There were two times I heard my father sing.Once from behind the camera, panning to my brother’sbirthday cake, his happy birthday a key off,so bad it is valiant, my brother blushing before the table.The second was at a feast—a mountain villagesouth of Kunming where, my father pointed out,people readied for winter like animals,mixing butter into their tea.There was something there, his eyes watchingthe long-haired buffalo graze the cold hillsas our little bus wound up and up. His favorite American bookswere the Little House series, with their descriptionsof simple tasks, how they churned butter from cream.At the dinner, roast lamb, dark pickled flowers,a strong tea, and before long his song:the haunting rise of an attempt at melody,his voice breaking before it can carry.Somehow they recognize it, the mountain family,and they lean over and whisper “This is a lao jia song,”because we have never heard itin all these years, we are sitting with strangerstrying to imagine what he is mourning.