“You can leave Hong Kong, but it will never leave you.” — Nury Vittachi, Hong Kong: The City of Dreams
I was born to a mother from Seoul, Korea and an Italian American father from Brooklyn.
I grew up nestled in the hills of Oakland, California, one of the most remarkable yet misunderstood communities in the country.
My friends were of all colors, shapes, sizes, socio-economic backgrounds, and interests. Some came from families that worshipped one god, two gods, or no gods.
But all influenced me in ways I’m just beginning to appreciate as the second half of my life not so gradually creeps up.
All of this to say, I rarely consider how my birth place has played a role in my evolution.
If at all.
What’s in a birth place anyway?
This was a question I longed to know as I hopped on a flight for Hong Kong four summers ago.
The first stop on my journey was the hospital of my birth. Canossa Hospital was originally founded in 1929 by the Canossian Daughters of Charity. In fact, the original building had just 16 beds, which were all destroyed during the Second World War.
Thankfully, I was born in a less tumultuous time though my entry into the world was not without controversy.
“You’re the reason your mother missed my wedding!”an old family friend joked. “She was giving birth to you when I was tying the knot!”
Just minutes into my life I was already inconveniencing someone’s plans.
Because my family moved to California when I was just eleven months old, my memories are replaced by inventions of what life might have been like had we stayed.
I thought about the schools I might have attended.
Would it have been some fancy international academy filled with the children of bankers and diplomats?
Would I have spent my days playing hooky, watching the horses at the Happy Valley Racecourse?
How soon, if at all, would that extraordinary view from Hong Kong’s peak have grown old?
I wonder if such a thing is even possible.
As I ambled through the cramped and muggy streets of Kowloon, I also recalled an opportunity I’d passed up to study in this remarkable city during my junior year of college.
My friends had practically begged me to tag along for a semester of carousing during a reliably laughable workload. But for some reason, running for student body president took precedence over having my passport stamped.
What was I thinking?
When the final votes were tallied, it was clear I’d lost more than an election.
A few weeks upon their arrival, I received a phone call from a beach in Thailand. My friends had called to inform me they were sitting on a beach sipping cocktails as I stared blankly at a six foot pile of snow just outside my upstate New York apartment.
It’s good to have friends.
But whether studying abroad or traveling for work, Hong Kong is a magical place filled with typhoons, tycoons, and nearly 8,000 glittering skyscrapers.
It is a foodie paradise that boasts the highest number of restaurants per capita in the world.
It is a place where dreams are both realized and lost.
But to me, it remains mostly a place of wonder.
Of what if’s?
What different life might I lived had we stayed behind?
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