My grandmother is the most frustrating, infuriating, stubborn and prideful woman I know, but I love her to death. At 75 years old, she still has the energy to nitpick your outfit down to the seams. Some would call her honest, but her honesty is brutal. I see her about 2-3 times a year, mostly on holidays. During most visits this is how our conversation typically goes:

“This is ugly,” she says to me in her well-versed yet heavily accented Spanish. She pouts her lips and scrunches her nose whispering in an incomprehensible Cantonese, “I don’t like it.” Examining the tips of my hair, “Who cut your hair? It’s not good, I cut it better.” She tucks my hair behind my ears to get a fuller view of my face. “Why don’t you paint yourself up more? As a young lady you need to make yourself look prettier.” “You are too skinny it looks bad.”

This is the woman I decided to go to China with for a month. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas when I met her at Miami International Airport. Finding her was no problem. She was dressed in a black pant suit with a pink blouse protruding from her jacket, and was already busy at work. She was pointing and signaling in every direction to her dumbfounded onlookers – clearly bossing around my uncle and telling the lady at the service counter how to do her job. Tensions were already on the rise a mere 10 minutes into our reunion. Oh grandma… I said goddbye to my parens as my mother whispered good luck in my ear.

I’ve been in china for two weeks and everyday I have to repeat my newfound mantra to keep myself from insanity: “She’s your grandma, she’s your grandma, she’s your grandma.” My complete lack of Cantonese and Mandarin forces my grandmother to be the mediator – which is not the best idea. I’ve been following her around like a love-struck pup. I guess you could say I’ve been “living in the moment,” left completely in the dark about future plans.

But the first week and a half in China were manageable. My grandmother’s friend Poly, who also speaks very, very, limited Spanish luckily accompanied us on the trip, along with my aunt and uncle. They were a buffer between my grandma and I. Both my translators and my saviors. But they left 5 days ago.

So it has been my sister, my cousin and I, alone with grandma. I’ve never been so angry at my grandma in the past 5 days but I’ve also never loved her more. I don’t know if it’s old age or nostalgia, but she keeps slipping into bits of her past and retelling her story as a child orphaned at 10 and married at 16.

My grandmother’s father worked for for Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, a hugely popular and influential Chinese political leader that helped overthrow the Qing dynasty and put an end to monarchical rule, establishing the first Republic of China. She came from a wealthy family. During the first war against the Japanese, her father was captured and forced into heavy labor. But as a writer, he was unaccostumed to doing heavy work. So he was beat and whipped. Meanwhile my grandmother’s mom still had two children to care for and an absent father. Leaving the house chores to her daughters, she found work.

My grandmother learned to cook at an early age, standing on her tip-toes on a bench to be able to reach the stove. Her father soon returned, but in terrible conditions. While her mom continued to work, also with illness, her father lay sick in bed. My grandmother, as the youngest, had to wash her sisters blood-stained underwear during her monthly cycles. Her family had fallen so quickly, from a life of prominence – “I used to have maids,” she told me – to a life of poverty and suffering. Her father would tell her, “Your knees are for you to wipe your tears away,” as she sat crouched with her thighs against the back side of her calf muscles, scrubbing away. At 10 she was fatherless. Her dad passed away from illness. Her and her sister pleaded with their uncle to send them money. He conceded. The day after her father died, she became an orphan. Her mother passed away within a day. She told me, “I shook her and shook her but she never woke up.” I ran to the door yelling for help but there was no one. It was a very sad day.” Orphaned and poor, they once again asked their uncle for some money. But they were turned away accused as liars and filthy schemers.

Since then my grandmother has never asked anyone for money or let anyone wash her clothes. With a past so cruel and unrelenting, her obsession with frivolities is put in a new light. Her determination to do things her way and never step down is contextualized. She is a woman that has worked hard to get to where she is now. She is a woman with a good heart but a fierce temper. She is my grandmother.