So glad I returned in early November -- in time for birthdays of most family members during this time of the year.

We just celebrated my dad's birthday today. It's been nine years since I celebrated his birthday for him in person. And it's been even longer since our whole family was together for his birthday. My sisters' birthdays are coming soon. So is the birthday of a close friend who lives in Beijing. Then the Chinese New Year. Then my mom's birthday in the spring.

There will be a lot more family occasions to come. And I'll be there this time. :)

It's that time of the year, again, and I just want to say "Happy Thanksgiving!" to my friends who celebrate this holiday.

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday. It falls on the fourth Thursday of November, which is tomorrow this year. The holiday was started in 1621 by the Pilgrims who moved to the U.S. from Europe in 1620 and survived a hard first year with the help of the American Indians who lived there. Today, Thanksgiving is an important American holiday, during which families get together.

I love Thanksgiving partly because of the delicious food I get to eat during this holiday: turkey with gravy, mashed potato (or cooked any other way), yams, cranberries, pumpkin pies (and all kinds of other pies), etc., etc. ... It's also one of the few times during the year when all family members get together and enjoy some relaxing time. Even families that do not normally cook would cook on this day, and people going home would often bring some food, too.

Oddly enough, as I'm sitting here typing this piece, I'm feeling like a kid away from home. I'm feeling a little "homesick." I'm used to this time of the year being festive, being relaxing, being a time when I visit with friends, and Beijing feels so "quiet" now because nobody here celebrates Thanksgiving. (Well, the American expat community is probably celebrating, but I obviously don't belong.)

Nonetheless, I want to take this opportunity to express my thanks, my thanks to family and friends for all their help and support all these years, my thanks to all who invited me into their homes during this holiday in the past nine years (at least two of those years, I had two dinners per Thanksgiving, just because of the kindness and warmth of people), my thanks for having this life in general and for having the experience I've had.

A few particularly memorable Thanksgivings:

1998. My first Thanksgiving in the U.S. My friend JW invited me to go with him and his wife to his in-laws for the holiday. It was my first trip by car from Reno across the Sierra Nevada Mountains to California, and JW's wife insisted that I sit in the front passenger seat -- just so I get a better view. The whole trip, she introduced me the places we drove past and their history. From that moment, I felt like she was a big sister to me.

2004. A working holiday. I was sent to northwestern Wisconsin to cover the first of six funerals of a group of hunters killed by a man of Southeast Asian decent. Tough luck for me because the funeral home which said it would allow us in to interview family and friends during the viewing the night before the funeral ended up not letting any reporters in. I stood outside, in the dark, in the snow for more than an hour to get quotes from people. Most people were very hostile to me (I could understand), but one of the late hunter's friends ended up opening up and brought over more friends to talk about the hunter and his life.

2005. My worst Thanksgiving. Following months of chemo, I had my surgery the Monday of Thanksgiving week. I was physically and mentally unfit to attend any Thanksgiving dinner, but my sister ended up dragging me out for a beer so that I didn't spend all my time moping at home.

2006. Putting on the apron. I hosted my own Thanksgiving dinner in Connecticut, and had some friends over. It was big for me because -- I hardly ever cooked. It took me a couple of days of recipe searching and shopping for ingredients to make a presentable Thanksgiving dinner. :)

那天一朋友给我打电话。“你猜我吃什么呢？糖葫芦。”他迫不及待地自问自答。

我听了，谗坏了。

今天走在路上看到有卖的，就买了一支。 。。。 多少年没吃了。有那么一点回到哈尔滨的感觉。

再看看周围，还有卖各种各样的吃的的，羊肉串、鱿鱼串、炸排骨、爆米花。最吸引我的就是馅饼了。小时候很爱吃。不过感觉这东西一定很不卫生，所以又不敢买。也许过几天，就能逾越这个障碍了。
... ...
吃了糖葫芦了，冲了电了，就一口气爬上了9楼（今年从6月开始就没好好锻过炼，感觉一直很忙、很累。从现在开始我要好好表现：）。

今天什么也没干，在姐姐家呆了整整一天。好像主要活动也就是两顿饭、和给姐姐看了看我最近一个月在外面疯跑的照片。

本来我觉得自己挺勤奋的。：）在外面疯玩了一个月，很累，但觉得怎么也应该赶快想办法工作了，觉得如果不工作会感觉很内疚，哪怕先做 parttime 也好。但这两天下来，发现闲着的感觉也没那么坏，不用早起，有时间吃早饭，还可以上网、和父母吃吃饭、听听音乐、看点书什么的。

