My mom’s trip to Taiwan was a major turning point in her life, opening up a new travel-obsessed chapter. In her old pictures she’d be looking askance, lips shut, not a trace of a smile. Now she looks right at the camera, mouth wide in a smile. She even throws up a peace sign every now and then.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/01/30
By: TNL Staff

This is an excerpt from the book “Jottings of a Life in Altay” (記一忘三二) by Li Juan (李娟).

Photo Credit: shankar s. on FlickrCC BY-SA 2.0

 An unabridged Chinese-language version of this excerpt can be found here.

Since my mom returned from her trip to Taiwan, she’s wanted nothing to do with the mainland. Whether it’s that Ürümqi (capital of northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region) is too noisy or Hongdun village is too dirty, there’s no shortage of complaints. And the second she’s done complaining, she’ll change her clothes and go right to cleaning the cow pen or sweeping out the chicken coop, same as always.

It’s been half a year since she’s been back, and no matter who she starts chatting with she’ll still find a way to work Taiwan into the conversation.    [FULL  STORY]