I’ve been busy working on my digital story project for the Biennial of the Americas, with Lighthouse Writers Workshop and PlatteForum. But I haven’t forgotten my promise to tell you about my two research trips to China in search of family history. So, let’s see, where...
Tracing China’s Past
WAR & PEACE IN HONG KONG – Not Just a Walk in the Park
April 9, 2008 Hong Kong, China Yesterday, Fiona Zhu and I took one of the many double-decker buses down Kowloon’s main drag, Nathan Road. We got off the bus at Haiphong Road, walked behind the mosque, and entered Kowloon Park. The park was an unexpectedly pretty and...
SUNSET MAKES VICTORIA PEAK SUBLIME – Hong Kong Can’t Escape Beauty
April 8, 2008 Hong Kong, China Eleven years since the handover of Hong Kong from the British to the Chinese government, and crossing the border between Mainland China and Hong Kong is still an ordeal. It took Fiona Zhu and I nearly four hours to travel from Guangzhou...
MADE IN CHINA – Everything But the Groundhog
April 8, 2008 After two weeks in China's Guangdong Province, I saw my first day of unequivocal sunshine on April 6th in Guangzhou. It turns out the old Chinese saying about this festival season was wrong: sometimes it does not rain at Qing Ming. But Fiona Zhu told me...
POLLY WOLLY YUEJU – A Wannabe Matchmaker in China
April 6, 2008 Guangzhou, China Fiona Zhu and I took a taxi to an old Xiguan great house yesterday. The house is now a museum, displaying the lifestyle of rich merchants of the past in the Liwan neighborhood of Guangzhou. The old Chinese home was like something out of...
SHOPPING FOR ILLUSIONS OF WEALTH AND BEAUTY – A Holiday in Old Canton, China
April 5th, 2008 Guangzhou, China Yesterday, Fiona Zhu and I went to the Haizhu Wholesale Market, a giant warehouse where hundreds of stalls sell the trinkets, baubles, kitsch and downright junk of a consumer society. Mainly we're talking about the things no one...
DIM SUM & SOME DIN – Spring Fever in Guangzhou, China
April 4, 2008 Guangzhou, China Yesterday, Fiona Zhu and I walked to Shang Xia Jiu, which literally means "Up-Down Nine," as in "Up and Down 9th Street." The long pedestrian avenue crosses the old town center, but it's also one of the city's trendiest hangouts. It's...
STORKS & STONES – An Island of Foreigners in China
April 3, 2008 Guangzhou, China It’s another wet, cloud-swaddled morning in Guangzhou, the city’s towers and apartment blocks floating in a bath of white mist. Perhaps it’s for the best. This industrial city might otherwise look too starkly gritty and real in the full...
DIRTY LAUNDRY & DUBBED MOVIES – Acclimatizing in Guangzhou, China
If you’ve been waiting for the next installment of the search for my Chinese roots, please excuse the slight delay. As Marcia Brady would say, “Something suddenly came up.” It turns out I can’t manage a travel story every single day, unless I neglect my clients. So,...
PERFECTING THE PAST – Imagine a Chinese Village…
March 31, 2008 Bok Sa, Toishan, Guangdong Province, China Another misty, rainy day and night in Toishan. I haven’t really seen the sun since I walked out of the airport in Hong Kong seven days ago. I do recall one five-minute reprieve when the clouds parted just long...
