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Summary: When Susan Conley moves with her family to Beijing, she can't imagine how much their lives will change. While Tony, her husband, is consumed with his job, Susan confronts a host of perplexing firsts: determining the proper way to shop at a Chinese megamarket, bribing her two young sons to ride the school bus, and getting stuck in a highrise elevator, unable to call for help in Mandarin. Despite the difficulties, there is much occasion for joy in their lives, from trips to the Great Wall and bartering for a "starter Buddha" at the raucous flea market to feasting on the world's best dumplings in back-alley restaurants. Then Susan learns she has cancer. After treatment in Boston, she returns to Beijing, again as a foreigner-this time to her own body. Set against the eternally fascinating backdrop of modern China and full of insight into the trickiest questions of motherhood-How do you talk to children about death? When is it okay to lie?-this wry and poignant memoir is a candid look at mortality and belonging as well as a celebration of family.