many of you know i’ve got a vacation coming up in mid-january. a lot of feelings surface with the trip…
fine, i’ve been to taiwan before…for that leg, it’s mostly excitment. i’m excited to see my family again, to eat the food, to see people…to just hang out and relax for 2 weeks. i miss my family, though i do speak to them often (weekly if i can help it), i suppose it’s just not the same.
but china…it’s a different story.
i dont’ know if i can explain it…and it’s times like these i think english is a woefully inadequate language.
i’ve never been to china…it was never “home” per se. starting from a young age, as a taiwanese born kid, everyone’s dream was to “take back” china…as if we were to original rightful owners…to “free” our fellow chinese people. china was always a part of the imagination, somewhere that i’ve read about, but never really given much thought on. what i suppose i never really paid mind to was the simple fact that my roots sprang from there. my grandparents met and married there, my oldest aunt was born there, and my grandfather’s family still live in the countryside. it’s a vast country that i’m at once familiar with (through books, novels, pictures, television, etc), and a stranger to. what are my feelings going to be when i set foot into beijing for the first time. to see the architecture of my ancestors…to see my heritage first hand…to know where my people came from, went through to reach now. i wonder if i’ll have the same feeling as i do sometimes when i walk off the plane in taiwan…that feeling of being…”home”. i wonder what my senses will tell me when i’m standing in the midst of the forbidden city…looking at palaces of emperors past. the good, bad, and the ugly that transpired within the walls of that city…it’s all part of history…my history…my heritage. or maybe i’m being too melodramatic as usual.
sometimes i find myself tearing slightly at the thought of visiting some of the place i’ve only read about in books…that i’ve only seen in pictures. my brother said when i reached some part of mount everest, he cried without even knowing that he was. mainly because he felt so small…and so in awe of the beauty that was around him. will i feel the same? to see the architecture of people past, and feel how in awe i am about everything?
i’m not sure if i dread the trip, or if i’m so excited it feels like dread. there’s a saying in chinese…translated it essentially means that the close you are to homeland, the more afraid of it you become. it’s meant for people who’ve been away from home for so long that they’re afraid to return…afraid to face the change, the people, to see all that’s now different as compared to memory. i suppose i have a mental picture of what china looks like…and maybe what i’m really afraid of is being disappointed…of seeing that starbucks around the corner from the palace…or the mcdonalds right next to temple gates…(though let me tell you…that starbucks will be lovely in the morning when i just need a good hot cup of tea.) everything is more real now…we got the plane tickets…we got hotel booked in shanghai already…now we’re just waiting for beijing hotel and the flight from beijing to shanghai. with every passing day we are a step close to a land that’s so ingrained in me.
i feel so conflicted about it…i wish i can explain it better…
like i said though, on the other hand i’m excited to no end about going back to taiwan…i miss my grandparents…they’re always in my thoughts…i can’t wait to just see them…not to mention my two little munchkins…
that’s it for now…
~ciao