Mailed a letter to aliens. Got some money in return.

Last week I found out I got second place for the little writing contest I had submitted to a while back. It’s an eerie feeling, getting paid for my writing for the first time. I sent it to my parents. My dad’s only remark was that my use of the term ‘village’ was incorrect, even though my great-grandfather’s patients were indeed peasants. I chuckled, because I mostly blame my mom – whenever she had talked about his upbringing, she joked that he’s basically a peasant. In contrast, she grew up in the bursting metropole of Shanghai, rubbing shoulders with all the worldliness of foreigners who had only very recently been colonizers. And yet my father had been the one to obsess over Tchaikovsky on BBC radio, dabble in writing poetry, and read the leftovers of contraband translated books from his father’s office. In my defense, my memories of my dad’s hometown involved virtually everybody riding on rickshaws (and the occasional moped) and running around crumbling stone courtyards. My…