家 (jiā) - Home

家 (Jiā). The Chinese character for home. And also, family.


Used in a sentence: My jiā has been putting up with me for an entire week as I puttered around the house instead of packing for my two-month trip to Beijing. 


You see, I'm notorious for 1) packing at the last minute and 2) over-packing. I think it's because I'm a total n00b when it comes to traveling. Currently, the tabs open on my browser include google searches for "how many pairs of underwear should I pack" and "TSA regulations shampoo." Oh, and also Facebook, because it's unclear if I will find a way around the Great Firewall of China this summer.

Do you think the TSA would let this fly?

Given that I had to actually UNPACK everything I had brought back from Northwestern last weekend in order to, you know, pack for this trip, my room was a disaster zone from 10 am this morning until about midnight (in my defense, I attended a wedding in between!). Luckily for me, my mother and two aunts kept popping into my room throughout the evening to keep me company, and to give helpful advice for my first return to the motherland since 1997.

I am now equipped with some helpful phrases for bartering with street vendors, to supplement the not-so-helpful tips that I've already found in some travel guides. I think they only work if you say them with my youngest aunt's streetwise attitude and in perfect Mandarin, but hey, it might be worth a try.


I'm leaving for the airport in about 1.5 hours to begin 24 hours of travel, so it's probably not worth sleeping. I insist that this is an anti-jetlag strategy, rather than the result of my procrastination. 

See you on the other side!