It’s a truth that will always amaze me: people can be so vastly different and yet so fundamentally the same.

I’m spending several days with a Chinese friend and her family in another city over the lunar New Year.  Right now, I’m tired and so very full of food and thinking about returning home on the train tomorrow.  My mind is a bit overwhelmed, and I’m having a hard time processing the sights and sounds and tastes and emotions of the last few days into intelligble words.

However, I keep being struck by memories.  Memories of the occasional holidays that we spent at my grandparents with our other relatives on my mother’s side of the family.  Smelling cigarette smoke and hearing loud talking and eating vast quantities of food.  Playing games with your cousins and watching tv your grandpa.  Those things are all the same here.  Sure, the language is different and the food is different, but older ladies are still spending long conversations discussing why I’m not married yet.

I’m so thankful that I’ve been included in this family event on the other side of the world from where I grew up.  And I keep wishing my grandparents, who were adventurers at heart, could be here to see me… and to taste the food!