Lights of China

This holiday, my mom took me to the village she grew up in. I was hesitant to go because I knew it was radically different from Toronto or anywhere else I've ever been, but I went anyway because I knew she would never stop asking me until I did! So I went.

When I arrived, it was everything I'd imagined...and more. Noisy, crowded, and dusty. But that was the prejudice I'd learned. In actuality, it was big, fast and old and new all at the same time. But amidst all of that prejudice and shock, I found the China that my mom saw.

The foreigner inside me says that mainland China is one big scary place. I met a person here in Japan that had gone to China before and said his experience was less than pleasant. From that experience he had even developed a prejudice against China. I'm shocked at how quick one can form prejudice but also not shocked because China is a tough place.

But the daughter inside me says it's actually quite beautiful. I may have been born in the West, but as long as China is a part of my mom, it is a part of me too.