Should you had given 13-year-old me a selection whether or not to maneuver to Hong Kong or keep in Toronto, chances are high I might have mentioned, “No manner I’m going to Hong Kong! Why go away the whole lot I do know and love to start out over someplace so utterly new and totally different?”
Nicely, we moved anyway, and like all sort of huge change, it wasn’t simple. Oftentimes it was straight-up uncomfortable and disorienting. One instance: In Canada, individuals solely noticed me as Chinese language, however impulsively, in Hong Kong, I wasn’t “Chinese language” sufficient as a result of I didn’t converse Cantonese nicely and dressed otherwise. Very complicated. I felt lonely in a brand new place, like nobody understood me or appeared to care about how I used to be doing. It was exhausting. However the factor I didn’t count on was how a lot I’d study myself by working by all these challenges, and what number of of these experiences ended up being wonderful and essential ones. I discovered to talk my household’s language higher. I made wonderful pals I’m nonetheless shut with immediately. I fell in love with an attractive, vibrant, and distinctive metropolis. I found so many luxurious Chinese language desserts, from bowl pudding cake to my favourite gooey Hong Kong French toast!
Scripting this ebook felt eerily much like that transfer to Hong Kong. I’d by no means made a graphic novel earlier than, and the whole lot felt new and scary. Initially, I had needed to make a ebook about how my father was born whereas his household was on the run throughout the Second Sino-Japanese Warfare. My grandmother and aunt would inform this story to my cousins and me yearly rising up. It had develop into a Chan household legend. However the extra I wrote, the extra I spotted why the story had all the time caught with me. Similar to my grandmother and her household, I had additionally been uprooted from all I knew.
I switched gears and began rewriting the ebook to inform each the myth-like story of my father’s beginning and my very own story about transferring. Generally it felt like I had no concept what I used to be doing, and there have been days after I thought I’d rip my hair out and I’d should go on an enormous, lengthy stroll with my canine. However identical to after I moved to Hong Kong all these years in the past, I discovered that unexpectedly great issues emerged as I struggled to make this ebook.
I laughed my manner by tons of of photographs, (very cringey) diary entries, and even faxes (from when my mother forbade me from utilizing the cellphone as a result of I used to be spending an excessive amount of time on it, so Bonnie and I despatched faxes to one another as a substitute). My mother and father and pals and I had lengthy, intimate conversations about what we remembered from that point. I fell in love with Hong Kong yet again, and I bought to look again and see how my time there formed me into who I’m immediately. Above all, I bought to honor the unbelievable energy that my Mah Mah, my aunt, and my mother and father possessed in overcoming all of the issues that got here their manner, a energy I hoped had been handed right down to me.
I nonetheless get nervous after I converse Cantonese, and I nonetheless don’t like rooster ft. However making this ebook has helped me develop and has made me see, as soon as once more, how braveness, perseverance, and persistence can assist you get by some exhausting occasions. It’s wonderful how adaptable we’re as people. Life isn’t all the time easy or in our management, and oftentimes we are able to’t predict what’s going to occur or how individuals will react. To prime all of it off, most issues that assist us develop and study aren’t simple. However if you happen to attain out, keep open, give your self time, and maintain going, you’ll discover your individuals and also you’ll discover all types of unexpectedly great issues ready for you.
I hope this ebook helps you are feeling rather less lonely if you end up going through one thing new or troublesome, and reminds you that you’re house wherever you’re due to the individuals who love you and imagine in you.
Ruth Chan is an illustrator and creator who spent her childhood tobogganing in Canada, her teenagers in Hong Kong and China, a variety of years learning artwork and schooling, and a decade working with youth and households in underserved communities. She now writes and illustrates youngsters’s books and comics in Brooklyn NY and stays a proud Canadian.