... ...
姐姐对我真好，不但管饭，还给我带些吃的回来。又把我当小孩了。

去加拿大的落基山脉时，偷懒，坐缆车上山，因为是一个人，就被人安排和一个澳大利亚的男孩一个车厢（其他人都是一家一家的）。我们一路聊天，得知他是个 graphics designer，以前在澳洲时给一个冲浪杂志做，现在为了玩加拿大，在温哥华的一家公司找了类似的活，干了6个月，攒够了钱，买了张火车通票，要花几个月 coast to coast 的玩加拿大。再细聊，发现他是个 surfer boy，喜欢旅游，去过 Fiji, New Zealand, Bali 等很多地方。为了玩欧洲，还在英国工作和居住了4年。Surfer boy 旅游总是选择最便宜的交通工具，住青年旅社，俨然一个行走江湖快意人生的背包客。

旅游好像是澳大利亚的 national pastime. 我这几年出门，经常遇到那边来的游客。他们大学毕业或工作一阵后 take a whole year off to travel 是很正常的。在 Banff National Park 里某酒店的一间咖啡屋里，和卖咖啡的一个小孩聊起，发现他也是澳大利亚人，刚读完大二，决定休一年，在加拿大边打工边旅游。我问他喜不喜欢这边，他说，”I'm loving it!"

在美国，大部分人没有休这样的长假的 luxury（我还记得美联社一同事（加拿大人）因为老板不让她不带薪休长假（没有那么多带薪假）而辞职，去国外玩了一个多月后，又回到同一单位求职，老板当然因为她有能力而又把她聘回来）; 在中国，好像很多人除国家法定节日外连年假都不休。钱当然是一个重要的局限，时间也是。还有有很多人怕事业上的间断，现在竞争这么激烈，你退出好工作当然有人抢了。可是旅游也是一种经历，是人看世界、了解自己内心的机会。出门走走不能给我们带来金钱，但这种经历带给我我们的是一种无价的财富。

所以，无论你有多忙，什么时候抽时间随便走走吧。或者做点别的自己喜欢的事。

我发现我回国，显得特幼稚。北京这么大、这么什么人都有，但总的来说还是不太欢迎个性发展。呵呵。。。。

还有，就是实在没衣服穿了。原来的衣服，大都捐了。因为觉得运回来，又贵又麻烦，也想洒脱一点，放下应该放下的东西。可是回来看北京的衣服，又贵又不喜欢。那衣服，就不能除了扣儿以外不加别的装饰？这一点原来和好友yan讨论过，她很喜欢这边的服装，觉得做的细致，有装饰。可我这种追求简单、不太打扮的人实在享受不了。

I had my iPod on and was writing my diary, while waiting in the Vancouver airport for my flight to Beijing. I wasn't sure why I looked up, but was glad I did -- there it was, Michael J. Fox in a cart that shuttles passengers. He was talking to the driver. I was speechless and watched the cart roll by right in front of me. I think I stared.

I'm usually not crazy about celebrity sightings. When my friend C and I were in Central Park in New York earlier this year, we were both a little disappointed by the lack of glamor the way Martha Steward looked as she walked right in front of us into an apartment building. As a reporter, I had seen my share of "famous" people: governors, Congressmen, presidential candidates like Howard Dean, and actors like Bill Cosby.

But seeing Michael J. Fox is different. Michael J. Fox is cool -- to me at least.

The Canadian-born Fox is probably best known for his roles in Family Ties and Spin City, shows that have been on for years, shows that he won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for, but shows I've never been interested in. He was in the film Back to the Future, which I watched in college but cannot remember much from it. What impressed me about Fox is his persistent fight against Parkinson's disease and becoming a voice advocating for increased research to find a cure for the disease.

Parkinson's is a cruel disease that eats away brain cells that control muscle movement. Symptoms may include trembling of hands, arms, legs and face; stiffness of the arms, legs and trunk; poor balance and coordination. As it gets worse, people may even have trouble walking, talking or doing simple tasks. Because the disease has no cure at this point, people affected by it will simply watch the disease eats away their ability to move properly and remain helpless about it. In a way, I think it's more cruel than some cancers. Yes, we all want to live. But most people would want to live with dignity, too.

