My grandmother told me two stories I hadn’t heard until yesterday. I’m not sure how much truth there is in them, although it’s difficult to imagine my grandmother embellishing anything.

My father was supposed to meet my grandmother for lunch one school day when he was about 15. He never showed up, but called her instead, half an hour past the meeting time. It turns out that three guys had approached him on his way to see her, demanding that he give them his ring, his watch, and his necklace. When he refused, they dragged him to a garage to beat him. Having practiced Shaolin Kung Fu with a private master for years, he fought all three and won.

Around the age of 17, my father and his friends were out having a late night snack at a restaurant where people cook their own food on skewers. In the middle of the meal, a few triad members came to the table, and knowing that they were too young to smoke, asked for cigarettes as an excuse to cause trouble. When they couldn’t provide any, the triad members told everyone to give them their money and jewellery. Everyone complied, and put their belongings on the table. At the right opportunity, my father grabbed one of the gang members arms and held him in a prone position, with a skewer to his chest. My father told his friends to get their stuff from the table, and demanded that the gang members give his friends taxi fare home. When my grandmother found out, she sent my dad to study in Canada, worried that the gang members would take revenge.

I’ve been invited to the wedding of a cousin I never knew existed until last week. Actually, there are three cousins I didn’t know about, because she has two sisters too. I didn’t even know that I had a fourth aunt until I suddenly came face to face with her as I walked into my grandmothers apartment at one point, and thought that she bared a close resemblance to my father. I don’t remember ever meeting her, although she claims to have held me as a baby, so I probably haven’t seen her in 20 odd years. My parents have never mentioned her, and have never brought me to meet her family before. Nevertheless, the wedding will be in a church at first, as a sort of western style, then held in a banquet hall in Chinese fashion. I don’t believe that I’ve ever attended a Chinese traditional wedding (that I can remember at least), so I’m looking forward to it.

A few days ago, an elderly woman well past the age of retirement served me in a popular, modern tea shop, enthusiastically telling me to take my time in looking over the menu and deciding what I wanted to order. She would constantly thank me for the patronage, even before I ordered anything, and was probably more than twice the age of anyone else working there.

The culture here is very accepting of senior citizens. They have active jobs, and often walk around with their children and grandchildren instead of hiding in rest homes. This is partly due to the fact that living space is extremely expensive, so families end up living together for their entire lives. My eldest paternal uncle, his wife and daughter all currently live with my grandmother (in a roughly 1000 square foot apartment), and have been doing so for almost their entire lives. Generally it’s the parents that work, while the retired grandparents become the babysitters, the grocery shoppers, etc. Everyone is willing to be patient when waiting for a slow old lady to cross the street at an excruciating pace, or help any elderly with canes get on and off the buses. I caught some grandparents taking their grandchildren to school, and it reminded me of my maternal grandparents flying to Canada to take care of me when my parents were working on their careers and I had no school in the summer.

All the beggars here are elderly, unlike the younger ones back home. They can’t afford operations for their cataracts and have already lost their minds. These are people with barely enough strength to stay awake or shake their bowls, people who don’t ask for money to buy cigarettes or booze. It’s hard to look at because they remind me too much of my grandparents. I start to imagine them abandoned on the street, and wonder who could do such a thing.

When I was young, my maternal grandparents came to Canada from Hong Kong to look after me. It was summer and my parents were working while I was left at home. I had no friends, so much of my time was spent being entertained by my grandfather.

He was born and raised in China, and studied at one of the universities there after high school. Being able to attend university was quite an accomplishment back then, and he had only one year left before civil war broke out. He joined the ill-fated Nationalist side, where he would have had a chance to be a comissioned officer had there not been a need for English speaking Chinese people. He spoke English fluently, so he was used as a translator for the British troops. He recovered from a shot to the arm, and fled to Hong Kong to avoid prosecution when the war was over. There he met my grandmother, and assumed a career as a meteorologist.

I knew him as a large, but delicate man, who always took the time to explain things to me (something quite rare for a kid who’s only six or seven). I spent the warm summer days following him around, playing with him, learning from him. Eventually, he became my favourite person in the world, the first person I’ve ever looked up to.

On the day that my grandfather passed away, I was crushed. It was my first family death ever, and when my mother gave me the news, all I could think about was how I would never have him as my teacher again.

