Yearly Archives: 2009

This City Lets Me Feel

I’ve been stand­ing on the bal­cony of the fourth floor apart­ment, watch­ing peo­ple walk around in the mid­dle of the night. If there’s one thing that’s always defined Hong Kong to me, it’s the con­stant traf­fic you hear when you’re sleep­ing, most­ly light bus­es run­ning on diesel, and taxis. Across the street, the rooms of the St. Theresa’s Hospital are light­ing up one by one. The sun has­n’t crest­ed yet, but the streets are becom­ing busier by the minute as the sky bright­ens in notice­able degrees.

Boundary street balcony — sunrise

Practicing Tai Chi usu­al­ly helps me sleep and cen­ter myself, but today it’s only a reminder of how painful­ly sore my hip sock­ets are from run­ning around air­ports with all my lug­gage. You nev­er tru­ly appre­ci­ate the short form until you try prac­tice in a Hong Kong apart­ment.

I’ve been up for hours now, and I’m exhaust­ed but wide awake. It’s the jet lag, the med­ica­tion, a rest­less mind, or all three.

Those who know me know that I’ve always felt that Hong Kong is my home­land, even though I was­n’t born here. But for some rea­son, it has­n’t sunk in that I’m here yet.

I guess I’ve been going through some hard times. I nev­er real­ly thought about it until some­one brought it to my atten­tion. The heart­break, the col­i­tis, the grand­moth­er, the dis­il­lu­sion­ment. Somewhat major things, I sup­pose, that weren’t in the front of my mind. Maybe I haven’t been let­ting myself think about them. Or maybe they’ve been affect­ing me with­out real­iz­ing it.

The writ­ten word appears to be the only reli­able thing I have left. My friends are all away. Everyone’s asleep, and I’ve been cry­ing. I’ve been cry­ing in the heart of this beau­ti­ful city.

This city brings my guard down. This city lets me feel.

Death And Turbulence

For some rea­son, I’m always seat­ed by the wings of planes. It suits me fine, as I like to watch the dance of flaps as the pilots check their instru­ments and con­trols. It makes me think of how beau­ti­ful flight is, of what an accom­plish­ment of human­i­ty it is to get this giant con­trap­tion off the ground.

The cap­tain issues a word of cau­tion over the loud­speak­er in his gener­ic voice about cinch­ing up our seat belts because it’s going to be bumpy until we reach 20000 feet. Leaving at 1pm and arriv­ing at five in the after­noon, it remains day­light for the entire flight, as we’re chas­ing the sun around the hemi­sphere.

Flight infor­ma­tion flash­es in pairs on the TV screens:

Ground speed: 857k/h. Time to des­ti­na­tion: 14h 12m.
Altitude: 8000km. Distance to des­ti­na­tion: 15289km.

The man next to me reads People mag­a­zine to take his mind off the sud­den drops in alti­tude. He clutch­es his ster­num every time the plane dips sud­den­ly, and fum­bles around for the vom­it bag. Eventually, he set­tles his head on the upright tray.

Every shake and sud­den move­ment is a reminder of your mor­tal­i­ty.

I used to be scared of tur­bu­lence. Now I can’t tell if I’m used to it, or the fact that I’m going to die some day.

Last Chance For Grandma

I’m on a plane some­where over the Pacific Ocean, in the mid­dle of this 16000km jour­ney. 18 hours of flight time, one lay­over in Chicago, and two meals.

My grand­moth­er in Hong Kong is dying. She’s been diag­nosed with colon can­cer, and start­ed chemother­a­py last week, slip­ping in and out of aware­ness due to the can­cer, the treat­ment, the med­ica­tions, or all three. So when my dad told me a few days ago that he was book­ing a tick­et to fly out to see her, I had to take the oppor­tu­ni­ty to go with him.

This is the woman to whom I mailed the first pay­cheque from my first job. The woman who gave me the jade neck­lace I nev­er take off. The woman who came to Canada by her­self to find an edu­ca­tion for my dad, when the only English word she knew was “delay”. The woman who taught me how to hold chop­sticks prop­er­ly. The woman I’ve looked up to my entire life.

I don’t know how I’ll react when I see her, because I don’t know what con­di­tion she’s in. The details have been vague.

Awareness is a big thing. I want to be there. I want her to be aware. I want her to know how impor­tant she is to me.

The cir­cum­stances aren’t great, but I’m thank­ful to have this oppor­tu­ni­ty to go. I’ll be able to bond with my dad. I’ll get a chance to see my uncles and aunts and cousins. I was going to go last year, but the trip was can­celed due to unfore­seen cir­cum­stances.

In a way, the tim­ing is right. I already have my pass­port. I was able to get more than three weeks off work. My col­i­tis has been diag­nosed, and I’m tak­ing med­ica­tion that will allow me to eat very well and not wor­ry1. I have all the cam­era gear I need2. And I’ve been feel­ing so jad­ed with life late­ly, it’ll be good to get away, a lit­tle bit of much need­ed exile.

Before dri­ving to Toronto, I dropped Dolly off at Joel’s house3 The fish has a delayed feed­ing tablet. Extra pre­scrip­tions have been filled. The plants have been watered. Projects have been put on hold, both paid and unpaid, and plans have been can­celed. Even Naveed called me dur­ing the dri­ve, and invit­ed me to Rosella’s first birth­day par­ty, but I’ll have to miss it. I don’t like to do things so last minute, but I have no choice.

This will be the first time I’ve ever gone when it was­n’t Christmas. It’ll be warmer, that’s for sure, and I’m going from a bru­tal Canadian win­ter to rel­a­tive­ly trop­i­cal climes.

As a woman in her 80s4 with such a diag­no­sis on a dif­fer­ent con­ti­nent, it’ll prob­a­bly be the last chance for me to see her.

It feels like soon isn’t soon enough.

  1. I have yet to cal­cu­late the adjust­ment for the tim­ing of my med­ica­tions, since Hong Kong is 13 hours ahead, and the dosage for one of them is care­ful­ly tapered over sev­er­al weeks. [↩]
  2. The last time I went to Hong Kong, I was­n’t into pho­tog­ra­phy yet, so I bor­rowed my dad’s cam­era and did­n’t know how to use it. [↩]
  3. He owes me a favour for tak­ing care of Sprocket for six weeks while he was in Australia last year. It’ll be inter­est­ing to see how she han­dles liv­ing in some­one else’s home, along with Sprocket and anoth­er dog. [↩]
  4. No one real­ly knows how old she is, because they did­n’t keep birth records in Hong Kong for girls when she was born. I’m guess­ing some­where around late 80s. She just tells every­one that her birth­day is on Christmas to make it eas­i­er. [↩]