I can still remember the layout of my childhood home–a safe, fantasy-like castle for my wandering imagination.
A picture of my childhood dining room.
I have a lot of fond memories about this place, some still actually vivid, as if I could re-visit my old house and re-imagine these stories. Here is a typical story of seven year old me with many cavities: When my father started owning some vending machines, I would sneak into the basement where the goods were stored, and inconspicuously run upstairs with my favorite chocolates as I turned off the light. Here are snippets of other stories: pulling on baby buttercup flowers thinking they are weeds, watching my grandfather make cong you bing (step-by-step picture recipe), waiting for Tuesdays to watch Teen Titans, singing made-up songs to my baby sister, reading Goosebumps at night only to end up sleeping in my parents’ bed, etc.
They say that home is where the heart is. I thought that once that was established in my childhood, it would be my home forever. I remember feeling pretty devastated after I moved from Canada to California. I felt like I stood out as the new girl, in the last year of elementary school, where everyone already knew each other. People commented on how my r’s and w’s sounded the same (and I also apparently had a slight British accent). The whole fourth grade class were my friends, back home, but here I was, in a new environment, where they already memorized the 50 states and knew how to use fractions and decimals. I also remember hating the name ‘California.’ It didn’t sound right on my tongue.
Of course, like all growing pains, I managed to adjust with the move by making new friends. I didn’t think too much of who I was in middle school (Grade 6-8), but for a long while, I was unhappy with a lot of things. Aside from family issues and with my father once again moving far away to work at another job, I felt like I was going through so many changes by myself. The home I knew as a naive kid was gone. Yet I held onto these memories and wrote in consideration of my past selves, where I would have self-mottos like “expect the unexpected (childhood),” and “stay a kid at heart”–inspired from the many considerate acts I had done when I was small. After the friends who were negatively influencing me moved away, I was able to start writing again, and reflect a lot on about who I was and what I felt connected to. A never-failing connection to ‘my home’ is through my writing. I loved writing stories about fairy-tales as a kid (when I was practicing ESL in my diary), and I can never forget how many times I have saved myself through it.
I feel that at times more than once, this post I wrote on my personal blog still means a lot to me. “My heart travels too much. And I have no right to stop that.” A lot of it just encompasses the anticipations I had for the future, and how I learned in high school that you can’t grow in your own comfort zone. Home can be anywhere, the moments you feel that you belong, just like my favorite scene in the French film, Amélie. When I first saw the movie, I saw this introverted character coming to terms with herself, what she resolved to be as a person, and finally reaching for that moment: being free.
Despite the disappointment of a broken promise (I had my parents promise to visit Ottawa to see my friends again, which never happened), and the rebellious stages I had from denying parts of my identity (choosing French over Chinese, and the general aspect of pretending to be someone else–kids, I don’t recommend doing this ever), I still chose to write about the creative warmth of a multicultural environment in one of my French immersion classes as a kid, on one of my college application essays. And, I still ended up choosing Canada, over America.
Throughout the years, my values of home have evolved. Home is not the place I walked back to as a kid. Home is wherever I want it to be, however I make it. Home to me is ultimately being authentic and open to all my hopes and fears in the moment, yet still going in for the ‘kill’. Home is a constant re-acquaintance with who I am: like watching my toddler videos where I lived with my grandparents in China for the first time, a summer ago. It is an adventure I am willing to seek, a discovery of future truths.
“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” – Kurt Vonnegut.
Works Cited
Lu, Jenny. “Kitchen.” 2008. JPEG file.
Lu, Jenny. “Thick-skinned Chameleon.” Tumblr. Web, Dec. 13, 2013, Sept. 28, 2016, http://pulledheartstring.tumblr.com/post/69862628960/with-an-ever-looming-finals-week-that-sporadically.
Mika. “Green Onion Pancake (Chinese Fried Scallion Pancakes a.k.a. Cong You Bing).” The 350 Degree Oven, March 4, 2013, http://www.the350degreeoven.com/2013/03/chinese-taiwanese/green-onion-pancake-chinese-fried-scallion-pancakes-a-k-a-cong-you-bing/.
Movieclips. “Amélie (2/12) Movie Clip – Helping a Blind Man (2001) HD.” YouTube. YouTube, Oct. 1, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wuntz3KDIAk.