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hard for money; what’s it for but to give

to family? But let me give lei see

gracefully. Not let worry show. The time

has come, the occasion is rightnow that I saved

for, saved red paper, saved clean

new bills, artfully folded the money,

creased edges, tucked flaps. Carry

lei see with you wherever you go,

be ready to give it away. Aha. Whew.

Here’s the secret compartment, here’s lei see.

Take out just so many, keep

enough for descendants of second and third wives

in Mother’s village. Lei see dai gut

to you. And you. You too.

You’re welcome. Most very welcome. Thank you.

You prosper too. You do prosper.

People showed me their cell phones; last

visit, they showed me PVC

pipes. The inside of my ancestral home

was changed, the dirt floor covered, tiled.

Earth indoors no more.

Chickens used to peck the dirt clean,

and kitties played, and cats warmed themselves

by the stove. That brick stove that my mother rebuilt,

and cooked at. Read novels while cooking.

Food burned, and her mother-in-law scolded.

On my earlier visit, a pig had peered in at us,

forehoof taking a step inside,

but decided, too crowded, too many

noisy people, stepped back, and left.

This visit, I didn’t see a chicken,

duck, goat, or cat, or pig in the house

or lanes and alleys. A TV sat

to the side of the altar; the symmetrical array

of emblems, calligraphy, and family photos that took

up the center of the wall faced the front door.

You walk in, and the first thing you see,

all you see, is altar up into the loft.

I have entered my playhouse. The last

time I was here, it was not so obvious

that my family kept a shrine. But then they

were concluding the 10 years of Great Calamity,

the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,

and the altar was plain, a mere outline,

a space framed with red paper. The light

bulb was hung before it. No icons

nor idols but family photos. Us.

“Which sister are you?” “This is me;

I’m the eldest sister.” I’d gone to the other

end of the earth, and found pictures of myself;

they’d been thinking of me. The altar now

was resplendent with words inkbrushed on fresh

red paper. Elder Brother and his wife,

Elder Sister, sat beside my husband

and me on a row of chairs and stools along

the altar, our backs to it. Other relatives sat

to the sides, as in the inglenook back home.

Seats were covered with patterned fabric,

which decorated the altar too. Everybody

talked, said that he or she was happy,

life was good, all was well. The many

people not here, also well.

(Rude and bad luck to state otherwise.)

Ah, here come 2 cousins home

from the army. They’ve been gone all day

at their job, and are home from work. The Chinese

army is not like your American army;

they are boy scouts, do good

deeds, give help. My soldier cousins,

being young men preoccupied with making their way,

making their lives, were not much interested

in me, some old relative. Mumbling,

they shook hands because I stuck out

my hand. Elder Brother said to me,

“Greet our grandma and grandpa, la.”

Amid the people, my people, there sat

on a little bench a bowl of incense

in sand. “Up there. Ah Po and

Ah Goong are up there.” I stood

to look where he pointed. My grandparents

are up in the loft? Their ashes? Their ghosts?

Above the altar? Up higher than the loft?

In heaven? Someone handed me a stick of incense.

Earll was beside me, also with lit incense.

In unison, holding the stick like the stem of a flower

between prayer palms, we raised it toward

the ancestors, bowed, bowed again, bowed

the third requisite bow—I felt at my back

a heat, a wind, a spirit, blow in

through the open door—and planted the incense

in the sand. Thank god for Zen practice.

I had not lost li, though gone to the West.

They had not lost li—tradition,

manners, the rites—though Cultural Revolution.

I asked to see the water buffalo.

“We saw the baby buffalo last time.

Is he still with you?” Yes, oh yes.

Again, my family, followed by people all

along the way, people somehow also

family, walked through the lanes and