I first thought of writing this book in 2000 while I was staying at a hotel in Hong Kong overlooking Victoria Harbor. It was March then. When I left my home in California, the tulips and roses in the garden were blooming: blue, yellow, and white. The peaches and pear trees were in bloom as well. When the wind blew, it scattered peach and plum blossoms onto the stone path in my garden, reminding me of the poetry of my favorite Song Dynasty female poet, Li Qingzhao.

I love ancient China, but I live in modern China. And, at least in the case of this paradox, time is the eternal victor.

I have chosen to lead this life – going back and forth between East and West, China and the United States. I feel like a migratory bird traveling across the globe with the changing seasons.

For what? Stories, perhaps. In 2000, I gave up my job in Silicon Valley when "information technology," "Internet," "initial public offering," and "venture capital" were the hottest concepts in the world. I went back to China looking for interesting stories for the Washington Post. I told myself that I am a story collector of the poor, not the rich.

Looking out onto Victoria Harbor and at the skyscrapers standing out against the sky, I felt a battery of complex feelings well up in my heart. And I realized that I was thinking in Chinese again.

After years of living in the Bay Area, I had grown accustomed to talking about multiculturalism, spiritual paths, faith, identity, and the notion of belonging. Back in China, I hear people discuss at length the experience of their first taste of Starbucks coffee, the first time they drove a Buick, chatting on the Internet, experiencing a one-night stand or watching an adult movie. Divorce, oral sex, affairs, boob jobs, abortion, homosexuality, overcharged libidos, impotence – these once-taboo subjects have become daily conversations among urban women who take great pride in owning a bottle of Chanel No. 5. It's cool to be a sex dissident as long as you are not a political dissident. Conservativeness is a dirty word.