I knew my grandmother as a small kid before I moved away from Northern China, and my only memories of her used to be her cooking – she cooked the best chicken mushroom stews. The mushroom she cooked with was one native to the northern forests, it has an almost pungent smell and stains the soup dark-brown, but tastes heavenly when cooked in the right hands. It was my initial understanding of the land from which I come. When I last visited her, she was sick from cancer and Alzheimer’s. She told me fragmented memories from her younger age, her upbringing, work, marriage, birth-givings, abortions and incarceration. They were the kind of memory that can turn your hair grey in one night, consisting of traumas of war, gender-based violence, persecution from the state, having no choice but to leave one’s native land.
It was hard for me to process this part of my heritage, especially during a time where it had become increasingly unsafe for women and women of color in the United States – my then country of residence. I had taken photographs during my visit, I will come back to them when I’m ready.