Finding my roots
Since we migrated to Australia, and with my father's passing, I have become more aware of my missing connections to my ancestral past.
I can’t remember when this feeling started.
It might have slowly crept in after we migrated to Australia from Singapore. The immediate feeling upon our arrival must have been one many migrants experienced. We felt like foreigners. In Singapore, where over 70% of the population is ethnic Chinese, coming to Australia was indeed a shock.
Australians are mostly friendly, kind and genuine, and we never regretted our decision to migrate. We wanted a less stressful lifestyle for ourselves and our 2 boys. After several years, we discovered we didn’t feel like foreigners anymore. We have adapted.
With this new familiarity came the loss of something from the past. It might have started with missing the food that I grew up with. Those oily, messy, and rustic dishes that were so much a part of my heritage were slowly slipping away as we became accustomed to BBQs and pizzas.
Our boys preferred “Australian” food to the Singapore dishes I cook on weekends. Dishes my mother used to cook, and that I missed so much. This made me very sad.
And the “non-event” festivals like the Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn festival in Australia seemed so unimportant. Occasionally, we try to celebrate among other Singaporeans. It’s not quite the same when it’s a regular workday on a weekday. Our video calls with families on those occasions felt so distant, like we were missing out.
OzAsia Festival 2021: Open Homes
In 2021, we were invited to share our migration journey through a series of performances at our home.
While preparing for the show, we began to rediscover and remember what our lives were like in Singapore. This sparked an interest that ultimately became a passion for wanting our boys to reconnect with their families in Singapore. We went back when the borders reopened after the pandemic and continued sending the boys back once a year so they could spend time with their families, especially their grandparents.
Why is this important?
This sense of wanting to “find yourself” must have intensified for me when I turned 50. It may have been amplified because we are a minority here in Australia. Everything is different, and so, subconsciously, I ask “who am I and how do I fit in?” more frequently.
I realised my children will not have the experience and memories of the celebrations during Chinese New Year, or attending a Chinese Wedding Dinner like we had when we were growing up.
I realise that all the things that I have learnt while growing up in Singapore are just a drop in the ocean of “things Chinese”; I know so little. So little of the thousands of years of history, the philosophies that started during the Warring States period (战国时代) in the Hundred Schools of Thought (諸子百家), and traditions, the arts, the superstitions, the festivals and practices. So little of my family’s ancestry, my hometown. These gaps made me feel incomplete, like an orphan trying to reconnect with his birth parents.
Another reason for beginning this quest comes from the curiosity of our Australian friends. Why do you eat dumplings on the eve of the Chinese New Year? What is this red packet with money for? Who is this Guan Yu that you display a statue of him in your living room? Is he your god? Why do you like the colour red so much?
These questions give rise to stories that made me an interesting conversationalist and a knowledgeable Asian friend. It also helped them understand a little more about who the Chinese People are, and who I am. I want to know more so that I can share more. And maybe behind some of these stories are wisdoms that all of us could learn from.
So this is the beginning of a series of articles I am writing for my children, and, hopefully, their children and their children’s children.
I am also writing these for you. And for me.
We have accepted that Australia is now our new home, and we will live very different lives than we would have if we had remained in Singapore. But I want my children to know their heritage and their culture, to know that they are Chinese, and that their roots go back a long, long time.
I hope they will eventually be curious enough to learn more and get to know their past. I hope they will use my effort here, in these journals, as a springboard to discover the wealth of history that is their birthright.