Once the seats have all been filled, the gym falls quiet, and Wang Laoshi comes up to the microphone for his opening speech while Cyrus and I wait in the wings behind him.

“… very honored to be partnering with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford … Please welcome …”

“Nervous about the speech?” Cyrus whispers to me.

No, I’m about to say, and it would be true if my aunt didn’t make her entrance right at that moment. She’s dressed in regal black from head to toe, and she steps forward without haste, barely acknowledging the crowd’s applause for her, as if this is an ordinary part of her daily routine, or possibly even a downgrade from the celebrity treatment she’s accustomed to.

I swallow, my stomach clenching. The Chinese characters from my speech swirl around inside my head. It’s okay, you can do this. You’re prepared. You can redeem yourself.

“… the winners from the competition, Leah Zhang and Cyrus Sui.”

Cyrus squeezes my hand twice, and I let myself focus on the warm, familiar pressure, the scent of his cologne.

Then we’re walking out together, the bright gym lights spilling around us.

I take the microphone first. Hold it too close, my fingers quivering. I can hear my breaths in the static, feel the weight of my aunt’s gaze from the other end of the stage.

“Welcome, parents, students, and teachers,” I begin in slow, careful Chinese, hoping they can’t detect the shakiness in my voice. “I have to be honest—when my mom first signed me up for this trip, I didn’t particularly want to go …”

As I go on, my voice strengthens, my words coming out smoother, clearer, acquiring their own cadence, and I remind myself that this isn’t a completely foreign language. It’s the language of my mother’s hometown, the language spoken by my father and his father before him, the language I breathed in for a fortnight, the melody of my surroundings.

It helps that the audience is generous, welcoming. They laugh at all my bad jokes and listen with rapt attention as I describe parts of the trip they already know—the beauty of Shanghai at night, the long train rides, the bustling markets, the steep, rainy climb up the Yellow Mountain, the serenity of the bamboo forest.