The tug of war was over in three days. Nearly 30 years have gone by since that episode. During our most recent visit, instead of eating out as we usually do on such occasions, she decided to cook us a Chinese dinner. As she and our son-in-law labored side by side in the kitchen, I spied a wok that seemed to have seen a lot of action.

"Oh, that," she said, tossing bok choy in the wok in a practiced manner," I bought it in San Francisco Chinatown after moving out of the dorm in my sophomore year. I remember all the way on the BART to Berkeley and back to my apartment, I was carrying this big heavy wok. . ."

Ms. Annabel Liu is a bilingual freelance writer whose work has appeared in many newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Taiwan, and Hong Kong. In recent years she has also published five books of her humourous essays. She holds a B.A. degree in law from the National Taiwan University and an M.A. degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.

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This is part of our continuing series, Bridging the Cultural Gap:   The Overseas-Asian Experience. If you have an Overseas-Asian experience you would like to share, please feel free to send it in! editor@jadedragon.com

Bridge illustration by Duke Windsor.