October 31, 2018 | Dǎng fú yí
To me, discovering who I am has always been of paramount importance. I guess in a way to validate the person I have become and will develop on to being. For instance, I play into the adoptee’s stereotypes of having ‘Abandonment issues’ or a fear of feeling rejected, as I once was left as a baby by my parents blah blah blah and so on (you get the point)….. Furthermore, over the last few years, I have strived so hard to re-engage with my culture, my language, my roots. I have realised that all these inhibitions have led me to lose focus of who I really am. I’ve been searching so hard for acceptance from somewhere, someone and to fit in or just be invisible. I’ve started to feel like a fake, ironically similar to all the fake products produced in Chinese markets.
My overpowering obsession for anything Asian translated into revisiting China to get my fix. Therefore this summer I was belovingly (by my lovely parent) given the opportunity to go back to China, with the focus of revisiting my province and orphanage. On arrival, the familiar sounds, smells, and visuals put me at ease, at last…… I was ‘home’. But this comfort was abruptly disrupted by my lack of confidence in communicating. I was exposed, a recognisable face but a foreign mouth. The cohesion of my façade unveiled the banana (had to put it in somewhere) I really was. This wasn’t my home, my language or my culture but a place I had reshaped to fit in with my own narrative. Regardless, there were still moments of the complete bliss of invisibility. I had gone on a walk in the evening by myself (be safe kids) and was listening to music. Whilst walking, I felt this overwhelming sensation of belonging. No one gave me a second glance (not that they do in the UK) but it was the fact that I could be considered just another part of the community. However, these moments were few, though intense.
The most difficult day was returning back to my orphanage. Not because the reality of roots were being reopened but the feeling of how unreal it seemed. Did I actually live here? The only trace of me was the few official legal documents left. One of the questions I wanted to know was where my Chinese name had come from. Most Chinese adoptees would have been given a Chinese name, most likely from the orphanage themselves. I was always told that my Chinese name was given to me by my birth family on a handwritten note left with me. I took great pride in this, as it was some indication of my roots, a sign that my birth parents had any regard for my life. I was even considering tattooing the name on me, this was the significance it meant to me. My Chinese name was something I clung to and to me felt like a defining feature of my developing Chinese persona. However, I went to find out that my Chinese name was given to me by the orphanage. Not only that but it was almost identical to another orphan. Right there and then it lost all meaning, to me it might as well have been a number.
What is the point of having roots when there is no nutrients in the ground and no foundation to act as a stronghold for your character? The point is that I need to be my own person. During that trip, I also visited Hong Kong. One of the places we visited was the Flower market, which surprisingly had boundless amounts of shops filled with all kinds of plants and flowers. One of the plants there was a Tillandsia. This type of plant is also known as an air plant as it has no reliance on being rooted in soil. It is free to flourish on its own and lets it environment guide it to thrive. The significance in this analogy was and still is blatant but in terms of applying it to my life is somewhat more challenging. I need to let go of what I think others expect of me, what I expect of myself and entrench my roots, not in my origins but the present.
What I rediscovered is that roots only go so far. As long as you acknowledge the significance you hold in your own life, origins though important will no longer and should no longer define who you are now.
lunanation.blog 