January 20, 2020

Novella

Barbara Rendall is a Canadian writer currently living in Beijing. Earlier, she lived in Macao, a fascinating city near Hong Kong, which is the setting of this story. She has published poetry in a variety of North American magazines and short fiction in Chatelaine and Redbook.

Nothing says welcome like coming home to one's mother ...

Trevor, stinging after his mother's "welcome," must now face his Aunt, Granny, and his obnoxious cousins ...

Trevor's bed will be his Auntie's couch, his food whatever the family can spare. Having lost his income, what choice does he have?

Staying with Aunt Cookie is all right -- unless you have grown accustomed to having your own bed and a bathroom door that shuts ...

Is it an ill omen that Trevor would rather do laundry than have to visit the foreigners?

Surely Trevor is going to wake up and find it has all been a dream ...

Conclusion. When you've raced to find wealth and modernity, what will you have seen of the journey?

Serial

A city in Canada, and a city in China -- so far apart, yet with so very much in common! Becoming sister cities should be the easiest thing in the world ...

Shanghai -- so modern, so westernized -- made the travelers feel right at home. How could any modern, worldly Canadian call China a "foreign" country? Yutian is going to be a great sister city ...

Getting used to a new climate is a challenge, but cultural shock begins at the table...

Hints of economic growth are all around the delegation as they tour Yutian, but behind the scenes, a mysterious land looms, and a way of life that none of them has ever experienced ...

A tour bus visiting a village is a source of income for the inhabitants, but what will they make of a tour bus in distress blocking a road?

The Canadian guests are venturing out on their own, and seeing China differently -- once they are willing to remove the distorting lenses of preconception...

There are a lot of sensitive questions the delegation wants to ask -- and Trish has come halfway around the world and can't escape one one of them.

The great honor of being invited to a banquet at the top of Great Wisdom Hill is extended to the Canadian delegates. Trish, in her slow ascent up the mountain, may come to understand its name...

A farewell banquet for their last evening in Yutian: beautiful music, exotic food, kind words -- and a diplomatic incident?

Conclusion. With souvenirs and Chinese presents packed in their bags, the delegation prepares to return to Canada. And they will carry with them another gift from China ...

Essay

This article originated as a talk given at the Creative Writing Forum sponsored by Renmin University Press, Beijing, China, July 13-15, 2016.