ok... jenchilee (AKA xanga temptress) has succeeded.  so much for doing work... procrastination here i come!  well... it was jenchilee via jchung7's xanga.  so very funny and entertaining--it just sucked me right back in.  but only as a spectator. 

back at stanford for a couple of days before heading off to a retreat. i'm really glad to be back. i think it was hard being the only person my age for most of 3 weeks, especially in a hierarchical culture, where as a "kid" i'm not supposed to speak unless spoken to and i often felt invisible. it was quite the contrast coming home and having lunch w/3 white guys (matt, alex, and ryan).

shanghai was very interesting. going from cities in western china to shanghai is kind of like going from epa to palo alto. but then going from rural china to urban china is like going from a third world nation to the US.

i got to hear more family stories while i was in shanghai, from my dad's father's younger brother. his last name is zhu, which is what my last name SHOULD be, except that my great-great-aunt couldn't have children, so my grandfather (the 3rd of 5 children) was given to them and grew up calling them mom and dad. so now i am a shi, but not by blood. i got to hear more about the famine in the 60s and 70s. everyone says it's like how north korea is right now--famiies starving to death in their homes, torture for political crimes, etc.

the longer i was in shanghai, the more i missed xi'an. people there smile a lot on the streets and are really friendly. apparently, northwestern china is known for that kind of culture. and i really love our dialect (the shaanxi dialect)--it's soft and slurry--and i brought back tom and jerry dubbed in the shaanxi dialect.

seeing jen was really nice. jen and i met up with dennis and went to the cotton club. great music! and we got to talk about our experiences in china as chinese americans.

then i got to spend the weekend with my cousin huizi. she's really awesome. somehow, after not having any contact for 4 years, we still managed to hit it off immediately. we have quite similar taste in music and art. and we got to talk about the different cultures we've been exposed to since college, and learning more about our own culture. i really love her a lot. she's such a sweetheart. she's taking the GRE and thinking about coming to the US for grad school. she had wanted to go into journalism, but ended up going into electronics so that she can go overseas. she's also seeking, so we got to talk about christianity a bit, and she shared about her experiences visiting a church and how she's interested in attending wednesday night small groups. that was really cool.

then on my flight back, i sat next to a malaysian/singaporean man whose family is in shanghai. he was reading the spirit-filled life and the bible, and we ended up talking about ministry (him at his workplace, texas instruments, and me at school and at laup). he shared how he and his wife have really felt challenged to live more simply. they are part of the worship team at an international community church in shanghai (maybe hengshan, where jen visited... but i'm not sure). it was really encouraging to hear about what God's doing in china on a micro level.

sigh. i'm glad to be back. but i really hope that i don't forget the things i've learned on this trip to china.