I realized I’ve been absent from here for close to a quarter.
I’ve gone on a few trips and just hibernated in between!
It started with flying back to the birthplace for my first
ever Chinese New Years celebration in over 13 years. Before this trip, anyone
and everyone warned me about the air pollution. At the time, I would just
snicker and think ‘amateurs’. However once I flew in I felt like Ben Affleck
landing on an asteroid, I guess I didn’t know my hometown as well as I thought.
As soon as I got back to our
family home I found everything to be frozen in time. My grandma sat in the
exact same arm-chair, eyes glued to the TV on some generic soap opera about a
polygamous royal marriage, the decades old telephone with the same address book
that I scribbled my classmates’ numbers on and my pencil boxes left untouched
in the desk drawer. There’s nothing cozier than changing into my pajamas and
going into couch potato mode with my grandma. Over the course of the following
week, I put on all the winter weight I missed out on in Hong Kong as my entire family
of food enthusiasts feasts our way through Beijing. We’re like a tornado- we
come fast and leave nothing behind.
I went on a hunt for childhood mementos
around town. I used to bike through districts looking for McDonalds’ with my
classmates, go to the zoo with my dad but get distracted by the nearby
arcaded instead, visit the fanciest theme park with my grandpa because it had a
merry-go around, race with my best friend on finding the shortest route back
from school and play for hours in the campus garden. After recognizing nothing
but a rainbow arch among the financial district that fell out of the sky, I
decided I might as well go sightseeing with my friends like a first-time
visitor. That actually wasn’t bad, I hiked the Great Wall in -7 degree smog-free
weather, visited the festival fair with half of Beijing and saw five
motorcycles in full motion in a circular cage at the acrobats. Every-time they
brought in another motorcycle, I gasped louder than the most visible foreigners
in the room. I’m glad I got to see two different perspectives of Beijing and
appreciate both of them. Sometimes the touristy things aren’t all bad.
Evidently, my identity crisis
peaks whenever I’m in China. I’m fresh off the boat enough that I can still
pass off as a local but my mannerism, thought process and delay in response
throws people off, the result is a confused audience wondering if I’m slightly
retarded. So it seems that I should start brushing up on my mandarin so I can
still speak it by the time I’m raising kids.
The best part about my trip was learning about holiday
traditions with my family. My dad felt the need to reference other holidays in
explaining Chinese New Year’s. On one hand I’m shocked that he thinks I’m so
ignorant but sadly, I had no clue for example that Chúxī (除夕) is equal in
significance to Christmas Eve for the Chinese. I proceeded to talk the ears off my family asking
about what festivities happen on each day of the festival.
I’ve always been proud of my
hometown, I get quite obnoxious about it and tend to bash any competition (i.e.
Shanghai). However as it now seems, a lot of it lives in my memory and my
friends and family have all moved away. In all honesty, the continual facelift
will probably render Beijing completely unrecognizable in five years. This
makes me realize that memories are precious. I better start using that new
camera!
