Argghhh….after 2 days of fire, the entire LA city is covered with smoke. The sky appears to be dark and grey, the sun can hardly pierce through the dark clouds. Walking on the street I can smell smokes filled in the air. This weekend I went to a small hill close to my apartment and looked down at the West LA area, the entire city is covered with smog. I could barely see any streets and buildings down there. It’s scary to think we are actually living inside this heavily polluted place. Hopefully the fire will soon cease and no more homes to be destroyed.

Today I came upon a book about this author’s family history in Tzu-tong, Yun-lin Hsien in Taiwan. Tzu-tong is actually right next to my mom’s hometown Hsi-luo (西螺). This author put many old photos of his family in the book and talked about his ancestors and family backgrounds. He mentioned his grandmother was from a family named Liao (廖) from Hsi-luo. My heart jumped when I read this part. My great-grandmother (my mom’s grandma) is actually from the Liao family in Hsi-luo. So this could mean that I’m somewhat related to this author and his family. I double checked with my mom tonight. Even though she could not remember those people because there are so many Liao people in Hsi-luo. But in Taiwan’s countryside, most people are related to each other if they share the same last name and live in the same village. I bet there are some connection between me and this writer. I’m very excited about this discovery. It proves the six degrees theory is relatively correct and that everyone is connected to each other in some ways. This is really a small world!