MY FIRST HOMECOMING    
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Summer of 2002 was my first homecoming back to China since my family immigrated to the United States in 1991.  I was twelve when I left Shanghai, the only home I had ever known.  Eleven years later, with a Bachelor's of Science degree, two publications, and one year of medical school under my belt and streak of blonde hair bleached on my head, I returned to the place where I grew up.  I spent nine weeks in various parts of China.  It was a cultural experience.  Even though I looked Chinese (once I dyed my blonde streaks back to black to conform with the surrounding), the locals could tell from my mannerisms, style, walk, or attitude that I was a foreigner.  

 
with my paternal grandfather in Pu Dong.
I stood with my father and his father by the Huang Pu river that divided the older western part of Shanghai (Pu Xi) from the newer eastern developmental part of the city (Pu Dong)
it's that famous Oriental Pearl in the morning midst in the background.  it's an ostentaciously pink TV tower with revolving restaurant and other expensive recreational establishments.

without much jetlag, I went with my father and maternal aunt of see a family friend Mr Lin in Xia Men, southeast of the country, cross the straits from Taiwan.  Our host is the family of my grandfather's long-time friend, the old gentleman Mr Lin had passed away, but the Qi family has kept in touch with his daughters and grandchildren.  Courtsey of Mr Pan Liang Sheng, the son-in-law of Mr Lin, we stayed at a very nice resort on the island of Gu Long Yu.








our host Pan Liang Sheng, my materal aunt Dr Feng Zheng Yi, my father and I, the hostess Qing Qing, and her brother-in-law Wang
i forget the name of this place, but it's a pretty park/memorial type establishment dedicated some guy when did a lot of good things of the city of Xia Men when the city was first founded.




my maternal aunt Dr Feng Zheng Yi.  She's my mother's older sister.
we took the ferry everyday to and from our resort on the island of Gu Long Yu to the city of Xia Men.
we stayed at the special resort of party officials, our family friend Mr Pan is the head manager of the resort.


we took the tourist boat within 100 yards of Jing Men Island, the last remnant of Taiwanese military stronghold.  we waved to the Taiwanese soldiers to show friendship.  the plaque on Jing Men Island is a famous saying my Sun Yet Sun of "democracy governing a country", which mirrors a similar plaque displayed on the Xia Men side (not seen in the picture) of "One China Two Systems."



we got up early the next to hike to a temple in the middle of the island








the name-sake of the island, which literally means "drum wave rock"
the rock behind me in the water is supposed to look like a reclining lion.








beautiful gardens and parks.
our hosts


this is a high school!!!  isn't it pretty?!

the picturesque campus of Xia Men University

one of my goals of homecoming was to visit the places of my childhood, my old school, places where i lived and grew up.  i went to see my grandparents' houses, my maternal grandparents house was still there, but my paternal grandparent's old house has been torn down to make way for skyscrapers.  I also went to see the various places where my parents and i have lived ever since i could remember.







this was the first home my parents had, a room on the right side of the alley that's about 8 square meters.  i went back to see this dilapidated place, my first home.

our first home in Lao Xi Men (literally "Old West Gate") was near the Confucious Temple, so I went there with my companions that day, Jiang Yi Nan and Huang Yi Bei.




my maternal grandparent's house.  i remember many summer afternoons napping on straw mats on the floor with my cousins, reluctantly practicing the keyboard by the balcony, having my first parakeets that my grandfather bought for me (then inadventently killed when the birds were fed unwashed cabbage leaves with residual pesticides, so my grandfather went out bought me antoher pair of birds), being the last one of finish any meal and have the maid/cook threaten to lock me in the dark kitchen downstairs. Pictured on my right is my cousin Feng Wei, who is four years older than me and living there at the house now, until she gets married this year.


my grandparents had the entire house before the "liberation", now the Feng family (my mother's maiden name) only has the part of the third floor.  everything looked smaller in my grandmother's house now that i've grown up.


the "new" apartment that my parents had on the 6th floor of this building after the 8 square meter hole in the wall.  I spent the last 2-3 years here, commuting at least 2 hours everyday to and from school.

the place looks dark, unkempt, dirty now.  we've sold the apartment to another family, unfortunately the current residents weren't home to let me see the inside.
my old junior high school Yu Cai.  i left in the middle of seventh grade.  I visited the old place with Huang Yi Bei and Jiang Yi Nan, who were both graduates of the school.


