After 6+ years due to COVID and just life-responsibilities I guess, my mom and I are finally returning to china, to hohhot, inner mongolia. We go for three weeks and my dad joins us on that last week. My sister can't come cuz shes doing some phd research or something sweaty but anyway that sucks but anyway no it doesnt we dont like her but anyway man we havent seen our family in so long. Last year especially I had this almost dying urge to want to come back to china, I just want to see all my uncles, all my cousins, all the moments, and to see my grandma...they're getting old. It's just been so long I missed them and I feel like I lost myself, this is where my mom and my dad grew up and I want to return for the sake of returning, I have so many memories all those times I went when I was little, and now I'm all grown up, I've changed and I want to see it all and see them all again. I have to.
Although I am literally like 5 days late, here will be daily diary entries, which is more fairly personal and lots of times the family members i mention need context. It's just a diary for myself to look back on.
djj = yi jiu jiu aka da lao jiu = my mom's mom's older brother
2lj = er lao jiu = my mom's mom's younger brother
3lj = san lao jiu = my mom's mom's younger brother
4jj = lei lei jiu jiu = 2lj's older son
5jj = hu hu jiu jiu = lao yi's son
6jj = er zi jiu jiu = 2lj's younger son
7jj = 7 jiu jiu = 3lj's older son
8jj = kai kai jiujiu = 3lj's younger son
----> adding a 'g' at the end implies jing instead of jiu, eg. = 3ljg = san lao jing = 3lj's wife
qi qi = 4jj's older son
dou sha = 4jj's younger daughter
guo guo = 6jj's son
kang jun yi = 7jj's oldest son
7jj daughter = 7jj's younger daughter (i forgot her name)
kang jin yi = 8jj's son
lao yi = my mom's mom's younger sister
lao lao = my mom's mom
lao ye = my mom's dad
da yi = my mom's older sister
na na = my mom's younger sister
yi he = na na's son aka my cousin
da jie = da yi's daughter aka my cousin
goo goo = my dad's older sister
yang guang = goo goo's son aka my cousin
nai nai = my dad's mom
8/15 - 8/19
I always do this where I start writing diaries late because theres less sense of urgency so these first 5 days will just be me summarizing rn. We left on 8/15 on a Thursday at 12 PM and cuz of timezones and stuff i dont even know what day we landed but we landed at Shanghai international airport after a 13 hr flight and had like a 6 hour layover or something, it was very long. Me and mom first headed out of the airport and just walked like a block where we got to see shanghai LOL basically just saw the highway and like literally nothing but it was nice being outside I guess, it was EXTREMELY HOT. It was exactly the same feeling I had when I stepped out of the Florida airport for the first time. It was so hot and it was so humid it's like wow holy cow.
[TODO ADD PHOTO]
But yea at this point this was my first time in Asia since like 2018 that last trip and even tho it was just some signs and a curb and a highway I was so amazed at all the infrastructure and everything, now like 5 days later writing this I'm looking back at the photos and its so funny its literally just a street but I was so excited.
Anyway we also ate a meal during our layover, my mom was really not feeling well after that super long flight and the meal helped her feel better. That meal was so good cuz we were hungry and its chinese food, we ate hun dun, some sichuan rou that literally made you feel numb, rice, and a small xiar bin. Man chinese food is so good ill prob go on a rant about it later.
then we boarded our flight to hohhot, inner mongolia which was 2 hrs, I was literally COOKED I remember I was trying not to fall asleep when boarding the flight, dude as soon as I sat down that flight it was OVER my mom liaterally had to wake me up, the plane was about to land.
then we landed and lao yi, 5jj, 4jj, yi he, na na, da jie, and da yi welcomed us which we didnt expect, at this point it was like 1 am or something. We havent seen them in so long and it's such close family. 5jj, 4jj, and lao yi drove us to a hotel where we stay the night because we didnt want to zhe teng (bother) lao lao because it's so late. Then the rest of the days I don't really want to describe in detail cuz there's sooo much that happened its gonna take forever.
But basically we lived in lao laos house for most days and we did so much stuff. We visited lao ye too, went to 2lj a lot, had a huge lunch where like 20+ of our family came and it was just one of those huge meals and i got to meet everyone and all the kids and everyone and it was a big meal the food was so good and there was a lot of gan bei'ing lots of cheers. Me, mom, da yi, da jie, na na, and yi he, also spent a lot of time together, sometimes us kids woudl split up and they would take me to these huge malls and streets and markets and underground markets and man hu shi is such a small city relative to some other cities in China, but man IT IS HUGE like wow these malls and shops are just so beautiful and so big and there's so many people it's actually crazy like wow dude there's just so many people and so many housing complexes with so many small restaurants everywhere and just i cant describe it man, this city and this country is truly one of a kind just because of this density and this quantity of population, it just creates such a different society. Like even tho manhattan or other megacities/urbanism have a similar population density and everything, what we have in china is just so different and unique because of like just the culture but also these housing complexes, neighborhoods/communities, and businesses and like transportation methods with all the motorbikes and just everything, you have to be there to truly fully know what I'm talking about.
ANyway yea a lot happened there was so much just conversations that happened, 3ljg, lao yi, 2lj, all came over multiple times to just talk or bring fruits or stuff and yea. ALRIGHT time to be consistent with the diaries now.
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a 4 DAY DIARY
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