Category: Uncategorized

  • My Father (我的父亲)

    Have you ever read stories about an adult child who felt or, rather, experienced something inexplicably “spiritual” when a parent passed away? I always find those kinds of connections incredibly amazing. Then it happened to me in 2004. It was Tuesday, November 9th—a particularly meaningful day for me. After having waited more than a year,…

  • Salt and oil (盐和油)

    We did not eat stir-fried dishes because we could not afford cooking oil. Occasionally, when we had guests, my parents would use some lard saved from Lunar New Year to stir fry some eggs or vegetables. Dumplings were usually only served to guests, or on holidays like Lunar New Year, the Red Lantern Festival, or…

  • My mom’s cousin (表姨*)

    *pronounced “Biao Yi,” meaning aunt in English. A couple of days after Christmas, I realized that I had not called my mom for almost two weeks. I am not worried about her these days—she’s under the very good care of my brother. Though it has been an unusually cold winter, my brother and I made…

  • The girl in the white dress (穿白裙子的女孩）

    I had an unconventional schooling in a rural village in China in the late 70s, where girls were much less valued and were told to be better off without education. Several girls managed to make it to the middle school in the nearby village, about a mile and half away. Near the end of our…

  • Meeting Barry Sharpless （见到 Mr. Sharpless）

    Today the Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Carolyn. R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry.” It is an exciting day not just for chemistry but for all fields of science. Notably, this is Prof. Sharpless’s second win…

  • Fish out of water （没有水的鱼）

    Have you lived in another country for an extended period where you had to speak the language that you have yet to master? That frustrating feeling of your mind and your mouth were disconnected? And that feeling of being a “fish out of water?” That was how I felt in the first few years after…

  • Mom, I’m hungry （妈妈，我饿）

    This story happened in a remote village before electricity was available. Oil lamps were the only light source after dark. There were four villages situated in one extended area. The story happened in one of the villages: Zhao village, which was about a mile and half distance from other villages. The villages were connected by…