But I remember when I was 11, I had never been to the mainland, and my grandmother and my mother and mysister, who at the time was two, decided we were going to take a big summer trip.
My mom had thought his yearly bonuses would be going toward college for me and mysister, but not only was my dad a big spender, unbeknownst to her, he had also been buying regular tickets to visit his girlfriend in Greece.
Like the time a little Chinese girl came up to me after I performed at a relocation school in Sichuan's earthquake disaster zone and asked: "Big Sister Wang, can I sing you a song that my mom sang before she was swallowed in the earthquake...?" She sat on my lap and I could feel the warmth of her body.
The phone call came late one August afternoon as my older sister Gracie and I sat out on the back porch shucking the sweet corn into the big tin buckets.