Row your boat

It'd be kind of boring if I just listed what Victoria and I did in Guilin.
I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea of writing a piece that doesn't spill out like a family tree - (e.g.: then this uncle married her and they had those kids, and those kids went to Pennsylvania to find their wives/husbands and thus....all facts no heart)

I went to Guilin.
It's an ongoing revelation, but coming from a Canadian Chinese background, one always finds that they're incredibly distant from their origins. It's becoming more apparent to me, the more I wanted to find my origins, the more I realize how Canadian I am. Going back to my original country, China, I had culture shock to what is suppose to be my home culture. I can't understand Mandarin, I don't know the local's mannerisms, I don't know the cuisine, but still, even though I am mentally distant from the people that I'm suppose to identify most with, I still feel emotionally that I am one of them.

We went to the Lonji Rice terraces to see how the rice I eat daily is grown, harvested, and packaged.
We went down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft to see the mountainous landscape that have inspired past Chinese painters and poets. Their printed works are hung all over the homes of my parents' generation. Those two things, the rice fields and the mountains of Yangshuo,  I have seen before, but to experience it in its truest form was the piece that brought me home.

Victoria has all the pictures so they'll be up on facebook later on.

Anyways, see you guys at home...wherever that might be.