My Heart Is Open (Chinese Americans Travel to China to Explore Their Roots) (Travel Narrative‪)‬

Chinese elders cluck their tongues at me and say, "Keuih mhsik gong" (She can't speak). Perhaps it is a blessing that I cannot understand all the other harsh, negative judgments they are sharing with one another. Those three words are enough. "Keuih mhsik gong." When did I stop speaking Chinese? I stopped speaking before I was born, when my great-grandfather Bak Lee died. He had a heart attack in his dry goods store, in San Francisco's Chinatown. The strain of the Great Depression and raising a family of six was too much for him. My grandfather Herbert was eleven years old. His oldest brother, Lung, was nineteen. When Herbert came home, one of his siblings said, "Don't go in that room." He knew his father was gone. Without Bak Lee, my great-grandma Chin Shee would soon go too.