“It snows here even when it’s warm,” Mother muttered.

I looked around again and saw white dandelion pollen darting and floating among the trees, swirling in the wind. Mother rubbed her nose with the edge of her hand, moving it roughly back and forth, trying to rid herself of a stubborn itch, her skin freckled red from irritation. The fluffy seeds lightly kissed our noses and eyes, and Bea and I giggled. Mother sneezed and ran into the house to escape.

Even the most mundane, domestic task brought out Mother’s disappointment, isolation, and longing. She wished she could be as free as the pollen, riding the spring gusts out of the valley somewhere more familiar and welcoming.

Sometimes I have felt the way Mother did.

Now I turn the jade bracelet around my wrist and look at Leo with affection. My daughter rubs her nose the same way Mother used to. She uses the edge of her hand and goes back and forth in a way I have never seen anyone else do. Leo sits in the grass turned towards the sun, just like the faces of the dandelions, unafraid, proud, and strong.

Author’s Note

I chose to use a Chinese character, particularly a Chinese radical, to demarcate the different chapters in this story. The radicals sometimes have only a tenuous link to the story but are a poetic attempt to create a bridge between, first, all those who speak Chinese, and second, those who do not know Chinese, and the beauty of this ancient written language. The English translations of the radicals are mine, and any errors are mine alone.

部首, or Chinese radical, literally means “section header.” The Chinese character may be made up of one or more radicals. For example, the word “ask” 問 uses two radicals: door 門 and mouth 口. The radical of a Chinese character is a character on its own, or a pictorial under which the character is traditionally listed in a Chinese dictionary. The radical sometimes indicates the meaning of the character. Sometimes it provides a phonetic guide. Other times it provides no meaning or phonetic information. In this way, Chinese writing is unique compared to the Romance languages. Pictorials, or graphics, are used rather than an alphabet, and often there is a meaning and poetry to the choice of the graphics. I remember learning from my Chinese teacher how to say “planet” in Mandarin when my five-year-old son was obsessing over the solar system. My teacher told me the literal and character meaning was “walking star.” It seemed like a poetic way to recognize how planets were discovered by British astronomer William Herschel, who watched what he thought were shooting stars but then realized they were celestial beings orbiting the sun.

Another unique feature of the Chinese written language is that it’s the true common language among people who speak all the Chinese dialects. If you are literate, you can converse with anyone, no matter which of the 200 dialects you speak. Sometimes people will use their finger to “draw” a character in their palm, or in the air, so as to dispel any misunderstanding created while conversing in different dialects. Growing up, I saw my mother do this in Chinatown. More recently, in my travels in Asia, Chinese people who realized I didn’t understand them tried to communicate with me in this way. And now, when people ask me which Liew I am, I draw my last name in the air and people nod understandingly.