Memoir

“Chinese-American: The Journey Home” is a memoir I wrote after going back to Hong Kong for the first time since the age of five. The book is 310 pages and took me two years to write and numerous years to revise. It hasn’t been published yet, but when the time is right, it will be. I am in the process of proposing it as a graphic novel and I’m talking to some artists about collaborating. My preference would be to work with an artist who is Chinese-American, is able to depict Hong Kong and can identify with the theme of cultural alienation. This is the prologue:

   The first thing you need to know is I'm not Chinese. My name is Raymond Wong, and I stopped being Chinese at the age of five.

   Twenty-nine years ago, my mother left my father in Hong Kong to come to America in search of a better life. Don't ask about my trip to the U.S. or leaving Hong Kong. I don't remember; I was just a little boy.

   What I do know is I'm American. In school, children are cruel to those who are different. Speaking Chinese made me different. I don't speak Chinese anymore.

   It's not a big deal. I live in San Diego. My stepfather, whom my mom married when I was six, is from Minnesota. My friends speak English.

   Speaking Chinese would only make me an outsider, and that's something I've struggled against my whole life. In school, kids used to always ask me what I was. What they really wanted to know was where I came from and if I ate with chopsticks.

   My answer -- British. True. The British government had ruled Hong Kong for over 150 years. My response never failed to bring a puzzled frown, and this gave me great satisfaction.

   Still, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fit in -- even in my own family. Though I refused to use Chinese, it didn't bring me closer to my stepfather. He called me his son, but the words were empty, like a birthday spent alone.

   He tried. He really did. It's just something you can't fake. Either you love someone as your own or you don't. When my brother was born, the difference became apparent in the way my stepfather looked at him. The eyes showed a father gazing into the face of his own son.

   My mom, how do I describe her? A woman who never graduated high school, yet owns and manages a thriving restaurant. Successful, determined, always right. One thing she hasn’t been able to do – get my stepfather to quit drinking, not for lack of effort: fighting, coercion, baiting, even blackmail. She hasn’t given up.

     Her number one goal in life is to get me married, preferably to someone Chinese, so she can show off her grandchildren. Call me stubborn, but this fish isn’t biting. The word marriage isn’t in my vocabulary, and being a father is the furthest thing from my mind.

Above all, my mother is a mirror. I see the Chinese reflection and turn away.  

   So it was with more than a little reservation that I agreed to accompany her on a trip to Hong Kong. I’m not sure why. She asked many times before, but she might as well have spoken in Chinese. This time, a sense of urgency in her voice told me it might be my last chance to experience something important in the place I was born.