I'm tired and weak and have no appetite. I slept in the entire day, during which time I kept having the same continuous weird dream: I was the judge for some cooking competition and it was national news--I was constantly being hounded over which chicken dish I would pick to be the best. If I tried and dug deep I could probably meaningfully interpret the dreams, but I'd just chalk it up to being sick.
In the evening my grandmother nagged me out of bed and we went out for dinner; my grandparents, father and I. It was nice to be able to sit down to a meal with them, but I didn't eat much.
Back at home my uncle, mom's youngest brother, and his wife and kid visited. We sat in the living room to talk, but I didn't do much talking. The language barrier was just too much to overcome. I know enough to get by, simple words and phrases, but concepts and anything else advanced are just too much for me. It was awful. Awkward, for me anyway. I was a black hole of conversation; anything steered my way I either didn't understand or was only able to muster up a short answer.
The purpose of this trip was to see my maternal grandparents and everyone else on mom's side of the family, all of whom I love dearly and haven't seen since my last visit almost a decade ago.
It hurts so much to not be able to meaningfully communicate with the people I love. Who was I fooling with my Chinese for dummies and travel language dictionary and phrase books? I know it's really not my fault, but I still feel like I've failed them. I didn't think it'd be this hard.
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