Wah! This is very funny to me. Mao and Audrey Hepburn, two people as different as can be, come together in a funeral supply store as symbols of "Power" and "Beauty".

In 1989 I saw people use their bicycles to make a barricade to hold back the tanks. Each bicycle represented one person - all were crushed. Twelve years later the streets were still surging with bicycles. For me, those rolling waves of bicycle traffic represent the ebb and flow of economic and cultural changes in China.

It was a shock: Starbucks moving into the Forbidden City. The global economy soaks into every corner of the world. A single culture can not stand alone in the world any longer. It reacts and changes, creating a new hybrid identity.

A seamless merging of designs, almost invisible at first glance. A subtle adaptation to the "no signage" dictate of the Forbidden City, this doorway provides a powerful vision of post-colonialism.

Wah! This sign says: "So easy to go to other countries! To study, travel, to work! Companies to help Chinese immigrate to Canada!" Why was it so hard for me to leave?

In 1972, during the Cultural Revolution, I was sent to the countryside, with millions of other youths. We were forced to work here, to have re-education from peasant teachers. One day's travel by train, one day by bus then boat, and finally three hours by foot. The river, clear as air, was a reflection of our idealism.

This is the entrance to the room that became my home for four years. I found myself here at seventeen with my younger brother. We had never been away from home before. At night we would sit in the doorway and look at the moon with tears in our eyes singing songs from our earlier life. Life was changed forever. We were teenagers in the city, transformed into country labourers.

This was a place to learn survival. It was an enclosure with a tiny piece of sky as my only reward. Without me, it was empty - waiting. When I returned, it was filled with my memories.

In front of our house there is a muddy pond. Several water buffalo share this pond. They love to cover themselves in cool mud at the end of a hard day. From hours in the rice fields behind these beloved partners, we also became covered in this ochre mud.

My water buffalo, my living tractor, was also my teacher. We worked together every day. Sometimes he was tired and angry, but he always tried his best. He showed me how important it is to achieve my goals step by step, through my long march.

I plant you in your watery field. Your guardians bite my legs and hands. I take care of you under the burning sun. My sweat pours into you, and my spirit becomes a part of you. Now I see you, the Rice Prince.

When I see these women's "backpacks" lying on the ground, I am reminded of the centuries of hard labour that was expected of the women of China. These bamboo backpacks were designed centuries ago to free their arms and hands for the multi-tasking they had to endure. Babies, children, cooking, sewing, cleaning; all on top of their labours alongside the men in the fields from dawn to dusk.

The doorway to a home is of prime importance. A beautiful doorway brings good luck to your family. In the past a door would be decorated with door "gods" and golden decorations - the best that one could afford. Now propaganda posters, colourful images of decoration, suggest happiness within. This doorway celebrates with a "50 Years of the New China" poster.

I pass through you every day, you carry on two stories: one for me, and one for an unseen political pressure. You hide the darkness of my depression and open into the light of my hope. Your story continues.

You transform our bodies, you nourish us, you quench our thirst with your sweetness. You are our energy. You are the power of the land. You transform yourself in a cycle of life.

There is a saying in Chinese that means, "For the ordinary people, food is the sky". Famine was a normal occurrence in Chinese history. But the demand for food has lessened in the wake of a modern society. Instead, demand is now being placed on commodities of an affluent lifestyle. Beautiful white-faced Asian women smile beside equally white-faced men.

I carried these buckets, one at each end of a pole across my shoulders, - heavy-laden with animal and human waste to spread in the fields. Done, not only because it was the best fertilizer for the crops, but as a learning experience. This lowly task taught me humility and a greater understanding of others' suffering. By learning how to grow food for the common good, I learned to cultivate character in myself.

The transformation of our soil into our tobacco was a symbol of the hard work of the people. The smoke, the smell, and the rituals created an atmosphere of trust and closeness between friends. Even though I didn't smoke it myself, I remember a sense of joy and belonging.

This was the only route into the mountains. I carried the harvest on this road, two hundred pounds at a time, 20 kilometres to the nearest town; no cars to do it for me. Carrying the weight like a part of my body, I learned to ignore the burden.

When I lay down in my bed today and place my head on the soft pillows, I cannot say that I am more comfortable and happy than I was on a bed like this stone bed in the Chinese countryside. A tired body does not require more than a place to lay down.