For three weeks in November 2019, I traveled with a group of Americans of Chinese descent — many of whom have personal connections in Guangdong | 广东 and Fujian | 福建 provinces in southern China — to visit places of significance to the overseas Chinese community as well as to our own family histories.
Here’s an account of how it felt to be back in China twenty-five years after living in northern China and traveling throughout the country in the early 90s as a student, my experiences being in the same spaces that my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, & great, great grandparents once inhabited, and summarizing what I learned about the places we went and their importance to the diaspora.
It’s also about boundless curiosity, community, and connections, and hope to post my thoughts about this transformative experience in the coming weeks.
One final note: it’s not lost on me that some of my reflections were completed close to one year later— in a now very different world. ■