Kristof: Attack of the Killer Bras

[La_Serpiente]

CHUN SHUI VILLAGE, China — The most important thing happening in the world today is the rise of China, and that's the reality hovering in the background of the delicate U.S.-China talks under way in Washington this week.

So I decided to "cover" the talks not in Washington, where it's easy to be overwhelmed by details of Chinese bra imports and U.S. policy toward Taiwan, but here in southern China's Taishan area, which accounted for a majority of Chinese emigrants to the U.S. until a few decades ago.

The descendants of Taishan include my wife, Sheryl WuDunn. (A WuDunn is what you get when you cross a Wu ancestor who doesn't speak English with a U.S. immigration officer who doesn't speak Chinese.) When Sheryl and I first traveled here in 1987, we met her distant cousins, poor peasants who spent their time wading in the rice paddies. The entire clan had about as many teeth as Sheryl does.


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Attack of the Killer Bras

[ajacobson]

1. LOL

My father's side of the family came to the U.S. in the early 1900s. Ukrainian Jews. My great-great grandmother's name was Rose Brown. That is sure as hell not the name she was born with.:-)