By
Xinyi Chen
MA Creative and Collaborative Enterprise
Second Place Winner, Writing Competition on the Theme of Transformation
She first dreamed of the mountain while riding the London tube.
A British voice droned from her headphones, but suddenly she heard something else—“Ah-Cui.” It was the name her grandmother used to call her. The voice fell like soft rain, washing her away from the stale smell of the carriage and back into a misty village where fog clung to the trees like old laundry draped over bamboo rails.
She hadn’t heard that name in years.
After moving to the city, her ID carried a newer name—“Si Lin”—modern, refined, and forgettable. She introduced herself in English now, short and neat, leaving no echo behind. But she knew there was another name buried deep within her, like a stone resting untouched at the bottom of a well.
That dream made her return.
The mountain was still there. But the village had changed. The old grain-drying field had become a parking lot. Her grandmother’s roof had caved in. But the yellow mud on the walls still held a gentle warmth, as if it had never cooled.
She stayed for three days. Hiked the hills by day, sat by the fire with elders by night. Her dialect was broken now. She could only mumble: “hearth,” “firewood,” “rice seedling.” Each word felt like a pebble pulled from the soil—rough, familiar, necessary.
On the third morning, she dreamed again. Her grandmother stood on the slope, in blue homespun clothes, slicing grass and calling out, “Ah-Cui—where have you run off to now?”
She tried to answer but couldn’t speak. Her mouth was full of bitter mountain water.
She woke up quietly and walked to the bamboo grove behind her grandmother’s house. The leaves whispered. She knelt and listened. Suddenly she understood—her grandmother wasn’t calling a name. She was calling a body, a path once run, a secret once kept, a girl who existed before “Si Lin.”
Some names aren’t invented. They are grown—by land, by memory.
She carried a few leaves back to London. At customs, she still said “Si Lin.” But inside, she whispered, “I am Ah-Cui.”
She planted the leaves in her window. Spring came. A shoot rose. When the wind passed, the glass rattled faintly—as if someone were calling her name.
Anthropolitan 