What do you want people to know about Shanghai before they get there? Shanghai is a very beautiful city. It is only 200 years old, which is new, compared with a city like Beijing, which is 2,000 years old.

How would you compare Shanghai with Houston? In Houston, people live outside of downtown and drive cars to get downtown. In Shanghai, people live downtown and ride their bikes to work and to school. You get in your 20 minutes of cardio workout.

When you're in Houston and get homesick for Shanghai, what do you think about? It's not a specific thing. I miss the whole atmosphere of Shanghai. In Shanghai, in the morning time, the people getting up and brushing teeth, washing their face, and going out to buy the street food for breakfast. You can smell the fried shao-bing you-tiao (bread sticks and bun). People greeting each other and neighbors asking, "Have you eaten breakfast?" The whole atmosphere is what I think about.

When you go back to Shanghai each summer, how long do you stay? Not too long, probably two to three weeks each time.

If you were to host friends or visitors for dinner, where would you take them for an upscale meal? I like to go to a restaurant called Mei Ling Ge (Merrylin). It is very nice. The way they cook the Shanghainese food is quite authentic.

What do you like to eat? Snake. Before SARS, the restaurant had a famous snake dish, but now it is very difficult to get.

Which Shanghainese dishes should visitors be sure to eat? Street food. The breakfast street food is the best. There are four traditional­ breakfast foods, called si da jin gang: shao-bing you-tiao, doug jiang (soybean drink), da bing (large sesame bread), and ci fan (soupy rice).