My Origin Story

The first memory I had of meeting my mother was seeing an unusually fashionable short haired woman sitting at the head of a semicircle of adults in my maternal grandparents’ living room one day. 

“Go see if you can recognize your mother,” said one of them.

I was probably four or five years old at the time and stranger danger made me refused any advances towards the woman who’s supposedly my mother despite multiple attempts to coerce me.

Her second attempt to meet me was more successful because this time she brought a gift - a richly illustrated hardcover story book with hundreds of pages of stories in Chinese. I was really excited about my first “big kid” book with more words than pictures but quickly realized I can’t read beyond my name, 田田, two Chinese characters meaning rice field, rice field. Not surprisingly, the book was quickly tossed aside and forgotten.

My grandma must have packed it for me when I moved to America a few years later to reunite with my mother because it was one of the few “toys” they packed besides essentials like clothes and dried fishes. And the transAtlantic move transformed this long forgotten book into a years long task to decipher its contents. For reasons unknown, in my eight years old brain - understanding its contents translated into holding on to a part of my old life.

I voraciously read through the Chinese literature section in the Chatham Square Public Library in Chinatown. First I read all the books in the children’s section with pin yins (instructional phonetics) to help learn the language. Then I expanded into young adults, history, sci-fi, and even some rather racy books in the grown up section that didn’t make much sense until years later. To call my young self a mere book worm is an understatement. I was very lonely away from my family and friends with two parents who worked 12+ hours a day. The library became my babysitter, best friend, and chief entertainment system. 

Once I learned Chinese, I must have read the same story book hundreds of times before I moved on to call “A tree Grows in Brooklyn”, a 500+ page coming of age novel by Betty Smith, my new favorite book in fourth grade. It didn’t strike me until now how prodigious my young self was until writing this post. I somehow managed to teach myself how to read both Simplified and Traditional Chinese and learned English above grade level in a little over a year. 

But there is nothing truly special about it- everyday people can do incredible things to survive. 

As a little Chinese girl living in New York City, learning English was crucial in order to fit in and survive but I also had to find the reasons to. The book became a link to who I was and the family I left behind - through learning and reading the stories I continued to grow and build my relationships with them instead of severing my roots and identity.  

Many years have passed and I became an expert at picking up and perfecting survival skills. But I continue to struggle in my search for who I am and where I belong. 

But stories, in all forms, have always been a safe space and survival tool. And that’s why I must start to write.