My Painted Face

By Caylee Hong  -  Prince George, British Columbia

Once, at eight years old, I explained to a fellow student that I was “half Chinese and half normal”.  Being a mix of Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, Dutch and half third-generation Chinese, my ethnic background has been a source of confusion for others and myself.  I don’t look Chinese.  I don’t speak Chinese.  I don’t celebrate Chinese holidays.  The only obviously Sino aspect is my surname, Hong - a token of my paternal grandparents.  Nevertheless, the Celestial Dynasty has always fascinated me.

I grew up in a predominately-Caucasian central-B.C. town. However, on our semiannual visits to Vancouver, my paternal grandfather often took me along to Golden Day Bakery for bow or I would attach myself to him on his visits, such as helping his dentist, Dr. Wong, with yard work.  As well, Vancouver’s Chinatown, with its open-air bins of exotic dried fish, ham hocks hung in windows and UFO-like woks intrigued me. 

During my late teens, my curiosity grew; I listened more closely to my grandparent’s insights, and seized an opportunity to experience China firsthand. I have begun to explore my Chinese heritage – as distant and incomplete as it may be.  Then last April, a profound and seemingly preordained trip to Guangzhou, China forced me to reassess the qualifications of being Chinese.  I have come to realize that being Chinese is nearly as subjective as being normal. 

For the past two years, I studied at Li Po Chun, United World College in Hong Kong.  Last Easter weekend I was eager for an adventure – one that would open my eyes, shake me at the core - and could fit into the short three days I had.  A couple months earlier, at my request, my Grandfather sent the address of a nephew living outside Guangzhou. Grandpa had not returned to his village for over ten years and rarely spoke to the remaining relatives; nevertheless, I was curious about his childhood region.  With my three free days, limited homework, and a bit of extra money, a trip to Guangzhou seemed like an intriguing destination.  Bolstered by the rich history I had been studying in class, I settled in for the two-hour train ride into my grandpa’s past.  Actually discovering my Grandpa’s childhood home and being enthusiastically welcomed by a foreign family was a remote and seemingly impossible endeavor. 

With the address sent by my Grandpa – a photocopied letter bearing a return address written in Chinese - as my compass, I began my weekend journey to a village somewhere outside of Guangzhou.  I inquired at the White Swan Hotel, a beautiful complex renowned for assisting American guests with Chinese adoptions, for directions.  I tried at the Guangzhou Animal By-Products Imp. & Exp. Corporation, from which I learned that anything could be made from animals, including disposable gloves.  I visited two bus depots.  I asked, or rather played charades and drew diagrams, for taxi-drivers, store clerks and a hotel concierge named Joe (for guest convenience).

After giving up on the local buses, I decided to take a taxi.  After an hour drive through the Guangdong countryside of scattered paddies and cement villages, I was dropped off in the middle of a dirt road right alongside a huge, lively market. The “village” turned out to be a city by Canadian standards and as I learned later, was home to 20 000 inhabitants.

With absolutely no idea where to go and with no assurance of even being in the right village, all I could do was “ask”.  It was another round of charades: I began showing the envelope to people in the streets.  Most gestured uncertainly and those who offered suggestions pointed in alternately opposite directions. The afternoon was spent in a repeated charade: politely approaching strangers, showing the envelope and becoming increasingly confused and frustrated.  Then, a merciful break-through: an elderly woman beckoning me to follow.  And I followed.  Down cozy alleyways, detouring demolished buildings with lawns of polluted swamp, through the same colourful and chaotic market and into a labyrinth of newly built, low-rise, tiled apartment blocks. 

Suddenly she stopped, knocked and left me at the front of large wooden doors.  To the residents’surprise there stood an unexpected visitor: a rendered-mute gwaipo, holding outstretched in her hands, a photocopy of their ten-year-old letter to an uncle in Canada.  A lack of a common language would have made impossible my contorted explanation of whom I was and why I was now standing at their door.  Yet, by a wonderful coincidence, a visiting ex-villager, who now makes his home in Vancouver, overheard my hopeful but futile words.  Through this fortuitous translator, I was immediately welcomed into the home.  Photos and tea were fetched.  Extended family members were called.  Ten more relatives met us at a nearby restaurant and I was treated to Guangdong delicacies and ancient stories about my Grandpa.  Before the food arrived at the table, my Grandpa’s nephew’s son took me to the “old house”. I explored a mud-brick loft that over half a century earlier had been my grandfather’s home.

After being graciously escorted back to Guangzhou by my family, I sat stunned in my hostel room.  I reflected on the unlikely but remarkable meeting: touring their home, dining with their loved ones and learning about their unique way of life.  Surprisingly, it did not affirm my Chineseness.  In fact, I felt even less Chinese.  However, upon returning to Hong Kong and calling my Grandpa, I sensed his appreciation that I was interested – not simply in our Chinese culture, but in him, in his life and in his stories.  I am proudly Chinese, not by language or looks, but by my experiences. 

As Scottish, Norwegian, somehow Irish, partly Dutch, ½ Chinese, fully Canadian yet certainly not normal (as I had concluded as a child), I quote The Master, Confucius, “If others do not recognize him, but he is not disheartened, is he not indeed a gentleman?”

Background Information:

Caylee Hong, a Prince George, B.C. resident is currently studying undergraduate first-year social sciences at University College of Utrecht in the Netherlands.  She hopes to one-day share her favourite spot in China, The Halfway Guesthouse in Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan, with her family.