The stars shine brighter in the Eastern sky, brighter than against the incandescent glow of Montreal city lights, brighter than through the ebony canopy of suburban Maryland nights, was what I thought during my summer in China�in the Mainland, where I was learning to speak the language of my ancestors, the language my parents purposely omitted from my education when they immigrated from Taiwan to the West�in Hangzhou, the city with West Lake, Xi Hu, by which I often sat with my speaking partner, Xiao Wu, where I discovered that though my genes are Chinese my vision is not.
In the relative coolness of the late August night, as Xiao Wu and I watch the Moon and her radiant Consorts reflected in the serene surface of the lake, we told each other what we observed when we raised our gazes toward the constellations. The black canvas revealed to him the Rain Dragon, come to end the summer drought, and the Court of the Royal Prince, whereas the portraits painted for me were of the Nemean Lion, nemesis in Hercules� first labor, and the personification of chastity and fertility in the Virgin, product of Demeter�s embrace with her daughter Persephone.
Though our onyx hair, elliptical eyes, and narrow noses were the result of race, our stories were not the same. What we saw was who we are as written by the stars.
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