SHENZHEN, China -- A few months ago, one of the last people I expected to make the grand trip from America to China decided to do just that: Seven years after I had moved, my dad finally came to visit.

I was surprised, because we haven’t kept in touch that well these past years. I moved to China in 2008, and although many expats often tell me they miss their family and it’s the hardest part of living abroad, I'm fine with only seeing my parents once a year. They're divorced, and it’s always been difficult enough to make the time to see both Mom and Dad on my annual trips home. With modern technology it’s easy to keep in touch with the messaging system WhatsApp and Skype, but I’ve long gotten used to meeting in person only on special occasions.

To tell the truth, I have a complicated relationship with my father. Perhaps I never grew out of the teenage rebellious phase, and even today we tend to argue and can’t seem to agree on anything. So how in the world was I going to prepare my Dad, someone who had never been anywhere near East Asia in all his sixty years, to navigate the misunderstood country I now call home?

I came to China to teach and to write. My city is Shenzhen, which was China’s original “special economic zone” and led the way in economic development. It’s as modern and flashy a city as any on earth. In fact, though it’s not as well known as Beijing and Shanghai, with 15 million people it’s the most densely populated place my father has ever seen. Even his hometown of Chicago would basically be considered a small town in China.

“I can’t wait to see the Shaolin Temple,” he told me as we made plans. I had to break the news to him that the famous monastery is nowhere near my area, and it just wasn’t in the budget to travel more than 900 miles from Guangdong to Henan Province. Perhaps next trip. Instead, I was looking forward to showing off the modern look of big-city Asia, which is what really entails my day-to-day life.