my uncle was the fourth child and second son in my mother's family of fourteen siblings. (fifteen, if you include the one who died in infancy.) he came to australia in the late 50s to train as a geologist, lodging near the university with two middle-aged australian ladies whom he continued to visit regularly after graduation for over thirty years. (my aunt gave them haircuts and perms at home when they were in their twilight years. they wrote to my grandmother (who was illiterate in chinese and even less able to read an english letter) asking her what his favourite dishes were, so that he would not be too homesick.) later, in the 60s, when there were few asian faces even in the big cities, he went to western australia to work in the mining towns of the outbacks. later he managed the first texas instruments office in communist beijing. and yet when i knew him he was already semi-retired, had had a major heart operation (one of his heart valves didn't close properly - discovered when he was working in saudi arabia) and was remote - the family moved to australia in the late 80s. my father remembers meeting him for the first time and being strongly impressed: "feng du pian pian" as the chinese say - having a certain social poise; polished, gracious, attentive. his eldest daughter is nine years older than me, and we never played together as children. the middle son played battleships with the boys. it was the youngest daughter, born in the same year as me, i was closest to. as children we went to ballet classes together and rode on things that went up and down and around on the top floor of parkway parade. my mother always bought us identical clothes (there is a photo of the two of us, aged 6, dressed in matching cornflower blue cotton dresses (the front of which depicted cheerful girls with brown plaits rather like laura ingalls wilder.) and called us "baobao" and "beibei" (people who ring up and get my mother will know she still calls "beibei! ting dianhua!") we wrote to each other regularly in the late 80s when the family first migrated to melbourne. now she is a lawyer living in brisbane and we haven't been in contact for years and it's terrible to be in a hospital room, watching her father my uncle dying, and feeling how apart we have grown.