There’s no feeling quite like that of hearing someone call your name as you walk out of Chinese immigration. How this came to happen is actually quite a story — well, two stories.

Story 1: How I came to have a Chinese sister

My dad is a computer science professor at the University of Michigan. Though he teaches hundreds of students each year, he occasionally develops friendships and deeper working relationships with a few of them. Some years back, my dad developed a good rapport with an incredibly bright student from Shanghai.

When her family came to the United States, we hosted them for a righteous American barbecue. When my family visited China, they treated us to a proper Chinese meal. And then, when Alice got married in the United States, my dad stood in as her “American father” and my parents signed her marriage license (or whatever court thingy it is that needs to be signed). She and her husband and a bunch of their friends came over to my house after for a wedding celebration. The food was Chinese and American, as were the people. It was a total conglomeration of cultures.

Story 2: How I came to have Chinese parents

When Alice found out I was to be studying abroad, she reached out to her family. Her parents immediately sent me an email inviting me to visit them in Shanghai. We started emailing back and forth, and they made it abundantly clear that while I’m in China, their home is open to me. Because I don’t have to be in Hangzhou until Monday, they picked me up at the airport and are hosting me for the weekend. What was going to be a three day homeless adventure has turned into the most pleasant and restful flight recovery I could hope for.

After a-workin’ my way through immigration (a fairly painless process, luckily), I walked out of the airport to the many stares of the friendly folks surrounding me. I promise I’m not paranoid, I’m just tall and pale and have red hair and blue eyes. I had zippo idea of how I was going to find Alice’s parents. Semi-conscious me decided to walk in a straight line until something happened. That something was a yell of “Mìng Ruì! Mìng Ruì!” All my half-formed plans to sleep inside my suitcase crashed to the ground. Saved!

I expected the night to go something like this: we’d head back to their apartment, eat quickly, and I’d pass out. Given that my understanding of Chinese is at approximately 62%… scratch that… 37% is more accurate, I completely missed them telling me that we weren’t going to be staying at their apartment. After eating dinner at their apartment in Shanghai, we got back in the car and started driving. And driving. And then driving some more. Had I been fully conscious I probably would’ve freaked out about my utter lack of control of the situation. But since I didn’t have the mental capacity to even write my own name, I just zoned and let things happen. About 1.5 hours later, we arrived at their condo on the outskirts of Shanghai. THEN I passed out.

Waking up Saturday morning in a warm bed in a quiet house after 8 hours of sleep was… amazing… awesome… stupendous. I spent the next day and a half eating lots of food, visiting a market, touring an ancient town, reading, sleeping, and trying so so hard to hold conversations in Chinese. That’s been the hardest part. The jet lag is rough, but it has a much shorter timeline than gaining Chinese fluency. Right now, I can almost always pick up the topic of conversation, although the subtleties completely escape me. I don’t say too much, and I’m usually relegated to responding with the proper facial expression. Am I supposed to be happy right now? Oh wait… no… you just told me that you’re struggling with the pollution.

Physically, I’m doing alright. Mentally, I’m exhausted. I’m grateful I’ve had a home for the past few days, and I’m ready to get to Hangzhou.