The fall of the same year, I left Shanghai for graduate work in the U.S.A. It was also the year that my brother and I saw each other in China for the last time. Between the two of us, there was always an extra-strong bond. By the time I finished my formal schooling at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Second World War was raging and I could not go home. I stayed on at the university as a teacher of English. When I finally returned to Shanghai for a visit in the summer of 1948, my brother was away in Taiwan, and I did not see him then. Then later one summer, after I had moved to the University of Hawaii, snow again fell on the fur coat that I wore in my dream. Since both my parents had been gone for some time, I surmised that my brother, as the head of the family and the tall tree in our front courtyard since our father's death, must now have gone, too, and therefore I was again in mourning. I was now approaching 60, and he would be almost 70. Although I have had no material news of him, I do not need any. For in the same dream I also lost a molar accompanied by no bleeding, the significance of which I have known since I was very young. A major tooth represents a major member of the family; its loss with bleeding means serious illness, while its loss without bleeding signifies death.

In May 1971, I moved into a condominium apartment. But without the experience of ever having set up a "home," I found myself very much at sea. One day, shortly after I moved in, I proudly hung a calendar on a louver door to the right of my desk in my study. That night, I dreamed that my entire family, some of whom had died and some of whom must still have been alive, and many unfamiliar faces who must have been added since I left China, all crowded into my apartment to help me settle. Amidst all the commotion and laughter, my gentle-mannered brother, who seldom wasted words, abruptly lifted my calendar off the door and carefully put in its place a scroll of calligraphy that I had obtained in Taiwan in 1960, containing some words from Confucius on how to guide students. My brother had never seen it in our waking lives, but in my dream he turned and said to me: "You are a teacher! Hang this scroll! Here!" And my parents smiled with approval. Soon we all gathered among the potted evergreens on my front balcony. Our chattering and pulsations mingled with the lapping of the distant surf of the embracing Pacific. The  silver splendor  of  the stars  and  the