Yet I have never dreamed about Iowa City, where I first landed in America. When asked about my initial impression of the place, I cannot excavate anything from memory to form a meaningful answer. During a recent trip there I visited the neighborhood I used to walk past every day. The one-story houses, which were painted in pleasantly muted colors, with gardens in the front enclosed by white picket fences, had not changed. I realized that I had never described them to others or to myself in Chinese, and by the time English was established as my language they had become everyday mundanities.
...more
