Grampa.

Life has been busy, good, and challenging since I got back from China.
Although it is a little bit tough, I am still glad that I made my decision right, I think.
EXCEPT......
My dearest grampa passed away.
Can't believe that I saw him last month and I will never see him again next time I go back home. My grampa is already 95-year-old. He was almost a century old. For sure, he went through a lot and a lot in his life. I am still not used to use the past tense for him.

When I was born, my grampa was in jail because of his family's status. He was from a landlord family at that time when people hated landlords a lot. Not sure how it worked, but the government and the people tried to punish the landlord, I guess. Not sure. Now I truly regret that I didn't hear all the stories from my grampa. :( Isn't that awful?

I love my grampa. He was so nice and smart. He knew a lot of traditional Chinese medicine stuff and he read tons. He always always encouraged the kids to travel around and to learn. When my older sister went to South Korea as an exchange student, he was very proud. He was even more proud when I came to U.S. to study. He told many people that he would come to visit U.S. last year. But now...He's gone already.

Every time I think of him, tears come up with my eyes. I can't help thinking how wonderful and encouraging he was.
I remember that he was willing to sit on a chair for a whole afternoon for me to draw when I was second grade. He punished me once in my life...because of my ugly handwriting. Now, every time I write the characters, I really appreciate he did that.
I really love my grampa. There was a little story from my family. Not sure how real this story is, but almost every relative told me about this.
As the third girl in our family, nobody like me when I was born, only because they found out I was a girl. As you heard maybe, many people in China prefer boys than girls, especially in the traditional and rural areas. So did my family. They really wanted a boy, but somehow I came to this earth. So they thought of giving me away by putting me in a basket on the street. My grandfather, the only one who said we should keep the girl. So I am here. So I have a chance to type these words. I guess there are more details, but I am not very certain for it due to I was not born at that time or I was just a baby at that time. Wish I knew that also....sounds like a dramatic story. :P

Life is filled up with all kinds of uncertainness. We will never know what will happen next second. I am very glad that I went back to China this summer before my grampa left. It was such a good time to hang out with him and see him even though he was sick and weak.
I miss him.

And I am so thankful for many many good friends I have. Many of them messaged me with sympathy words. Really appreciate it.

Home here and there

Hello from HongKong!
I am visiting my aunt in HongKong now. I came here from Shenzhen today. The time length is like going to Chicago from Peoria, except I changed multiple buses. :P
It is SOOOO good to be home. Really, nothing and nowhere is like home.
I have been back to Shenzhen for half month already. So many things has been changed. Subway, buildings, and so on...Most of my friends already have their jobs. I can't hang out with them unil they get off work. But it is so nice to get together! I thought there must be barriers between my friends and me because I haven't been home for so long. However, that's true friendship! Friendship will never change because of time and distance. Even though we didn't keep in touch when I was in school, they contacted me right away when they knew that I came back. They took me out for lunch, dinner, or tea. They are SOO sweet! We talked so much...So my voice got destroyed. :P





OK..never mind. the above paragraph was typed when I was in HongKong, probably three weeks ago. For some reasons, I didn't finish it and didn't post it. Guess what? I already came back to the states before I posted that. @.@

So I have been back here for a week. Have been busy since then. My flight back to here wasn't bad. 4 hours from HongKong to Japan. 12 hours from Japan to Chicago. 6 hours lay over. Then half hour from Chicago to Peoria. It sounds complicated and awful maybe. But actually it is way better than flying for straight 16 hours.

Being here is not weird anymore. I automatically ordered coffee when I was at the airport. Sipping that starbucks, I thought of the starbucks in China. It is less sweeter and more flavors. Sometimes, people just don't believe me that how cool China is. Even some of my American friends, who went to China and tried Chinese or American foods over there, love the foods and culture. Oh well, I can't force everybody like my own culture. Just like one of my Chinese friends couldn't understand the American culture and left here before school was over. There are always exceptions. But I do think people should be open-minded and get to know others more than they take assumptions.

I moved into another family yesterday. Everything went well. My host parents for a month are so awesome and sweet. They make me laugh everyday.


My goals of the rest of summer:
1. read Bible everyday and pray
2. work
3. study for next semester
4. learn how to swim. (yes, I do not know how to swim and I did live by the coast when I was in China.)
5. hang out with friends
6. learn how to make easy meals so that I won't eat microwave food or fast food next semester when I live at the dorms

OK. Next goal for this blog is to make a theme for every post...hopefully