Parkinson's usually begins around the age of 60, but Fox got it when he was only 40, in 1991. He kept it a secret for seven years, fearing the possible reactions from producers and the audience, and didn't go public with the news until his symptoms got to the point where it was hard not to notice them. Since then, he's been committed to the campaign to increase research on the disease to find a cure.

His foundation's generated $90 million for Parkinson's research and he's raised much awareness of he disease by speaking publicly about his experience and his support for stem cell research. Recently, he was named one of 18 "Top Leaders" in the U.S. in an annual list compiled by U.S. News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University.

I like what he told documentary producers Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf:

"I didn't want to be a caped crusader; I'm like, 'I'm a song-and-dance man!' "

We could all become passionate about what's important to us, because often what affects you affects someone else as well.
______
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research: http://www.michaeljfox.org/


************************************
写作这东西，真是吃饱了饭闲着没事的人干的。

我已经很久没有在国内吃过 street food 了。每次回国总是因为时间短，或公事 在身，很怕生病，也就不敢在街上乱买、乱吃。 回想起来，最想念哈尔滨的烤地瓜和馅饼。所以最近几天每天看到我住的小区附近的烤地瓜，就万分向往。：）今天终于有时间停下来，买一个吃。现在我就坐在电脑前，一边吃地瓜，一边上网，感觉很幸福。


Getting lost in Beijing - I've been back for a whole week now. Getting over jet lag was not a problem, because the whole week, I was running around. Or at least it feels that way. I've been going to some job interviews and Beijing is so big and I live so far from the central districts that every time I go somewhere it takes me at least one and a half hours one-way. That's why just going to a few places made me feel like I was busy.

I'm far from being settled in and I certainly don't feel at home here. Everything is so familiar, and yet everything seems so foreign to me. Everyday as I join the huge crowds in, well, anywhere in Beijing, I'm reminded of the things I grew up with. I feel like I'm re-learning the Chinese way. I feel like a person waking up from a coma that's lasted for years. My thoughts are scattered, so is this blog entry.

What personal space? - I still remember the first time I went to a post office in the U.S. It was in Reno, Nev. There were very few people there, and I walked straight to the counter. Then I realized some people were staring at me and looking annoyed. On closer look, I realized there was a line. People stood so far from each other that I thought they were just randomly standing there to chat with each other. I had heard that most Americans are comfortable with more distant personal space than Chinese, but that was the first time I experienced it.

Now the reversed cultural shock. I was waiting in line at a subway station. A guy came up from behind me and stopped when he was really close to me. So close that I started wondering.

What does he want? I asked myself, having heard horror stories about crime problems in this society. Is he going to steal from me, rob me, or, even worse, grope me?

A minute later, I realized he wasn't going to do any of those things. He was just LINING UP. I saw several people lining up after him -- so close to each other that they looked like pancakes stacked together vertically.

On the subway, it's even worse. The daily ridership for the Beijing subway is about 1.5 million people. During the rush hours, the trains are completely packed. When I say packed, I mean people standing right next to each other with no space in between at all. Whenever the doors open at a busy station, you can feel a wave of people pushing their way onto the train.

Why are you smiling? - A few times when I walked in the streets, I forgot where I was and started making eye contact or smiled toward people walking my way. Most of the time, I got this blank look. Sometimes, I get a big frown in return.

After being on the road for close to a month, I am finally READY to go back home to China. Or as ready as I can be.

Our tour bus was leaving the Banff National Park, when one of the passengers said, "Tomorrow, we'll be leaving the Canadian Rockies. Who knows when we'll get to see these beautiful sceneries, again?"

As calm and relaxed as I had gotten over the past few weeks, I felt like my heart was being gnawed by a dog when I heard this. Yes, tomorrow we are all leaving the Rockies. But the day after tomorrow I'll be boarding a flight from Vancouver to Beijing, leaving North America altogether. I'll be starting a new life in Beijing, where all my family lives. Who knows when I'll get to visit the United States, again? Who knows when I'll get to revisit the life I had in the past nine years? Who knows when I'll get to see all the wonderful friends I made here?

But physically tired from all the traveling, annoyed by my long (at least by my standard) and messy hair and sick of wearing the same winter jacket and boots forever, I WANT to go home. Just like a ship ready to come home to its harbor, I'm ready to go to Beijing and have a place I call home.

