My travels in China are officially over. I traveled constantly, ate aggressively and exhausted my brain with a Cantonese and Mandarin infusion. I left China knowing that one day I just have to come back. Whether it’s to understand those conversations that were over my head, take one more slurp of some shark fin soup, or navigate through the Three Gorges, my travels in China are far from over. And my understanding of my grandmother is only beginning. I don’t know if I’m any closer to finding my other half, but I think I may have found an Empress Wu within…

Empress Wu belonged to the Tang dynasty, the dynasty many claim to be the most socially forward, in regards to women, and the most interesting to study. Empress Wu went as far as killing her sons to maintain hold over the throne, but proved to be one of the strongest leaders among women, bringing women’s rights to the forefront and thrusting Imperial China forward. She did everything to hold on to power; and while many historians dismiss her as ruthless, most do not deny her prominence as one of women’s greatest exemplars.

While I am far from murdering my future children or deceiving men under my imperial charm, I have identified a scathingly familiar characteristic in Empress Wu that runs in my family, that is to say, my grandmother.

Manipulative and relentlessly right, I swear my grandmother is a descendant from the Tang dynasty if not Empress Wu herself reincarnated. At least she will be someone that will never be forgotten.

Most of my family has taken one of two approaches towards her. One is flat out ignoring her, and the other is crude submission – the path most traveled by all four of her sons. I’d say my approach to her is the road less traveled and not paved either. I am her brick wall, her contradiction, the accumulated reaction of things unsaid and emotions held back.

Respecting your elders is a high virtue among the Chinese. I struggle with this. But who wouldn’t with a Wu-like grandmother? Seniority is vital and position is according to age. Elderly homes are uncommon in China because most senior citizens live with their children whose unabated duty is to take care of their parents. Some children living in mainland China will bring their spouses home to live with them and their parents. In Hong Kong due to limited space and the expensive prices gauges for tiny rentals, married children and parents are forced to separate yet most still reside in close proximity to their families.

In Beijing we took a bicycle tour around the Hutong area, Beijing’s oldest residential sector and had the opportunity to drink some tea and munch on wa-chi (watermelon seeds) with a local family. Sonic Wan, the son of our kind host family explained that when he married he would bring his wife to live with him and his parents. “Do you want to get your own apartment one day?” I asked. No, he calmly replied saying that this house had been in his generation and it was where his family grew up. “If we move, we will all move together he explained.”

Family unity and respect is a core belief among the Chinese. This includes respecting your elders, which probably includes a cluster on not screaming at your grandmother in public. Like I did.

Scene: a remote town neighbor to Zhongshan, Chihu. Place: a seemingly deserted cluster of warehouses selling ceramic statues immobile even at the fullest exertion of all your bodily strength. Circumstances: my grandmother decided to wander off by herself in this no man’s land leaving us with an unknown driver and her incommunicado friend that spoke Chinese only. My 5% Chinese vocabulary wouldn’t quite apply since ordering a steaming plate of rice noodles would be far from appropriate.

The scene unfolds as we desperately cirlce the entire perimeter yelling her name wondering where she could have gone and worse: what we will do without being able to communicate. We run around the entire set of warehouses through alleys and seemingly occulted doorways. Where could she be? Anyone can hear the echoing voices of her three exasperated granddaughters.

She finally appears and I let it out. I felt like a parents disciplining a child or worse, like my grandmother in her manipulative rages. The workers found it funny at first; three foreigners running around like chickens without a head looking for their grandma. But the minute I began speaking in a slightly heated, potentially raised voice to my grandmother, telling her that she could not just walk away without letting us know, their smiles vanished into stern grimaces. Let’s just say a skinny 20-year-old girl that looks 14 would never be caught dead speaking to an elder in that tone. Oops.

I scare myself sometimes falling into these heated temperaments, blinded by my assertion that I am right. It’s a like a schizophrenia that I fall into, quiet and passive yet suddenly fierce and determined. I blame my grandmother’s genetic pool. Sometimes I freak myself out, “I sound just like grandma!” But I can’t help it.

I’ll admit that while traveling with my grandmother may have been exhausting and nearly murderous, without her this trip would not have been half as rewarding. She introduced me to some of the most hospitable people I’ve ever met, and acquaintances I never want to lose. Simultaneously she forced us all under her undeniable spell condemned to follow her every command. One, due to lack of language and two, due to the magnetic force between family. But I learned to break it every now and then. I think that’s the Wu coming out in me as well.