Nineteen years ago, I was at a small beachside resort in southern Thailand when I got word that my father had died. Within 24 hours I was on a plane bound for Minnesota. Below are the words that I spoke in farewell and tribute to my dad at his memorial service on January 25, 2001 […]
My Mother’s Father’s Sister’s Cousin’s Daughter….Whatever!
Sometime during my first year of language learning (back in 1990), our teacher tried to teach us the various terms used to describe family relationships in Chinese: mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, etc. It was useful stuff, since we were all anxious to talk about our families in Chinese. We usually did fine as […]
