Greetings from Beijing

Recently I started writing to my dad again. My dad remained in China when my mom came to the US and they divorced after that. The last time I saw him was 1988.

My dad was absent most of my childhood, but he taught me English when I was about six. He's gifted with sounds and languages, fluent in Spanish and Russian, and of course, Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese and Hakanese). English is one of his less fluent languages, like he can also read French.


My husband was the one managed to get me back on track with my dad this time, and to respect his yet un-met-in-person father-in-law, they communicated in Spanish. On our Christmas card to my dad, Bill wrote in Spanish, I in Chinese, and our still-monolingual child in English. My dad replied in three languages:




Awhile back when Henry was doing his country report about China, he asked his yet-un-met grandfather to send him some postcards. This is one of them. For those of you have been reading my blog since the beginning, does it remind you of anything?




How about this picture I posted last year? (be sure to click on the link if you haven't seen that post before, some nice pictures there) This is my brother and I in Summer Palace in Beijing. Apparently everyone likes this view, but to us it's a little more special. See there are two buildings on top of the hill, you can only see the curved roof of the one in the back. It's actually a rather large building once you get up there and there is a huge courtyard in the back of the building. Standing in that courtyard and looking straight down the hill, across the road, into the vast Central Party School campus, you can see the patio of our apartment.



When you visit Beijing, be sure to visit Summer Palace and look for what was my home.