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Our parents decided not to teach us Chinese. It was an era when they felt we would be better off if we didn't have that complication.

My father was an Episcopal minister, and for 14 years my family lived in China, in a city called Wuchang. We four children spoke Chinese before we spoke English. We left when the communists came, in the early 1930s. I was about 5 years old.

I began in an era where four-letter words were not allowed.

I would not call my family 'traditional Chinese.' We were more what I would term the Colonial Chinese.

Until the age of five, my parents spoke to me in Chinese or a combination of Chinese and English, but they didn't force me to speak Mandarin. In retrospect, this was sad, because they believed that my chance of doing well in America hinged on my fluency in English. Later, as an adult, I wanted to learn Chinese.

Over the years, so many exceptions and amendments were made to China's one-child policy that it was hard to pinpoint a moment to pronounce it dead.

For much of their history, life for most people in China was arduous and circumscribed - and people travelled as little as they could.

My grandparents were far more English in their manners than they were Chinese. For example, we spoke English at home, had afternoon tea every day, and my grandfather, who attended university in Scotland, would smoke his pipe after dinner.

My children speak very good Chinese, and they translate for our American friends.

When I was a little girl, if I didn't eat my soup, my mother would say, 'You have to think of all the Chinese children who have nothing to eat.' But now, for my children, Chinese people make everything, and for my grandchildren, they buy everything.