogurt I’ve bought but used a spoon instead of the “recommend” utensil to eat. When I was young, the only kind I ate was from off the street. I remember that there would be huge pickup trucks with a bed full of crates, all full of yogurt. They came in these round, ceramic jugs, sealed at the top with a piece of paper and a rubber band. These crates would get delivered to all the local convenience stores and shops full in the mornings, and picked up at night full of empty jugs. The particular time I remember was in the summer, behind the pick up truck, with men standing on the bed of the truck, handing out jugs in exchange for money. I’d give him the bills, very inexpensive by the way, and he’d hand me a yogurt and a straw, I’d puncture the sealing paper with the straw and I’d just stand there and contentedly drink. Incidentally, I’ve discovered that the ceramic jugs themselves are also quite cheap to purchase as I bought some for the restaurant to put fake flowers in. They work quite well as individual flower vases. For those arty folks out there, I highly suggest obtaining some. It is quite unlike any other yogurt I’ve ever had before, and I remember that in the States, whenever I’d come close to this long ago flavor, I’d always think back on it fondly. It’s actually sort of like Chinese vanilla ice cream, which again, tastes nothing like US vanilla ice cream. I remember once at San Dimas Dam, a park in Southern California, that an ice cream man pushing around a little cart had a popsicle that tasted an awful lot like the ones I had in China when young. I remember going there to bike with my father, and getting this popsicle every time.

Winters in China are traditionally cold, in Beijing that is. There’d be snow, rain, sleet, hail, and all the lakes and rivers would freeze over. It’s actually warmed up a bit these last few years, and this past time when moving over, I’d specifically asked if it still snows in China, with many of the answers being “no.” Probably just for me then, this has been one of the coldest and worst winters in China in recent history. It snowed on us this past Sunday actually, trying to get to Hong Kong and delayed our flight about an hour. Despite the cold and the inconvenience, I still love it. But the memory is of ice skating at YuYuanTan, a local park within walking distance from my grand parent’s house. Maria’s actually taken quite a few runs there and I’ve uploaded some of them to this blog. Despite the “No Ice Skating” sign posted prominently all over the place, I remember as a child heading out onto the ice with the maid. I didn’t know how to ice skate at the time, so all I could do was sit on this foldable stool that had been converted into a sled and get pushed around by those who knew how. It was actually a service you could buy, much like renting ice skates. These people had taken old skates off of old shoes and tied them to the bottom of this stool. You’d pay them some money and they’d push you around for fifteen minutes while you sit. I remember being able to hear the man pushing me breathing hard, the sound of his skate scratching as he pushed off step by step, and the wind from across the frozen lake top blowing in my face. I still don’t know how to ice skate by the way, and unfortunately such services don’t exist, as far as I know, in the States. Though people still operate this way in China, and it’s my regret that this past winter I was far too busy to do any ice “skating” out on the frozen over lakes. Ah well, there’s always next winter.

There’s this special kind of Chinese sausage that I’ve always enjoyed. It’s been salted and dried so it will last longer, is most likely made of pork, but has a very nice sweetness to it as well when you eat it. It’s a bit fatty, like most Chinese meats, so a bit oily when cooked. It’s traditionally sliced thin and served as is since it’s already fully cooked, but sometimes it’s pan fried or served in soup. I also loved this sausage when I was a child, and being a preserved dish, it was something we could afford to have on hand. The maid would always pan fry it for me, something that thankfully doesn’t need cooking oil since the meat is so fatty anyways. I remember she’d always cut one in half, fry it up, and give it to me on a small plate with a piece of Chinese steamed bread. I really liked them cooked this way because of the small bits of crispiness along the edges. The maid, though live in, also has her days off, once a week. One time, when she wasn’t there, I really wanted this sausage, so my cousin took it upon herself to make it for me. This would be my female cousin, Michelle, one of my father’s older brother’s two daughters. She did her best to make it for me, but unfortunately burned the sausages as they cooked, trying to attain that crispiness that I liked. She was also young at the time, a teenager, and she cried on the bedroom table when she burned my sausages. I ate them anyways, and promised her that they tasted very good nonetheless, and that it wasn’t her fault, and that I was thankful she cooked them for me.

Edit: I wonder what I’d have to do to make WordPress render Chinese…I could swear this isn’t the first time I’ve tried, with success the last few times. I wonder if something’s changed or my memory’s just faulty. Hmm…..