A Sense of Home‪.‬

As I stepped off the bus, beads of sweat came streaming down my face, as if by command. I was getting used to it fogging my vision, but I wanted to be able to clearly see and remember everything that happened today, the day I visited my paternal grandfather's village. The mosquitoes bit relentlessly as I walked through a swarm without even realizing it. I was hypnotized by an old woman sifting rice kernels and wondered if someday I would unknowingly eat some of the very grains she handled with such tenderness. A fellow intern disrupted my thoughts by shouting, 'You're home!" Home ... Wow! Who would have known that a single word could hold such meaning? I was home. All my life, I had been accustomed to living an Americanized way of life. In the summer of 2000, 1 had the opportunity to explore my Chinese heritage. I have learned that it is one thing to be Chinese and another thing to be Chinese in America--and that I have been ignorant of both. Until the summer of 2000, 1 had socialized mostly with Caucasians. I guess some might say that I was the epitome of a "Twinkie." But I now have a new outlook. I cannot change who I am, but I can change the way I view myself, and life.