I recently stumbled upon this video of my grandparents’ 80th birthday celebration from May 2009. At the time, I was based in Beijing on my Fulbright, and my parents were visiting China from the U.S. to visit my mother’s side of the family in Nanjing. We had an elaborate dinner at a nice hotel by 玄武湖，Xuanwu Lake, several blocks from my grandparent’s home on 中央路, Zhongyang Lu, one of the main thoroughfares of the (now rapidly expanding and increasingly unfamiliar) city. It was the second time in my lifetime my entire mom’s side of the family had congregated under one roof. The atmosphere was festive: it was loud; there was storytelling and laughter; there was an overabundance of food, drink, and cake (most of which had to be taken home, as pictured below). The dinner also featured the typical birthday customs for celebrating longevity and honoring elders: long life noodles, peaches, and a gold thread hand-embroidered character for “longevity,” 寿 (shòu). It was the classic Chinese dinner party. While the birthday celebration brought everyone physically together, and despite having visited Nanjing numerous times over the years, I had never felt close to my China-based family. Tried as I might, I
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Cabbie: Men should have two women in their lives. One to be by their side, and one in their heart (he meant in his pants). Me: Do you have two women in your life? Cabbie: Yes, of course. Me: What about women? Can they have two men in their lives? Cabbie: I haven’t thought about it. 我对这没有研究. Cabbie: How old are you? Me: 23. Cabbie: And you’re not married yet? Me: I don’t even have a boyfriend. Cabbie: You don’t even have a boyfriend?!? I think it’s time you put less focus on your work life and focus on finding a husband and settling down. You should let the man take care of everything, then you can stay home and relax. How great would that be? Me: Actually…. Cabbie: Cabbie: You know why women would be bad doctors? Because they’re too emotional. Let me give you an example. A woman has breast cancer, goes into a woman doctor. This woman doctor may think to herself, “I want to let this woman keep as much of her womanly features as she can, because I know it is important to her
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Due to extremely poor internet connections (we’re talking 20 minutes to load one single page here), I have failed to update as much as I’d like. In a few hours, I am headed to Shanghai and Nanjing for a little over a week. I have opted not to bring my laptop, which is a bold move on my behalf. I think I will survive.
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