ESL a/s/l?
a WIP multimedia project—
REUNION
It’s November 2016 and I’m one of eight other travelers about to explore Hong Kong through the Humid with a Chance of Fishballs walking tour. Our guide is Virginia Chan, a Canadian-born-Chinese (CBC) woman who moved to Hong Kong in 2012 partly to discover her Chinese roots. Propelled by her love of curry fishballs and passion for educating others about her culture, she founded the tour series within a few years of living in the city. Now I was here as a 35-year-old adult to learn about the place my parents left 43 years ago. Following our introductions and orientation of how the day would unfold, a white female tourist probably in her 50s, with short brunette hair in a sporty-casual outfit asked me a question I continue reflecting on more than seven years later. “How does it feel to be here?” she asked. “Interesting. Let me get back to you,” I responded.
During the intros, we shared our names and where we traveled from. I think she was from America, too. I said I was visiting from NYC and was on a trip with Mom and Dad — a 30-year reunion in the region since our last family visit and coincidentally as the same travel trio. The summer of 1986 was my first time in China and my parents’ first return since they emigrated from Hong Kong to live in the States. I thought about how to answer her question throughout the tour and landed on a response I don’t think I’d previously thought about or articulated. “I don’t feel welcome here. The waitstaff is rude, impatiently cutting me off as I piece sentences carefully together in Cantonese for my orders. ‘WHAT YOU WANT?!’ they shout. I went on about how the locals don’t show affection and warmth. Smiles were hard to come by. Not that these were cultural norms within my household growing up, but I had at least equated smiles as a form of nicety in America. The Chinese aren’t known for their hospitality, but they are efficient! I later found out at the end of the 2016 trip and more recently, that Mom and Dad felt similarly about Hong Kong.
“I don’t feel like I belong in the States, either,” I told her. I went on that where I feel most at home, free from judgment and criticism and where I can be the most authentic version of myself and celebrated was in a music scene, a subculture. A scene whose values embraced openness and curiosity for different flavors of weird and I didn’t have to fight or defend myself to be accepted.
The rest of our conversation is a blur, but the question had a long-lasting impact. I still reflect on identity, its roles in our perceived sense of belonging; and the realization that race and nationality — additional markers of identity — can sometimes take a back seat or front seat depending on the context.