In the summer of 2001, I set out across northeast China (once called Manchuria) with a contingent of almost two dozen family members. We traveled in two small buses: one full of Changs, the other full of luggage. The purpose of the trip was two-fold: to fulfill my grandfather's last wish of making donations to several schools he attended in China, humble institutions from which he had emerged to become a leading modern surgeon in China at that time; and to see and learn something about our ancestral land.

Let me start by saying that when I discuss northeast China, I'm not doing so with any nostalgia for the Manchu conquest of China during the Ching dynasty. Aside from my family being a Han-Manchu mix, I grew up on a diet of kung-fu flicks in which the corrupt Ching dynasty was uniformly vilified and the heroes came out of secret societies (with names like "White Lotus Clan") working toward a Ming restoration. Not that kung-fu flicks are necessarily the ultimate arbiter of my world; but in most instances to this day, I tend to sympathize with subversives. Nevertheless, the Manchus do have a long and fascinating history, much of it overlapping with neighboring Korea, Mongolia, and Russia. For example, pictured below is the pyramid tomb of King Gwanggaeto who unified a vast kingdom in the 4th century CE:

And here's a 7-meter-tall stone erected in 414 CE on which the king's history is inscribed:

Jumping way ahead to recent history, northeast China is also the site of the beginnings of World War II, which in Asia is considered to have gotten underway when the Japanese invaded China in 1932 and began a brutal occupation during which some 10 million Chinese were killed. This included a network of unimaginably inhumane prisons and concentration camps where Chinese civilians were enslaved and subjected to extensive experimentation in chemical and biological weaponry, a portion of the horrors of World War II which is largely ignored in the West. In many sites around the Chinese northeast, memorials, museums, and monuments remind visitors of this recent bloodshed.

Pictured below is an enormous sculpture commemorating the heroic fight that seven unknown Chinese women put up when their village was attacked by the Japanese in the 1930s. According to folk legend, seven peasant women picked up guns and gave the invading army hell, killing untold numbers, sustaining numerous wounds themselves (one was blinded by gunfire). They were eventually overwhelmed by the advancing army and forced to retreat to the Wusihun River, all the while engaging in heavy firefighting. Finally, out of ammunition, all of them mortally wounded, they jumped into the river's icy waters and drowned to avoid being captured or killed by the hand of the enemy:

Reverse view:

There are many similar stories. Incidentally, it was the Japanese invasion that caused my grandparents to flee their homeland, and which eventually landed me here in America. So bitter were the violent memories of that era that my grandfather refused to buy a Japanese car for the rest of his life, even when it made the most economic and pragmatic sense. This is part of my personal reason for naming my blog after a Japanese word: the spirit of reconciliation and renewed friendship; my dream of pan-Asian solidarity.

Now let's remember that my journey through northeast China had an entirely positive, if poignant, purpose. Everywhere my family went, we were received with gestures of warmth that continually left me speechless. At my grandfather's elementary school, the schoolchildren treated us to a special performance of singing and dancing:

On a decidedly less cute note, here's the imperial throne in Shenyang from which Manchu emperors conducted business, before they upped and moved to Beijing:

Did I mention food? At every stop along the road, ridiculous feasts. Here's me (far right) and three of my cousins, at a dumpling restaurant in Harbin that has been in operation for 500 years. That's a lot of dumplings to have cooked. On the walls are photographs of emperors and high officials dining at the establishment (surrounded by entourages and imperial guards in full regalia). There are more than 200 types of dumplings on the menu, and each type has not only a unique filling, but its own unique wrapping. Let's just say, the Chinese take dumplings seriously. And these are happy campers:

Of course, you can't travel through China without taking in at least a few Buddhist and Taoist temples and monasteries. On this particular trip, we stopped into about a half-dozen. I'll probably write more about those experiences at some point; but for now, here's a cliffside Taoist temple:

Yes, I climbed all those stairs. At the top, I came upon a monk smiling at me with the most bemused expression, probably thinking, What do you want, a cookie or something?:

Inside the temples, you're not really supposed to take pictures. But I couldn't resist snapping this detail of dakinis in a Buddhist mural (I especially like the one on the right with the skull floating over her palm):

Finally, for me the entire journey culminated with a visit to a sacred volcanic lake whose Chinese name Tian Chi is normally translated as Lake of Heaven, but which I prefer to call Sky Pool. Located atop Changbai mountain, many legends swirl around these perennially mist-draped waters. It's a bit of a trek to get there, and the mists rarely lift enough for visitors to actually see much of anything; but what I saw was more than enough for me. With a spectacular waterfall cascading out of the volcanic crater, and hot springs spewing steam, and the thin air seemingly vibrating all around me, the entire journey crystallized when I clambered up to the cliff's edge and gazed down into the Sky Pool. Sky above me, sky below me, beauty behind me, beauty before me.