From my office, I can see the Western Hills, which are actually mountains situated, unsurprisingly, to the west of the city. Before the mountains, there are apartment complexes and high rise commercial buildings. I can see landmarks which tell me approximately how far away my home is from my office (my two bedroom flat on the ground floor of the building in the back of our subdivision, not my two story home in America, which I once picked out on google Earth by looking for a deep green swimming pool in the back yard), and I can see the intersection of East Wind Road and People's Road, which is perpetually crammed with cars, busses, pedestrians, and bicycles, although the bicycles are fewer each year, giving way to mopeds and scooters. I know that behind the cell phone shopping plaza lies the Wal Mart, although I cannot see it from the window, and adjacent to the Wal Mart is KFC, which by now is probably packed with Chinese teenagers getting their fix. Please don't mistake this for an anti-Western consumer culture rant, for KFC or no, Chinese people love fried chicken, so KFC was a natural hit here, likely more popular in the Middle Kingdom than back home in America. But I digress.

The mountains are supposed to resemble a sleeping woman, and if you look closely, yet from a distance, you can see the gentle incline of her breasts, the curve of her hips, and the downward slope of her legs. If you climb the mountain, of course, you will not see this woman, you will see rocks and trees and stone staircases leading up to Dragon's Gate, the spot with the best view of Kunming from above, much better than the view from my office which is, afterall, only on the 10th floor, and not that high up at all. There is one building that pokes up unpleasantly around the woman's shoulderblades, interrupting the graceful line of her figure, yet were I on the highest floor of this building, the 28th, that building would probably not appear so high, and the view of the mountains might be better. The rent on the 10th floor was cheaper than that on the 28th, however, and the office is pleasant enough even with the obstructed view.

We lie in the city center, and it is a city, in more ways than even my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina was a city. There are three million legal residents here, and closer to five or six if you count the transients from the countryside, the people without "hukou" registration marking them as official Kunming dwellers, the vegetable sellers, the beggars, the refugees from other provinces looking for happiness out West, in China's frontier that is no longer a frontier, but simply another big city, albeit far more pleasant than most. This city moves, it hums, it rumbles, and it shudders under the weight of the population. No matter whether you walk down the street at four in the afternoon or four in the evening, you will encounter people, unlike Charleston, or Austin, or even Dallas, where you might walk an entire block in broad daylight and encounter no one.

This city will become my childrens' legacy, it will become (and already is) a part of my history, and I a part of its, no matter how small a part I may be. This city did not give birth to my husband, for he came from the countryside surrounding the city, but the city nourished him, and nourished his villagers, and finally brought us together. Both of us outsiders, him born three hours away by car, me thirteen hours away by plane, somehow finding each other among the millions. Cities are like that. They are places of meeting, of encounters that could never take place elsewhere, of bringing together and sometimes, too, of tearing apart. While my husband and I may not be city people, we must thank Kunming for doing us this favor, for changing our lives so completely.

So everyday, when I go to work, sit at my desk (as I am sitting here now), and look out the window, I am reminded of the immensity of the task this city has before it, the caring for, the cradling of the dreams of so many people, and I feel lucky that in some ways it has already served me so well. I know that someday I might leave Kunming, but I will not forget the way it looks from this window, nor the fortunes, both good and bad, that it has bestowed upon me. This is what we call a home.