I'm ready. And I should be. When hearing that I'll be moving back to China, my friend April said she feels happy for me because "it's all you've talked about since I met you six years ago."

I still remember resisting calling my apartment "home" when I lived in Reno. I had the feeling that it was all temporary -- once I get my master's degree, I'll go home, I kept thinking. Then I got a job, a job that took me to Middle America and taught me not only journalism but also life. Two years into that job, when I felt fulfilled and ready to move home, I got offered a better job, an incredible opportunity to work with one of the most prestigious news organizations in the world -- The Associated Press. Then came love. Then cancer. It was always one thing or another that kept me from going home right away.

Every step of the way, I carried the feeling of guilt with me -- over not being closer to my family, over not taking care of my parents. One of my friends, who's Catholic, said that's the similarity between Chinese people and Catholics -- the constant feeling of guilt. Not that I agree with my parents on everything, not that we don't have problems, but the guilt never goes away.

Cancer also acted as a catalyst in my decision to move back. I'm not just guilted into going home. I'm going home because life is short and I want to be closer to my family. Cancer makes me braver and not just stay with the option that's more secure. It gives me the courage to go to a society somewhat foreign to me now that I've been away for so long. Cancer also teaches me that whatever I want to do, I should do it today.

I've been preparing myself for the move. This past year, I've been working at a nonprofit organization at Yale that does a lot of good work in China. The job not only taught me a lot about the nonprofit world, which I had been interested in all along, but got me to spend close to four months in China in the 13 months I worked there. That was a great opportunity for me to get reacquainted with my own country.

There's still a lot of work ahead. In the coming months, I'll need to find a job, get my own apartment and start getting to know my country better. I have many plans to explore the land I should know much better and many things I want to do with my family and friends. But for now, being ready to go home is a good start. :)

I didn't think I'd be this impressed with the Canadian Rockies. After all, I've been on quite the mountain-tour for the past few weeks, traveling through Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. I loved all the mountains I'd seen.

But the Canadian Rockies wowed me just as much as any other mountains I've seen, if not more. Our tour bus was traveling in Banff National Park, the third oldest national parks in the world (after Yellowstone and Royal National Park in Australia), and in front of us and around us were this amazing, endless, ice-capped mountain range. Every turn of the road revealed a different mountain or a new angle to look at the mountains. The peaks were not the highest -- on average the mountains we saw today were about 10,000 feet tall. But they were so close, so grand and so beautiful that I was just as amazed by them as those in the tour group who had not seen many mountains.

I guess I'll never be tired of looking at mountains.

一直想响应熊猫的号召，写点中文的，可最近不知怎么了，总觉得没中文可写（也许是最近中国话说多了吧）。那就试着来一个美国西部游大
胡说吧。想到什么写什么，现在想不起来的，以后再补充吧。

我发现我自从登了几次山之后，就开始有点看不惯到了国家公园只是开着车到各个景点走走的游客。我每到一处能和大自然接近的地方，
总是哪怕少走几个景点，也要下车去 do some hiking. 看到那些到了一个景点，只是停下车，掐几张照片的人，还有那些连车都不下，
只是摇下车窗伸出长镜头咔嚓几下的人，总是想，他们也算到过这？

这次我玩美国的西部，有点接近这种懒惰的游法。由于天气的条件和时间的有限，我去Grand Teton（有人翻成大提顿，我觉得很难听），
黄石（Yellowstone）和冰河（Glacier National Park）三个国家公园的七天里，大部分时间是花在车里。

Grand Teton 和 Yellowstone 是从前在Reno认识的朋友H带我去的。先去的 Grand Teton, 那里天气变换不定，一会儿下雪，一会晴天，一会阴天，
我们一整天的行程也根据天气而变化。进了公园，先趁没太下雪的时候找了一条沿着 Jenny Lake 的 trail 走。这条通往 Hidden Falls(一个落差
200英尺/61米的分段瀑布）的trail来回5英里（8公里），一路上可以从不同角度透过树林看到 Jenny Lake，早上新下的雪铺在地上，踩上去很舒服，同
样的白雪挂在绿色的松树上，也使得周围的景色格外的美丽，空气也格外的新鲜。