I met up with Adam Haverson, a friend of mine from Charlottesville, Virginia, who was half-vacationing, half-working in Shanghai.  Adam has subsequently gone back to Shanghai Christmas, 2002 with his cat Tom and is now married to Ruo Bing and living and working in Shanghai (see wedding pictures of Adam and Ruo Bing).






i arranged the meeting with Adam, his business partner in Shanghai Patrick, and Adam's friend from the US Steve.  also on the exersion that day was my cousin Feng Wei, good childhood friend Huang Yi Bei, and the daughters of my mom's friends, Gu Wen Wen and Huang Fei
apparently i causes quite a stir on the streets with my 24 braids under a plaid hat, a back-less tie shirt, and seen in the company of foreigners and speaking English.
Adam, me, Patrick, Feng Wei, and Steve.


the first week of June, my friend from University of Virginia Washington Society Hilary Chaudhuri (now Hilary Chaudhuri Cederquist) visited me from Beijing, where she just finished her year-long contract teaching English since our graduation in 2001.  Hilary stayed with me at my paternal aunt's house.  We bummed around Shanghai sightseeing and also went to Zhou Zhuang with Huang Yi Bei for a couple of days.







Shanghai Grand Theatre.

and window washers of the theatre

i think this might have been the labor statue or memorial of some kind...

     
a very posh place called Xin Tian Di ("New World") with bars, restaurants, clubs, and stores.
the Shanghai Museum


The Bund.  the strip of European architecture (now banks and custom houses) left from the times when Shanghai was divided with foreign concessions.  Hilary along the banks of Huang Pu River, the night highlighting the errie Oriental Pearl on the Pu Dong side.


display along the Bund celebrating China's successful bidding for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
the pretty European buildings along the strip of the Bund.
 buildings that look like the mother ship landing on the top

the pedestrian only section of Nanjing Rd, with neon lights, shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, and clubs.
the lobby of the Hyatt hotel, which is on the 17th floor the World Trade Building in Pu Dong and has an atrium that's 30 stories high.



Cheng Huang Miao,
a renovated old style market place

Old Street Shanghai

dusk settling in
 the nine-curves bridge, gigantic carps, and a quient tea house

Three words: Green Tea Frappacino

the beauty of globlization



the scenic, extremely touristy water village Zhou Zhuang, 70 miles west of Shanghai.

this picture will serve as inspiration for an elegant watercolor painting.

Huang Yi Bei and Hilary Chaudhuri

we rode the little canoes along the waterways, Zhou Zhuang is like the Venice of China.


we visited old houses, and among them this stage for Chinese opera.


an old spinning wheel!!!
old style chinese houses, i love the roof tiles.
   
since Hilary was the one getting married in a few month (September 2002) when she gets back to the States, she was voted unanimously to dress up as the traditional bride.  Huang Yi Bei is in an emperial attire, and I think I'm supposed to be a princess from a minority tribe in Mongolia.




After Hilary left (to go back to Beijing and then return to the States), later in June, I went to Nanjing to visit some extended family that I've never met before.  I stayed with my mom's first cousin Aunt Wen Wen.  She has twin girls six months younger than me, and one of them Zhu Wen (Cathy) works in Nanjing, the younger one Xu Lin was working in Beijing at the time.  My cousin Feng Wei also went to Nanjing a day later, so the three girls (Cathy, Feng Wei and me) were all staying with Aunt Wen Wen.  We did all the touristy things, saw many things, and I took lots of pictures.








Muo Chou Park (literally means "No Worries"), it's beautiful nevertheless.



Aunt Wen Wen and I.  She's my mom's first cousin.  Her mother is my maternal grandmother's older sister.


cousin Feng Wei and I
this is how I want my garden to look like when Iain and I buy a house


Feng Wei and I at the Confucious Temple in Nanjing





Sun Yet Sun's moseleum in Nanjing













 
the presidential palace used by Sun Yet Sun and Jiang Shia-Shek.  This is the throne used by the short-lived Tai Ping Kingdom
the beautiful gardens of presidential palace

   










the old city wall used by the Ming Dynasty when Nanjing was the capital of China.



the empress inspecting her troops

the Nanjing Massacre Memorial
 the Revolutionary Heroes Memorial

and Cathy (Zhu Wen) didn't believe that I could put my hair into 24 braids...this was the last evening of my visit in Nanjing, when I took the train back to Shanghai the next day and arrived at the Shanghai Station with my various bags, 24 braids and my plaid hat, looking like a peasant, the cab drivers tried to cheat me out of the cab fare, so i promptly cursed them out in fluent Shanghainese and shut them up good.


