I am very proud to say that academically speaking I am ANU Made. I was privileged to study under some of the greatest linguists of our time: the semanticist Anna Wierzbicka, the phonetician and tonologist Phil Rose, who is also a rare specialist of Wu dialects (I happen to be a Shanghai Wu speaker), and the historical linguists Cindy Allen and Harold Koch. From them, I learned how to describe and compare languages across time and space, how to be a linguist, and most importantly, how to teach linguistics well and be a good teacher. Nowhere else could I have found such an amalgamation of expertise matching my interests in language, and such inspiring teachers of linguistics, who trained generations of linguists at ANU. Anna’s influence on me was particularly strong. From her, not only did I learn to connect the study of meaning to neighbouring disciplines, but also I learned to write and publish in English, my second language; so that by the time my PhD degree was conferred, I had already published 5 peer-reviewed journal articles, 5 book chapters, and other forms of publications, and had been invited to be a keynote speaker overseas. That track record was crucial to my academic career. Anna and Cindy, being female scholars and migrants themselves, were also great role models for me.