Dear Hong Kong,

As an eight-year-old, I dreaded the sixteen-hour flight from my home in Portland, Oregon, to you. Crisp pine trees and unsullied mountain air got replaced by your skyscrapers of apartments and thick humidity overlaid by the scents of steamed buns and roasted meats. Mom and Dad called you their true home, and they smiled more during our visit. Their pace quickened as they wound through your streets with me and my siblings in tow, navigating by memory. Meanwhile, I wished to return to America immediately, but I was trapped.

Ma Ma and Ye Ye, my paternal grandparents, lived in your countryside. Their place was riddled with mosquitoes, and it seemed drab to a young, naive girl like me. There were only the remnants of their pig farm, an outhouse, and a television in the small living room that spoke words I didn’t comprehend.
Dad reverted to his schoolboy self—walking barefoot around the property, pulling out weeds for Ma Ma, plucking longan fruit from her tree. He enjoyed going to Costco in our tidy Oregon suburb and worked in a cubicle at Intel, yet seemed more relaxed in these humble surroundings. I lay in bed, sandwiched between my older brother and younger sister, miserable and jetlagged. “How did Dad even survive here?” I thought.

In the city, Mom’s family lived in a second-story flat. Mom never verbalized “I miss you” to her mother, my Po Po, but I could see it in the way that she held Po Po’s hand as they crossed the street. A taxi took us up a winding road to our maternal grandfather Gong Gong’s grave in Tao Fong Shan, a hill and cemetery overlooking the city. Mom was only ten when he died, and she described him as a kind pastor, a generous man. Her face looked pensive as she placed flowers on his tombstone. I shuffled my feet, feeling awkward about a grandparent I never knew.

Fourteen years later, I flew back to you with my family. More grown up and worldlier, I was curious about my perception of you now. I’d recently graduated from college, thinking I embodied a confident, independent adult. But then a move to Austin, Texas, led to loneliness swallowing me whole, catalyzed by a new city and job that were predominantly and jarringly white. As just one of two Asian women on an eighty-person staff, I was floundering and unsure if people could truly understand me. Was I more American, or Cantonese?

I hoped that going to Ma Ma’s house would help me. Ye Ye had passed away from cancer years ago, leaving Ma Ma alone, but she still grinned broadly as we approached her house.

“Hoi Hoi!” She called me by my Cantonese name, jubilant. We barbecued chicken wings and pineapple over a charcoal fire in her front yard, chatting and bantering. I was happy to be here for the first time, and my eyes swept Ma Ma’s land with new eyes. It was peaceful and away from chaos, a physical reminder of Dad’s rise from farmer’s son to the American Dream. Earlier, Dad had shown me the poetry Ye Ye had written in chalk on the old farmhouse’s walls. It hit me then that my privileged life only existed because Dad’s family had worked so hard to better themselves. I could become anything I wanted because of them. Regret swooped through my chest; I had taken them for granted. Ma Ma watched us go when we said goodbye, and I glanced back.
At Gong Gong’s grave in Tao Fong Shan, I thought about how Mom had experienced much of life without a father, yet it hadn’t dampened her passionate spirit. She’d walked home from school through Tao Fong Shan in pitch darkness, practicing her steps from dance class to fend off fear. Both my parents were hardy people who had been transformed by you—I recognized that now.

I ambled on a path that led to a lookout, where a towering stone cross stood. Chinese characters along its width spelled, “It is finished,” from the biblical book of John—a memorial to Gong Gong’s legacy and devotion. A lump formed in my throat. How did I not care before?

Revisiting you made me realize that I couldn’t think of my identity without embracing the older generation who’d paved the way. My family belonged with you, as did I. It wasn’t right to deny you and your impact on my life. So much more tied me to you, not just my skin color or my eyes—your culture, your history, your pride. I drank you in on that overlook, the stone cross my comforting companion. You became a place of beauty and memory that forever left your mark on my heart. “I’ll come back again,” I promised.

Love,
Melody