 
Helene took me to see her alma mater Fu Dan University during the school's graduation weekend, it was hectic.  I paid my respects to the Chairman Mao statue.



















some funky looking bulding in Pu Dong (i think it was the Science Museum) where APEC was held in 2001








Century Park in Pu Dong, i went with my uncle Qi Jian Xin and my cousins Qi Wei Min and Bao Chen
inside the Shanghai Museum



inside the Shanghai Grand Theatre where Les Miserables was making its Chinese debut.





one of my "tasks" of the trip was the visit all the family and friends, new and old, people who watched me grow up and who are surprised to see how's i've changed in the last eleven years.





one of my responsibility was to visit my maternal grandparents grave in Su Zhou, a small touristy town southwest of Shanghai where my grandmother grew up.  she passed away in 1991 before my mother and I left Shanghai, and my grandfather passed away a couple of years later, and we weren't able to go back for his funeral.  since my mom has not been back to China since we left, it was my duty as the granddaughter to pay my respects to my grandparents's spirits in the heavens.  My uncle Feng Zheng Quan (the oldest son and my mother's older brother) took me there with his family.


the Qi family "reunion" - my paternal grandparents, cousin Bao Chen and Qi Wei Min (first row), my dad (second row center), my aunt Qi Jian Feng and her husband (my dad's right), and my uncle Qi Jian Xin and his wife (my dad's left)
the first time in eleven years that the majority of the Qi grandchildren have been together.  (front row l-r) uncle Qi Jian Xin, Aunt Qi Jian Feng, the wife of Uncle Qi Jian Xu, the wife of uncle Qi Jian Xin.  (back row l-r) cousin Bao Chen (12yo), me (23yo), Qi Wei Min (17 yo), Qi Yuan Yuan (21yo).
the Qi grandchildren: Ming Qi, 23 yo, daughter of the second son Qi Jian Guo, medical school USA; Qi Wei Min, 17 yo, son of fourth uncle Qi Jian Xin, Foreign Language School, China; Qi Yuan Yuan, 21 yo, daughter of third uncle Qi Jian Xu, Accounting school, Australia; Bao Chen, 12yo, daughter of fifth aunt Qi Jian Feng, middle school, China.


uncle Feng Zheng Quan's family.

aunt Feng Zheng Yi's family, she's my mother's older sister.  (front row) Dr. Feng Zheng Yi. M.D., Internal Medicine and professor of nursing; her husband Dr. Chen Xian Chen M.D. Neurosurgeon; (back row), me, not yet an M.D., my cousin Chen Dong Fan (Joe) with his wife Chen Shen Wei.


my great aunt and her husband in Nanjing.  she's my maternal grandmother's older sister, and i met her three daughters in Nanjing, aunt Wen Wen, aunt Qing Qing, and Aunt Ling Ling.


my great uncle Zhao Yi Fu and his wife with my second cousin Zhu Wen and I.  He's my maternal grandmother's older brother.

my father and I visited my great uncle while we were in China, the summer of 2002.  It was going to be the last time I see my great uncle, who passed away the following fall, 9/2003 at the age of 90.
my mother's first cousins Zhao Ming Qiu and Zhao Ming Li with my father and I


my second cousins in Nanjing, Fei Rong (immigrated to Australia since then), Fei Ming (immigrated to New Zealand since then after his daughter sky was born in 1/2003), and Zhu Wen

my second cousin Fei Rong and her parents.  Her mother Qing Qing is my mother's first cousin.


my mother's first cousin Ling Ling and her husband (their son was finishing up a MBA in Oxford).

my mother's first cousins Ling Ling and Wen Wen.




i visited Dad's old college roommates Lu Jing Zhou and Mao Zhong Min, pictures on either side of me.  also pcitured here are Mr Lu's wife and daughter Luo Yi (see her wedding photos in the "Friends" page)




Mao Jin Zhe, the son of my father's college roommate Mao Zhong Min, we were at the Shanghai Institute of Science and Technology (analagous to MIT)


A former high school classmate of my mother, Zhang Yu Hong, her daughter Jiang Yi Nan, and her mother.
my aunt (my marriage) Shu Mei's father and older sister
this adorable little lady was the matchmaker who brought my parents together


i was visibly darker, taller, and "fatter" than the rest of the native Shanghainese girls.

i visited the lovely home of Mom's friend Shi Ren Wei (right). also pictured are her daughter Gu Wen Wen, and Mom's friend Jin Ya Wen and her daughter Huang Fei (see more Huang Fei pictures on "Friends" page)


mom's old colleagues and friends Gao Shan Feng and his wife Ru Rong Sheng and their daughter

I spent nine weeks in China, mostly in Shanghai, but also visited Xia Men, Nanjing, and Zhou Zhuang.  I attended neurosurgeries and worked at the Emergency Department, I ate lots of great food and saw people I haven't seen since when I was twelve.  I was happy to return to the States at the end of July.  Leaving China for the second time was different, and I know that when I return to the place where I grew up, I shall not be visiting it alone.  I'll bring my husband and children and show them the place of my ancestors and the Motherland.