Before I knew it, I've been in China for two weeks now. My sister should have arrived in Houston by now. It's such a whirlwind. She's in a different world now. I feel sorry for all the hardship she's gonna endure for sure. But she should have an easier time than I did ten years ago. Instead of a little town in Louisiana w/ only white and black people, she's going to be -- no, she IS in Houston, where she's gonna have the luxury of Chinese people, people she can actually speak to for the first couple of years.

I've been sitting in bed, watching Jing Du Yian Yun, w/ my cousins A Yu and Fang Fang. We're on episode 25. It's hard to concentrate on anything else when this really enticing soap opera is on. It's hard to think about the other world, the American world, when I'm here.

Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Festival. We're in Fuzhou right now. Tomorrow we'll go back to my hometown, Xian You, for the family holiday. Then I'll come back to Fuzhou and then go on my way to Shanghai. I feel like I haven't spent enough time in Xian You. This little town, where I grew up, is really home. The old stone building where I lived for 10 years is still there. I went there to take a look. It looks a lot smaller than I remembered. Two small rooms side by side, one for living space, one as the bedroom. The sink outside on the porch. The area downstairs that's still green and mossy from all the dirty water people poured out all those years. The little brick rooms ahead where the round coal pieces were stored, and where I kept my bike. A lot has changed, new buildings have been constructed, many have been destroyed, but the path to my grandparents' house nearby is still the same. I can still lie down on my grandparents' old wooden bed, on the hard wooden pillow, on the reed sheet, and watch TV with the cousins that I grew up with. This place that feels so natural, so unnew -- how can I just pick up and leave, again, and leave it behind for ten more years? It's hard to imagine what it'd be like when I go back to the U.S. I've long thought that I didn't remember much from my childhood, but once I got here, everything just came back. I recognized the little desk I used to use, the sweaters my mother knit me, the statue that I used to climb... It's like, once you physically step onto this soil, the spirit of the place, the soul of this history just naturally comes back into you. And you belong again. Last semester when I took a Chinese class at school, I could barely express myself. But all of a sudden, phrases and expressions just form out of my mouth unconsciously. If I think about it, it won't come, but if I relax, all of a sudden I'm saying things that I can't remember how to write at all. The food is great. The people are old. There's an instant sort of intimacy with my family. Even though I thought of myself as having essentially no family for the past many years, I actually do. I know all these people, even though I don't. Within a week of being back, they're comfortable enough with me to fight and scream in front of me, break out family drama in front of me, and even yell at me like a family member. No one thinks that I look like a foreigner/American.