几个小时走下来，我和H都心情很好，驱车往公园北部去。可老天不作美，飘起了鹅毛大雪，我们决定中途掉头。想不到
掉头，给了我们看到鹿群的机会，为准备过冬而长得很结实的鹿，在离我们只有几米的路边，昂然挺立于大片大片飘下的
雪中，真的很触动人心。

H一边不停评论着刚才的景象，一边尽快往公园外开，突然间，我们发现雪停了，太阳也出来了一点点。H不甘心我没有看到公园的全部，立刻掉头，
又往北开。我们看了公园里最大的湖，Jackson Lake, 但更幸运的是，在乌云一点一点散去的时候，看到了渐渐显露出来的 Teton Range。
Teton Range 是落基山脉的一部分，其中两个较高的山峰是 Grand Teton (约4200米)和 Mount Moran (3842米)。这一系列山比较突出
的并不是它们的高度（论山高还是亚洲山高），而是它们没有很大的下丘陵地带，所以看起来这些山真的是拔地而起，很雄壮。
很多美国西部片是以这里为背景的。

其实这种高度的山我不但看到过，而且爬过，但是去 Grand Teton 时天气不好，开始的时候一点也看不见，之后我们亲眼看到乌
云一点一点移开，露出个山峰的真实面目，就感到兴奋不已，好像美丽的景色很得之不易。就象去年在阿拉斯加，
在已经离开 Denali 的路上，看到白云从 Mt. McKinley 的尖上慢慢飘开，幸运地加入有机会目睹这一北美最高峰的游客
（因为山高，常年云雾笼罩，只有10％的到过 Denali 的游客看到过山峰的顶端）。

看来山不在高，却各自有各自让你感到震撼的原因。

I love mountains. Mountain scenery is my favorite of all nature scenes, and I like it way more than anything else -- rivers, lakes or the ocean. But my friend JW says on a trip like mine, after a while beautiful mountain scenery all tends to blend together in the mind.

I find a lot of truth to what she said. Traveling on a tour bus from Vancouver to Banff today, I found a lot of the sceneries along the way similar to the American West. The lakes here resemble those I saw in Montana last month because of the similarity in the trees along the shorelines and the beautiful fall colors. As we traveled between the Columbia Mountain Range and the Rockies, I was reminded of the Teton Range (which is a part of the Rockies) I visited last month.

But even with similar sceneries, each trip is different. For me, traveling is more than going to new places and meeting new people. It's also about getting to know myself better. The trips give me an opportunity to not only look around, but also look inside myself. They provide me with time to relax, and time to think and reflect. From these trips, I learn more about what makes me happy, what touches my heart and what gives me energy and strength.

Traveling is a luxury for me. Going to the mountains is heaven for me.

"You are from China?" the gentleman sitting across the room stood up and started walking toward me after our conversation in an East Glacier, Mont., restaurant turned from the weather to where we came from.

"Which China?" he said?

I knew what he was getting at, but just said, "I'm from the northeastern PART of China."

"Really? Red China?" he seemed even more interested.

I haven't been asked that question or heard the phrase "Red China" since I left North Dakota in January 2004. Now more than three years later, as I traveled to Montana to see the Glacier National Park before moving back to China, I felt like I was revisiting rural America, where I spent the majority of my nine years in the U.S.

My conversation with this gentleman, who told me he was a naturalist born and raised in Montana, started with the snowstorm in forecast. I was planning to spend the day at Glacier, but the potential winter storm made me nervous and I was debating whether to leave early. The naturalist was very helpful -- he gave me his newspaper, which carried a story about the winter weather, and talked about the different ways to get to Idaho, where I was headed, and the various possibilities of weather and road conditions.

The "Red China" question came up after the weather discussion. And the gentleman proceeded to say how very few people from "Red China" get to visit the United States.

I just had to correct him. Between 2000 and 2005, about 355,000 people immigrated from mainland China to the United States, and in the 1990s, about 460,000 Chinese immigrated to the U.S., according to official reports. How could this guy think that few Chinese get to come here, I said to myself, annoyed. Does he think the Cold War is still on?

But on second thought, it's normal he holds the opinions he does -- with less than one percent (0.6 percent, to be exact) of Montana's total population of 944,000 being Asian, he probably hasn't seen many Chinese people, let alone talking to them and understanding China.

It'll take many, many more Chinese visitors to the area to change his perception.