The three-story ascent seemed just about right for a Chinese, village-style new construction. As my brothers and I grasped the bamboo scaffolding (which appeared to be holding the whole joint together during construction) to turn and head up the next flight of stairs, our shoes sounded like sandpaper as they pivoted and pried away bits of the clay steps. It felt more mountainside-trek than new family homestead. While we climbed with a new, quiet appreciation for our Scandinavian, Minnesota-born mom’s accusation of doing something “Chinese-style,” our dad’s cacophonous Cantonese filled the space with a glee that is just so typical of the man. He was happy to be back in Yulong Village on the west side of the Pearl River Delta near Macau that August afternoon in 2007 — happy to show his three sons what had become of the little village he called home up until his 1972 escape from China.

Ben, Justin and Alex Kwan in Yulong Village (SanZhou near Zhuhai, China), August 2007

We emerged from the dim and dirty stairwell atop the roof, one of the tallest in the village (a misnomer, if you will, the place bore zero resemblance to the rice paddy hamlet of our dad’s bedtime stories.) A lush, dense green hillside our dad called his childhood “playground” rose behind us and a distant slate of South China Sea and cloudy sky lay in the distance before us — looking as though it could swallow the equally-gray expanse of similar village buildings.

Tin Tat Kwan explains the dynamics of his old village (which isn't really a village any more), August 2007

And then the tirade began. Our dad unleashed a dissonant duet of Cantonese and English that dabbles in the occasional dirty word as he peered over the edge of the roof, looking down at the alley that snakes up the hillside between addresses that bear names like Kwan, Lo, Wong and Chin. Apparently old Yulong had become a bad neighborhood (or bad nay bo hood as dad relayed with equally stilted gestures.) We all leaned over the bricks to look down to discover how the new building, which sat right where the old, shoddy one did, jutted out into the alley about four or six feet farther than any of the other homes. In such a “bad neighborhood,” as dad told us, one had to fight back against a neighbor’s bad construction and subsequent wayward sewage flow by building out, blocking the filth and perhaps even creating a problem for the next person down the line.

“Oh well,” my dad seemed to say with a sheepish shrug of the shoulders, “just how it is here.”

Was this life without good municipal code and enforcement? Without laws people felt they needed to heed? Bribery and the ubiquitous Chinese system of guanxi, or social capital, probably had something to do with it, too. Unfortunately, our grandma was taking some heat from some of the neighbors. “Oh well?”

Mom’s “Chinese-style” critique always made my brothers and me giggle a bit. The humor in seeing a little slice of the world operating under this system — in appearance at that moment, at least — was good reason to egg our dad on a bit. We hooted and hollered. Seeing the guy use his pidgin English to disparage the neighbors in a language they did not understand was even more funny.

And as a good laugh often does, that one conjured contemplation on what had come to be of our family’s strand on history’s long arc. A deep sense of pride about where we’d come from and where we might still go bubbled up.

Which brings me to today — a day I have been waiting for with intense anticipation. For the last four years, I have been working as a journalist in Michigan. I loved that job but change came calling. I’ve decided to go to law school — but conveniently — I have about a year to pursue something completely different.

I have elected to sling chopy suey back at the old family haunt — the Red Moon Chinese Cafe in Eden Prairie, Minn. And I couldn’t be more excited about the prospect. Thinking back to our family trip to China in 2007 — I realize there are probably a thousand life stories my dad hasn’t told me. I’m going to use my reporter skills to ferret out the fascinating details of the 17-year-old (who looked 12, I’ve seen the lone picture of him from back then) who ran barefoot through a jungle then swam the silty Pearl River Delta to find freedom somewhere on the other side.

This blog will be my medium for recording the details — a lifelong desire of mine. It is also going to be a place for me to talk about the sweet and the sour of life at Red Moon. I’m equally excited to share a behind-the-scenes look at running a small business, trying to compete with the big guns over at [insert the name of a corporatized, bastardized, but sometimes tasty and damn competitive eatery.] There will be improvements, experimentation, failures, successes, fun times and boring times. I hope you will stick with me throughout.

And don’t worry, Eden Prairie, we won’t be breaking any city code during our small improvements. After all — we’re not in old Yulong anymore.

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