Searching for the Heart Radical: A Journey Between East and West is a collection of linked memoirs that trace my experiences as a young half-Chinese, half-Caucasian American woman while I lived in China from 1999-2002. These pieces explore my relationships with lovers, family members, friends, neighbors, languages, cultures, and layers of contradiction within myself.  I bring to life the challenges of communicating hard truths with those we love; of feeding our desire for both solitude and companionship; and of following the wisdom of our hearts.

            In 1999, I set off to Western China with a desire to immerse myself in Chinese, a language I spoke with my grandmother as a child but less and less as an adult.  Right away, I was faced with the bustling capitalism of China’s urban centers; initiated into an underground world of Chinese artists; and privileged to witness a Tibetan “sky burial” in the remote countryside of Sichuan province.

            But the heart of my experiences in China began when I met and fell in love with Dawei, a Chinese painter, and moved into his apartment in Chengdu, a city of nine million in Sichuan. Although we could at first only communicate with a simple vocabulary, we intuitively felt a kinship, and spent the next few years cultivating our own intimate routine. Once a week, we had dinner with Dawei’s parents who lived down the street, and occasionally we ventured out into the art scene with friends, but we felt most at ease in the privacy of our home.  On many levels, I felt like an insider, more connected to Chinese culture and language than other expats—and yet outside of my relationship with Dawei, I was treated as an outsider, a foreigner, as foreign as the first day I arrived.

            Each piece in this collection brings to life a different aspect of my experiences as I was pulled between languages, cultures, and desires. Most pieces are narrative-driven, although a few are more lyric and meditative.  “Popo” explores my relationship with my Chinese grandmother who lives alone in Los Angeles and fears growing old; “Walls” takes readers on a walk through our loud, congested, Chengdu neighborhood filled with hawkish neighbors; “Being Good” follows my efforts to be a “good, Chinese girlfriend” in the eyes of Dawei’s parents; “Winning the War Against English” highlights my experience teaching English for a ego-maniac sweeping China with his ‘Crazy English’ methods; “Jiu Jiu” explores my encounter with my long-lost uncle—the ‘black sheep’ of the family; and “Pilgrim’s Path” traces my longing for a deeper spiritual awareness as I visit a Tibetan monastery.

            The final pieces in this book reflect upon my relationship to the Chinese language, to my heart, and to my sense of home, as I return to a solitary life in America. “Baby” says goodbye to Dawei and apologizes for all I can’t say; “Awareness” studies the comings and goings of my new neighbors on a gentrified, crack-infested street in Seattle; and “How to Learn Chinese” traces my history of learning and forgetting how to speak and write in Chinese.

             Ultimately, Searching for the Heart Radical Searching for the Heart Radical: A Journey Between East and West follows my quest to navigate a fluid space between languages, cultures, and spiritual beliefs; to listen to my heart; and to view the world I encounter through eyes of clarity and compassion.