homecoming

Posted on by trish

Over Christ­mas I made a trip to Hong Kong with my mom and sis­ter, because my grand­ma is unwell. We tried to spend as much time as pos­si­ble with her, know­ing also that hav­ing vis­i­tors was also tir­ing for both my grand­par­ents. So my sis­ter and I did quite a bit of wandering. 

The grimy streets, the humid air, the plume of exhaust every time a bus pass­es by on the nar­row street. The palm trees, the emer­ald moun­tains, the trop­i­cal plants bloom­ing in Decem­ber. Peo­ple who would speed walk right into you if you don’t make way quick­ly enough. The sea that always smells faint­ly like the sewer. 

I love every tree, every brick, every grimy side­walk, every pedes­tri­an bridge in this city. 

But I won­der if I would say the same if we nev­er left. If I had to grow up and learn to be an adult in it. If I actu­al­ly have to live with its var­i­ous com­pli­cat­ed polit­i­cal and social issues now. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I will always be able to vis­it as freely as I do now, with the ways the said com­pli­cat­ed polit­i­cal and social issues are pro­gress­ing. We’ll wait, and see, and hope. And in the mean­while I’ll show you some pic­tures of this beloved city.

Porg, our trav­el com­pan­ion, pos­es in front of the win­dow at our guest house.
View from a pedes­tri­an bridge on King’s Road with the old style tram.
Oil Street arts cen­tre near our guest house. Folks relax­ing on the lawn at lunch time.
Street mar­ket and shoppers.
Wan­dered into Hong Kong Uni­ver­si­ty, a colo­nial insti­tu­tion built in 1912.
Of course, stitch­ing on the MTR. No one stitch­es on the MTR though…
Vis­it­ing Hong Kong Park. It has meerkats and lemurs. Much green­ery. Also unsea­son­ably warm this time of year.
Porg wants a pho­to. It’s not every day he gets to ride the MTR.
Anoth­er pedes­tri­an bridge, anoth­er view.
A refur­bished cot­ton fac­to­ry that turned into an arts cen­tre and retail space, with a thriv­ing rooftop garden.
One of the many ghost signs. It’s clear that there are lots of thoughts and efforts put into pre­serv­ing and show­cas­ing the orig­i­nal struc­ture. Even the bench­es are made from the orig­i­nal wood­en doors.
Vis­it­ed the neigh­bour­hood where my par­ents grew up and met with my mom and aunt. Also where I went to kinder­garten. I have a few spe­cif­ic mem­o­ries of this place.
My par­ents’ fam­i­lies lived in small flats like these.
Toasts at tea time.
We egg tart lovers. Held on to Porg’s wing just in time to stop him from falling right in. 
Spent part of our last evening at the har­bour, with many groups of enthu­si­as­tic buskers, and the back­drop of the icon­ic Hong Kong skyline.

One of my favourite poems by Ursu­la Le Guin comes to mind, wher­ev­er home is for you…

May your soul be at home where there are no hous­es.
Walk care­ful­ly, well loved one,
walk mind­ful­ly, well loved one,
walk fear­less­ly, well loved one.
Return with us, return to us, 
be always com­ing home. 

– From Always Com­ing Home, 1985

4 thoughts on “homecoming”

  1. “I almost fell down a hill,” says Porg, shud­der­ing, his round eyes shin­ing as he looks sto­ical­ly at his friends. His friends nod sympathetically.

  4. I lived and loved in HK for a few years- and I appre­ci­ate your writ­ing about this city that still fas­ci­nates me and calls to me. May we both be free to walk the streets there again- may every inhab­i­tant be free to do the same.

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