A Fujifilm photo of my sister and I
lives on a bookshelf in our parents’ room
when she and I were sitting on the couch
in our apartment in Hong Kong
that I now miss.
I remember so clearly
lungs pushing hard to breathe oxygen
as I walked up a hill to the top of “Happy Valley”
and how I held my breath as I walked up the chlorine washed stairs.
Cockroaches danced frantically on their backs
and I ran quickly to get to the apartment.
Meanwhile, my thoughts gathered into a hurricane of confusion
as my classmates’ words whirled through my head:
You don’t look Korean, you don’t look like you’re from New York,
You’re Chinese right? How come you can’t speak Chinese
when your last name is Taiwanese?
The barred window of my bedroom
made me feel like a prisoner and
wishing desperately to be in
New York,
Seoul,
Venice,
anywhere,
except for here.
Kimchi stew is one of my favorite Korean dishes.
As the soup goes from spoon to lips to tongue to throat,
its flavors warming the insides of my stomach,
I can taste the sourness of the fermented cabbage
the sweetness of the added sugar,
the savoriness from the tender pork.
But as my mother made this dish to make her children smile,
she cried in the kitchen next to the awfully tiny refrigerator
feeling like a prisoner
wishing desperately to be in
New York,
Seoul,
Venice,
anywhere,
except she has children to care for
and mouths to feed.
She can’t escape this hurricane either.
All children are blind to their parents’ struggles
They don’t know any better.
I wish I had known.
Editors: Emily X. Nikki J. Nadine R. Sam L., Anoushka K., Joyce S., Zoe L.
Cover photo source: http://artasiapacific.com/Blog/HongKongGalleryRoundup
Author’s note:
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about childhood innocence and how, as much as I encountered challenges, that my parents did as much as they could to maintain a great childhood for me. I was too young to recognize their struggles, and as a now 17-year-old, I wonder how that impacted them.