Grandpa Deng makes awesome breakfasts! But you have to get up early to enjoy it! Nana had taken a few days off to go home to Enping, and now she is back. She brought back snacks as well.
I’ve been thinking about applying to graduate school. I emailed Professor Adam Yuet Chau at Cambridge for advice on my undergraduate art history thesis topic. I told him about the Yu Family Ancestral Hall, the Chen Family Ancestral Hall (which I have yet to visit… but soon!), and also about what Laura suggested: a study on the subjects of ceramic and stucco carvings and frescoes above the doors and windows of diaolou as reflections of the ideals of Chinese diaspora.
But I’m really unprepared. I haven’t read and studied enough and I’m inexperienced. I don’t know so many things. I think I am lucky to even have these few ideas. But I don’t think they’re enough.
On another note, I have also learned that I have apparently been writing my Chinese name wrong all these years. Apparently I am supposed to write a (羊) for the top part and a separate (大) on the bottom. I wasn’t supposed to be writing the four horizontal strokes at the same time. Or whatever. Whatever.
CJ ordered a whiteboard from Beijing for the Cangdong Project, but I’ve been using it to teach English with Tony! For the first lesson, we watched the TEDed video of “The Art of the Metaphor,” and went through new vocabulary. For the second lesson, we all took turns practicing reading a scene from The Lion King and we went through pronunciation weaknesses. It’s been really fun. Nana, Shionyi, and CJ are great students!
After the The Lion King lesson, Nana recited the scene endlessly… from memory… she was really enamoured with it. It was the scene of Mufasa giving Simba a lesson on being king and on the Circle of Life.
“She has lost it (她走火入魔啦),” said Shionyi.
If the graduate school thing doesn’t pan out, I plan to teach. I am not too worried right now. I know I’ll worry when I get back to school, and I’m surrounded by people starting their businesses or going to New York or looking for consulting jobs left and right. But for now, I feel as free as a bird and as light as an arrow.
The fields near Liyuan and Cangdong are being prepared for a second round of grains!
Meanwhile, this is a photo that my mom sent me from California, that she asked me to show to Nana and Grandpa Deng. Overseas Chinese squash.
Even squash can be overseas! But still just as tasty.
A summer in Guangdong 