Sunday, December 03, 2006

할머니의 고향

"고향이 어디 있어요?" (Where is your hometown?) is a strange question to me. As a Singaporean, 고향(故鄕-hometown) has very little meaning to me. I feel awkward if I am to answer, "제 고향이 싱가포르 있어요." (My hometown is Singapore.)

Singapore is a small country. I go to work from my home in the morning and go back to the same home in the evening. I don't need to leave my home to stay somewhere else to work. During festival, I don't need to squeeze on a bus or train to get back home. I see my family everyday and visit my relatives frequently. There is never a sense of separation or detachment in me while living in Singapore. That is why I always feel awkward about being asked the question.

But to my grandmother, 고향 meant a lot to her. She was among the first generation of Chinese immigrants who arrived in Malaya from China to find a livelihood. Life in China during the early 1900s was tough enough to send her to board a cargo ship bound for the unknown. Between a known future of despair and an unknown future of possibility, she had decided to go for the more benign choice.

My grandmother's hometown is in Fujian Province, Putian City. Like most Chinese immigrants who worked overseas, she would remit part of her earning back to China to support my uncle's family and her relatives. She also built a red-brick house in her hometown with her remittance. Since I was young, I have always wanted to see this building for myself.

In December 2004, I stepped foot in China for the first time and my first destination was my grandmother's hometown. I finally saw that red-brick building. Looking at it, I could suddenly understand why my grandmother would rather sting on herself and save all the money she could to build a house in her hometown which she would never stay in.

Perhaps to call a place a hometown, she needed a house where her heart could always go back to.

My grandmother's red-brick house in Putian City, Fujian Province [Dec 2004]

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