It is December 25, 2023, and I am in Wuhan, China. I arrived yesterday and it is my first time here. The weather is cool but not uncomfortable. So far, I am pleasantly surprised by the appearance of Wuhan – from its modern city scale to its great parks. The enormous Yangtze river (or Changjiang 长江) cuts through Wuhan, separating the city into east and west. To many, Wuhan is perhaps best known for being the origin place of COVID-19:…
Where does a family really come from? It’s a question that compels me more and more each year. There is a simple answer in my own case: my family come from China. Rather than leave it at that, I want to uncover the specific and most distant details of my heritage- the different lands, communities we originate from and the events that shape us. But a variety of predominantly rural origins, a history of violent revolution and change, natural disasters,…