“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” —T.S. Eliot
Hong Kong holds a special place in my heart.
It was the first country I visited as a child. My father took me there when I was 13—his graduation present. I still remember vividly our visit to Stanley Beach, the sweeping vistas of the mountains and the sea as we stood on the terrace of a hotel perched on a hill.
Hong Kong was where I lived as a young mother, a time and place that seem like a distant life now. The baby I cared for hands-on in the seaside community of Discovery Bay on Lantau Island is now 21, and the trip back there was a belated birthday present, but I found that it was a gift for me as well.
It’s amazing how different a familiar place can look like after many years. How one can see and appreciate many things about the place that one used to be fearful of or take for granted. Central District’s winding roads seemed easier to navigate this time; the Star Ferry more charming, and the pace of life, though still very busy, less daunting.
Perhaps I had grown older, braver and wiser in the years that have ensued.
The trip was an emotional journey as we revisited our old home, and returned to familiar haunts, places where she and I used to spend time together. In those moments I was reminded of a younger self, of the joys and pains of young motherhood, of what I was capable of and how much I could bear.
As I regaled my daughter with stories of our life in Hong Kong before her and after her, stories that she had never heard, in my head I could hear myself say, “Wow, I was able to do that!?” and smile at the recollection.
Although some of the memories were bittersweet, I was awash with peace at many of the things that I remembered, and in the process rekindled a love for the city that I had shunned for many years.
My daughter and I make good travel partners. Admittedly, she is the more organized one and we are in many ways like yin and yang. On this trip I taught her to loosen up. To allow herself to “get lost.” Thus, most of our days were unstructured and unhurried. We let our legs lead where our hearts wanted to take us.
To die for
Sometimes that meant walking and running for an hour in Causeway Bay in pursuit of an elusive but to-die-for Peking Duck (at the Golden Bauhinia in the HK Convention Center). Other days that would mean hiking up and down the streets of Central to buy a blue paper lantern, to shoot the very rare cobblestone street, or peer through the alley where Rizal once lived.
On another quiet afternoon before flying home, “getting lost” meant circling the IFC mall several times in search of a macaron, and ending up instead having high tea overlooking the Victoria Harbor.
The joy of having an adult child is that your relationship evolves from mother and child to best friends. As the child grows older, she becomes more tolerant and understanding of the parent’s shortcomings. In her eyes, one’s humanity shines, more than what was once perceived as “superhero” qualities, although of course, she knows that I will always be mom, and she will always be my baby. Every now and then, though, our individual strengths reverse those roles.
Directions were never my strongest suit, though I must say that, in the exercise of getting “lost,” I found the greatest joys and treasures. It was no different on this trip. My heart was warmed watching my Hong Kong baby, now all grown up, navigate the streets her mother once knew so well, safely on her own.
Watching her move confidently, sightseeing and shooting pictures, I was reminded of an incident when she was all of seven and I was very pregnant with my youngest child. We had found ourselves in a brand-new mall in the southern part of Manila, and the person who was supposed to take us home had left and gone ahead. I was trying to figure my way out when her little hand tugged at my sleeve, “Mommy, this way…” And true enough, the seven-year-old led the 30-year-old out of the mall and into the parking lot.
Many times on this trip, late in the evening, she would lead the way back home. On unfamiliar streets I was often tempted to ask, “Are you sure?” But I would stop myself—she already had a homing device at age seven, how much more now?
God always gives us what we need. He blesses us with children who help us navigate a different phase of life with confidence and joy, and by His grace, second chances for us to revisit our past, and see the world through braver and kinder eyes, like, as T.S. Eliot says, we are seeing it for the first time.
E-mail the author at cathybabao@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @cathybabao.