Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 83

Journey to the West and Back
International School of Nanshan Shenzhen, Meng, Flora - 15
T
he earliest memory I can recollect from the outset of the decision was stepping into a car with Mom
and Dad while waving cheerfully at the grandparents whom I had lived with for as long as I could
recall. In that spur of the moment, had I bothered to truly ponder about where I was about to go
and how long I was going to be away from them? Strangely, I had not, nor had I understood why I was
delighted about the trip. I was casually told that we were moving to a place far away called Prince Edward
Island in Canada, whatever that meant, and I naturally accepted this decision, being quite nonchalant about
the whole departure.
Perhaps the idea was too radical for me to grasp or to make sense of as an unobservant and carefree
child. Little did I know, I was about to embark on an adventure in the following procession of years that
would abound my childhood with discoveries of my identity that like this instance when I first moved away,
I was unable to distinguish at first. My journey took me to the unfamiliar scopes of Western society, a
critical leap I was fortunate to make, but fragments of uniqueness is carried in everyone’s story, and mine as
of now is marked most remarkably by the path that lead me away and back to China, my home.
Natty is what most people call me, but Natasha when my mother is livid and potentially deafening.
I think it is certainly fair to say that a significant portion of elementary school consisted of debating
passionately with my Mom on my poor choices most notably my insistence on comparing Google searches
with book reading and arguing that the former was far more efficient and informative in the modern world.
That doubtlessly led to more irate expressions and unsightly glares, but curiously, I would one day appreciate
the encounters I made with this seemingly unapologetic woman.
Though before the frenzy with all of that, I did spend my first year in Canada harmoniously
roaming around the neighborhoods of arguably one of the friendliest islands I could’ve landed on. They say
that young children can learn several different languages early on, which was exactly what I had