Hello :~)
Hello everybody. Sincere apologies for the absence. It's been a weird couple of months.
Spring has arrived in Berlin! The trees and flowers are in bloom and energy is seeping back into my body. I've never experienced arousal of the mind and body like this before – I feel renewed and rested – I think I can almost understand why people endure the winter for this. It is cathartic.
I've been trying my best to get through life, and I'm not too sure where my head is at lately – so it has been a while, and I'm truly sorry. I hope this one makes up for it.
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The adorable humans also known as my parents.
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Parents
I adore my parents.
My parents visited me in Berlin at the end of March. I did think that they would visit me at some point while living abroad, but it had never really been discussed in great detail, and so it was a really nice surprise when my Dad first mentioned that he'd be in Germany for work. My parents came to Berlin for a week, and although the weather was terrible and I couldn't take too much time off work, it was wonderful hosting them and showing them around my new home.
[Hey – if you can give your parents a hug right now, or maybe you can give them one really soon, go and do it. I accidentally didn't get to say goodbye to my parents properly when I dropped them off at the station in Berlin and I bawled my eyes out for an entire day until Dom bought me tickets to meet up with them in Budapest a weekend later. Thanks again Dom. You saved me.]
I think immigrant babies always have a complex relationship with their parents. For me, I live in constant fear that I've let mine down in some way. All I want for them is happiness, and all they want for me is mine, and yet this simple wish can sometimes seem so incredibly difficult.
While my parents were in Berlin, I did manage to escape from work a couple of times to spend some extra time with them, and one of these days we went to the Stasi Museum. It was interesting, but mostly in how much it ended up revealing of my father.
My Dad and I are alike in many ways. We are particular, we are stern and severe, we are both virgos – obsessive and organised. I have always taken after my Dad. I think there was a point in the middle somewhere where I struggled to love my Dad, but as I got older and we became better at being friends, things mellowed out a bit.
The one major difference between me and my father is that he is very good at being incredibly reserved when he needs to be. Almost every one of my ex-boyfriends was a little bit afraid of him because he never really liked to say that much. Which isn't really true, but I think he prefers to take everything in. I take everything in, but I also can't shut my gob either. I guess I get that from my mother, who has always been chatty and a wonderful conversationalist. Having dinner with my parents is very funny in that way, my Mum could talk all night if you let her, and my Dad might have said just two words the whole time.
Anyway, I'm getting off track. What I wanted to say was that my father was extremely interested in the Stasi Museum and started making lots of observations about communism and China and his youth and this eventually led to us sitting on the couch, at home, talking about his move to Melbourne.
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Michael
Dad was 27 when he moved to Melbourne.
In the late 80's, it was possible to get a six month visa to live in Australia, for the purposes of studying English. My Dad's family pooled together their savings so that Dad, the youngest of four, could go to Melbourne.
I didn't know this, and I guess this is shame on me for not knowing more about my own personal history, as well as general world history, but after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, Bob Hawke granted extended visas to all Chinese students who were in Australia. This incident basically gave my parents (and probably so many other parents of people I know) the opportunity to begin a new life.
The way Dad described his first 24 hours in Melbourne just astounds me. He still remembers it all so clearly – arriving at the airport and not knowing where to go, standing out the front of his new school because it was the only address he could give to the taxi driver that came inside the terminal to pick up the stragglers (everyone else was gone!), asking for help from some of the students who were studying inside to make a phone call to the only person he knew in Melbourne, being picked up and dropped off at a strange house in a strange neighbourhood and being told to wait while that person returned to work, passing out on the couch until a stranger knocked on the door in the night (this turned out to be Jason, who is now one of our closest family friends), said stranger then saying he'd been instructed to take Dad out to dinner, sitting in the passenger's seat disoriented while Jason went around delivering pizzas, before finally, a meal, and heading back home to sleep before his first day of class. What a day! What an adventure!
So Dad went to English school diligently every day, surrounded by a world unknown to him. I'm so amazed at how he managed to get through this period of time while being so detached from everything that he knew to be safe. I wonder what it must be like to be completely isolated from everyone you know and love, with little way to communicate. When I visited my maternal grandparents a few years back, my Grandma had actually managed to dig up the letters my Dad sent them when he first arrived in Melbourne – promising that he was trying his best to set up a good life for both himself and my mother (and also asking for my Grandma to get a pair of glasses made for him because he couldn't afford them in Melbourne. Ow! My heart!).
On his first day of class, Dad eagerly caught the train into the city. Before moving to Melbourne, he'd only experienced the subway in Beijing, and that system only had one train line. So, he blindly caught the train into Flinders St, not paying any attention to the station name, not realising that there was more than one train line to catch. When he headed back to Flinders St station to go home, he suddenly discovered there was an entire network, and poor little Dad had no idea where to go. He asked around for ages until someone was able to identify which station he needed to get to, but by the time he made it to Ripponlea station, it was dark, and so he couldn't recognise his surroundings anymore. Back and forth, back and forth, he went from the station, trying different paths to find his house, turning a five minute journey into a one hour debacle. The image of my dad strolling around Balaclava hopelessly is kind of cute, but also makes my heart ache a lot. I wonder if he felt scared, or stupid, or frustrated? I wonder if he ever wanted to cry, to go home, to give up?
[I did actually message my father to ask him if he ever wanted to give up in the beginning and he answered with a flat 'Yes'. See what I mean?]
Dad worked a couple of odd jobs when he first arrived in Melbourne – he delivered pizzas, he worked in a metal factory. After a while though he realised this wasn't enough, and so once again, he dug deep, using all his savings, to rent a little shop in the suburbs. If you grew up around Ivanhoe, you've probably driven past it many times – it's still there, albeit different name and different owner of course. But it still remains, the little computer shop on Seddon St. Back then, Dad named it Hope Computers. I thought this name was so uplifting and beautiful, until I found out that Dad had just copied the name off a big computer company in China. Lol.
Well, you can guess what happened next – it was the 90s and computers were en vogue, Dad rode the tech wave and things worked out pretty well for him. Mum was finally able to join him on a partner visa and they wed shortly after. And then I came along. The. End. No, I'm just joking – but we'll save those stories for another time.
Dad persevered and managed to create such an incredible life for himself, for Mum, for me, for his family back home too. Compared to what my Dad was able to accomplish, I feel like my move across the world is a bit of a farce. My parents have come so far in such a short amount of time. I'm so proud of my parents – truly, whenever I think about it, I am in awe. I hope I am able to amount to something nearly as impressive as they have.
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On your way out...
I'm Gonna Get You
– Listen
This tune!!! Heard it again in Panorama Bar recently and it floored me. Everything about this song screams summer – I can't wait.
Me on Liminal Mag
– Read
Not really sure I deserved to be interviewed, especially with the calibre of actual incredible human beans on Liminal, but what the hell, sometimes I just need to try and accept with these things. Thanks Leah and Amie, and welcome to anyone who may have found their way here via Liminal.
We Saw Humanity
– Read
From The Guardian, reflections on Bob Hawke's decision to change the lives of thousands of Chinese students.
Celine Dion Carpool Karaoke
– Watch
I mention in my Liminal interview that I listen to Celine Dion on a fairly regular basis. My Mum just sent me this video of her killing carpool karaoke. Seriously – she's very funny! Her facial expressions! Oh my god.
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Goodbye :~)
I hope you're all thriving. Missing you all dearly. More to come (very very) shortly.
P.S. Now is a good time to remind you that if you are a Gmail user, this newsletter might pop up in your promotions inbox from time to time – to prevent that from happening, you should add hello@catherinehuang.net to your contacts list. Super :~)
♡
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