What makes a “Home”? A multi-centric interpretation reconciliatory to the uprootedness vs. embeddedness
Thanks to the solo trip to Colorado, my understanding of “home” started to unfold. To me, “home” has become a multi-centric concept. One that is not just about time or spatial, but also the socio-emotional dimensions. Before I know it, moving around the world and connecting with people at different levels have created “homes” for me that elicit similar or even deeper feelings of attachment and belonging. Meanwhile, there are strong transformational dynamics of “old home” and “new homes.” Old home reminds me of how it feels like to “be home,” on the basis of which I define new homes. The new home experience highlights what’s missing from the old home, making the old home nothing but more endearing. That’s it, the warm feelings towards old and new homes are mutually reinforcing.
I’ve always called Kunming “my home.” I grew up there. I know my neighborhood like the back of my hands. I can discern the types of flowers that blossom every season and I remember the smell of the newly rained grass lane in the park. It brings me joy when I hear the melody of the Yunnan bonfire dance, and it hits my soft spot when I touch the tie-dyed textile. I miss the old apartment complex where I laughed and cried with friends who always joined me for skating, climbing the trapeze, or playing pranks in the nearby restaurants. It brings me home when I taste grandma’s yellow-braised chicken and mom’s clay-pot rice noodles. The city has gone through vicissitude, so have I — but I would always call it “my home.”
Hong Kong is my other home. It was not intuitive how I could belong. The different language was the first barrier, and my mainland Chinese identity was make-and-break for some relationships and opportunities. My sense of belonging did not come naturally, but nor was it forced. The umbrella movement caused my first identity crisis. I was not “HongKongness” enough to fight for democracy fearlessly because of the overbearing risks on my immigrant status and my family in the mainland. Apparently, I was neither “Chinese” enough to turn against my protester friends with any intense patriotism. (Alert for the oversimplification of what it means to be “Chinese.” Just being brief because it’s not the focus of this essay.)
Founding Impact Circles was a direct answer to my identity crisis and loneliness. I was led by the hope that without an either-or positioning, people can be united by common goals. Luckily I found my gang. Not long after I initiated the meet-up group, I started to hang out mostly with my friends doing projects that challenge the precipitating status quo of social inequality. I have valuable friends who are refugees and asylum seekers. I have mentors and friends to call on at my highs and lows who care and love me for who I am. I felt at home.
Berkeley has become my other home. I suffered from depression when I first arrive here during the pandemic, in stark contrast to my communal lifestyle in Hong Kong and a new place with barely a person I could call a friend. However, It offered me solitude, which felt much like misery at the beginning but later turned into a transformational space. It offered me refreshing perspectives on the expectations I had in life, missions that keep my heart beating, and love for myself and for others. I enjoyed exiting from the spotlight being a “community builder” to immersing myself in profound theories and practices that impart wisdom for doing what I do better. I felt that I can breathe and see things more clearly once I freed myself from the constant “doing,” and “hustling.”
Being in Berkeley made me all the more grateful for the unrelenting support from my family whose financial support, among other things, significantly unleashed my oftentimes idealistic endeavor from major constraints. Being in Berkeley inspired me on the social innovation ideas I thought could be brought to Hong Kong. Being in Berkeley made me wonder if I must embrace a certain identity to be a part of any community. I felt puzzled, challenged, but welcomed, heard, and inspired.
My view on being a “global citizen” might be seen as uprootedness or a fickle commitment to any local community. I cannot deny that no development work can be done in a year or two, nor could my heart disguise its guilty feeling for selfishly leaving the people I tried to help mid-way.
However, at times, I feel urged to move to a new type of work if my inner calling leads me to it. It might entail moving to a new place. What I realized is, though, moving to a new home does not mean plugging myself out from the old ones. As long as humanity is a global concept, I can strike roots in different soil because of what nurtures it. Maintaining my roots at old homes is much more likely today as I learned to be a better listener and as I train myself to be reflective. Having said that, the challenge remains as I figure out how my support structure (friends, family, and my inner self) and life ventures can be mutually enhancing, without either of which life would be fearful or tasteless.
Lastly, let me say how much I found reminiscing childhood and old friends made me feel grounded. The concept of “moving on” is interpreted in such a patriarchal and capitalistic way that feeling emotional about the past is treated as a weakness rather than quality. Yet, we all deserve to care for our inner child who cries for the familiar feeling of “home.” It triggers a range of emotions — fights, freeze, or flee at large — when the warm feeling is repressed or attacked.
I pinged my cousin brothers as I wrote down these thoughts. Until now, we have been apart for almost two years. Both of them immediately replied to my message. It again brought me the fuzzy feeling of home, and it motivated me to articulate it with words. I’ve owed so much gratitude to all my “homes,” and it repays a bit of the debt when I spend quality time with these thoughts without neglecting or judging them.