I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a Banana (or a Twinky depending on which day you catch my pops). I can understand Chinese/Cantonese but I really can't speak a lick of it. A CBC (Canadian Born Chinese): yellow on the outside, white on the inside, hockey playing, milk drinking cottage loving Asian.
So it's tough when you go back to where your parents first met, where "it" all began and not be able to order Chinese food... well, we call it food.
Hong Kong is a city of shopping, people, shopping, and people. Buildings etched into mountains as if born from its stomach. The crowds of black dots clambering and climbing over top of one another as concrete clouds hover over them. "Look left," paint the streets as a reminder of shoveling cabbies pass by grandfathered British Colony roads. "How can they shift gears with their left hand?" I ponder as another street filled with people and 1000-watt light signs overtake my last thoughts.
Every where I explore I can't help but think my mom and dad might have walked these same streets, holding hands at this park or eating mystery meat at this dive of a restaurant. How life would have been so different if they didn't jump ship. Looking from the city where your parents began their journey brings a history to the pavements that makes each breath still and quiet. My life began before I was born.
When you think you see reality, look a little deeper
