Dr Setsuko Hosoda's arrival in Beijing this spring might be described as an Asian-fusion homecoming.

Hosoda, a Japanese-American doctor of family medicine, was recruited by Beijing United Family Hospital after that facility lost its only Japanese-speaking doctor. Her previous Sino exposure had been a trip to Shanghai, but China had a lot of appeal - partly because of family roots.

"My husband Rob was born in Hong Kong and his family was from Guangzhou," she says, though they emigrated to Canada when he was a year old. "And my mother lived in Tianjin for several years, working as a midwife."

Her husband's work had almost brought the family to China before. The couple was eager for their two children, age 4 and 8, to learn a second language, and Mandarin seemed more useful in today's world than their own languages, Japanese and Cantonese.

It was a little hard to leave Seattle, she says, "because my sisters are there, my parents in Japan plan to retire there, and Rob's family is nearby in Vancouver."

So although the family's destiny may be back in the US, Hosoda is in Beijing on a three-year contract and intent on making the most of it.

"When I came here for an interview in 2009, I was blown away," she says. "I knew Shanghai as a modern city, but my idea of Beijing was something out of the 1970s, I guess - all Mao outfits and bicycles."

Instead, she found a vibrant city that was instantly energizing. "It was like being in Japan in the '70s or in the US in the '60s," she says. "We are right in the middle of China's rise as an economic power," and in the wake of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, "you could feel the city coming into its own."

She also likes the contrast of the modern vitality and a rich culture that is monumental in scale.

"There are layers of meaning in everything Chinese," she says. "Being Japanese I can read the Chinese characters. When I went to the Forbidden City, for example, I could see why the gates faced the way they did, and the stories behind every statue and every figure on every roof."

When both ancient and modern architecture speak so forcefully, Hosoda says, "it's just a very exciting time to be here."

(China Daily October 18, 2010)