I saw how much I had never even known to ask. The essay showed how quick his mind was, his sharp awareness of the history he was living through. I looked for his other writings. He had published four volumes of fiction and countless articles in journals and newspapers. But during the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath, his books had gone out of print. Our family had lost their copies. I asked my relatives to help me find them, and even enlisted Chinese friends to help me search, but novels by Qian Feng weren't listed in the used books databases, and I still haven't found them.

Some notes from my journal, from that visit to China:

At dinner with yeye, he looked at me and said, zhe ge gu niang shen me gui xing? ('What is this girl's last name,' or more properly, 'What family is this girl from?') …

Later we asked him how old he was, and he said 95. How many children did he have? Three. What were their names? Xiaojiang, Xiaobing, Xiaoer. Xiaosan. Then my aunt asked, So how many children is that? Isn't that four? Do you have any other children, or is that it? (He'd forgotten his fifth child, his eldest daughter.) …

At dinner I watched nainai break open a crab shell and spoon the yellow yolk on to bread for yeye, very quietly, while everyone else was talking. Jostling his elbow so he'd look down and see the bread in his hand, and methodically, unthinkingly eat it. His eyes barely open any more, I don't know if he sees. …

I realised this may be the last time I see yeye.

After her birthday dinner, I spent three days interviewing my grandmother. Because she spoke in a thick dialect, my aunt had to be there to translate into standard Mandarin for me. In the evenings the three of us piled into the old, familiar bedroom across the only bathroom in the apartment, my grandmother grumbling about her hearing aids while I fiddled with the microphone. Together, we tried to cobble together some understanding of her history.