Eventually, I went to Hong Kong to take some time off from the North American world, and learn more about my family history. I stayed at my uncle’s house, the same house that my grandfather bought over 40 years ago. It was December, and Hong Kong winters are pleasantly brisk, so I stepped outside onto the balcony after waking up and getting dressed. There was an elderly man in white socks and black shoes holding a little girl wearing Mary Janes’ just below. The man, who bore a striking resemblance to my grandfather, was keeping his granddaughter company while she waited for the school bus to come. I liked how frail, yet tenacious, they looked, as if this weak old man would protect this little girl to the death. Seeing them sitting there, a patient man with a doll of a girl in his arms, reminded me of my grandfather, a strong and gentle man all at once.

And it made me happy to know that he was not the only one.

I had the chance to visit my paternal grandmother yesterday, whom I haven’t seen in more than a decade. Her face is more sunken now, although she still has the same strength and vitality I’ve always known her to have. Even though she’s 82, she still heads down to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange every day to buy and sell stocks. It’s what she does to keep herself occupied while everyone else is at work, and to earn a little spending/medical money. Even when I called her up before visiting, she was very down-to-business, and never bothered with formalities or small talk.

She’s had a hard, though successful life. Born in Hong Kong, she was the third wife of my grandfather, who died early, but not before gambling most of the family fortune away. Had he not done so the family would have been filthy rich, although I really doubt this would have been a good thing, for myself at least. She has no education, taught herself to read well enough to get by, and was left to raise her seven children by herself. There was enough money left to hire a servant to help her, a woman who lived with the family for more than four decades before succumbing to diabetes, and did all the cooking and cleaning, and was even a wet nurse to my father at one point.

My grandmother earned enough to send most of her kids to study in Canada, and had the guts to bring them there herself to look for appropriate schools, unable even to read most of the airport signs. Now my uncles and aunts have had great careers, and I believe are doing better than she could have imagined. I still wear the jade necklace she gave me more than ten years ago, and have taken it off less than a half dozen times. I usually send her the first paycheck that I earn from any job I take. She has everything she needs now, so there was nothing I could have given her, although I was considering some nice ginseng until I found out that the quality of the ginseng she buys costs more than $1000 CAD a pound.

She told me to find a girl who isn’t white (I don’t think she’s racist, she just wants to look out for my best interests and believes that Chinese girls treat their guys better), although she seemed happy for me when she found out that I was dating a Caucasian girl. The most important thing, she told me, is to find a girl who loves me more than I love her, hee hee.

I can’t tell if she loves me or is proud of me from her body language. She acts like a very strong person and hides her emotions well, so doesn’t even come to greet me at the door when I first walk in. I have a great respect for her, and hope that she’ll end up respecting me as well.

I have a ticket booked to Hong Kong at the end of November. I’ll be staying there for a little under a month, during the Christmas season when the entire island looks as if it’s one big ornament from the sky, a giant floating decoration. The best weather of the year is in December, when the temperatures drop to a reasonable warmth and one can actually walk around with a coat on.

I’ll be trying to learn the subway system for the first few days so that I can get around on my own. I’m going alone so I’ll probably be living with my uncle most of the time, and staying at my grandmother’s on the weekends. I’ll be going home first and staying there for a few days, then flying to Hong Kong, then flying back and staying home for New Years. I’ll meet up with Ken the day before I depart from Hong Kong, since he’s flying up from Ohio.

I can’t wait to get back to the busy markets, taste the Chinese food, browse the endless shops. I want to ask my grandmother so much, and celebrate Christmas with her. I wish there was something I could give her that she could keep, similar to the jade necklace she gave me that I’ve almost never taken off ever since I received it. There’s an almost ineffable feeling that’s conjured up in my mind when I think of the modern skyscrapers, the crowds of people, the very ethnic faces. Some of my best memories are from being in Hong Kong during Christmas, when there’s an almost mystic feeling in the air and everyone is in good spirits.

I’ve been wanting a vacation, from both the good and bad in my life, for so long. Just to get away from absolutely everything going on right now would be beneficial, almost like a self-imposed exile. I’d be able to distance myself from things and gain some perspective, something I usually believe I’m able to do until something drastic happens that changes the way I view things.

I’m not really sure what to expect from my visit, although I think that I’ll be changed ever subtly, maybe subconsciously. One can rarely walk away from such things without being affected in some way, perhaps both Tina and Em would agree. I just don’t know how this may change me. I don’t have any questions. I’m not looking for answers.

I’m just waiting to find out.