Hao Wen (Jerry) Zhang
Published on December 22, 2016
[caption id="attachment_2134" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Tianjin. Photo by Hao Wen Zhang.[/caption]
The place I called home for the first six years of my life is a small neighbourhood called Hui Ze Yuan in the city of Tianjin, China. Tianjin is not a small city. It is a growing city with a population of 7.5 million people, countless twenty-story apartment complexes surrounded by rapidly constructed housing districts, and a constant roar of pedestrians and automobiles.
During my fifth-grade summer vacation, my parents and I went back to Tianjin to visit family. Uncle Gao, who came to the airport greet us, decided that we must eat right away and led us on foot towards the nearby food district ten minutes away. Out of all the food stalls, we decided on a dozen pork buns at an unassuming local stand where my uncle is a regular, and soon the usual chit chat and exchange of greetings and money took place. As we were leaving, the boss asked Uncle Gao who I was, to which my uncle responded that I was his nephew from Canada. Without hesitation, the boss then referred to me as a waiguo ren, or a foreigner. Me, a foreigner — even though I was born right there in Tianjin! It did not matter that Tianjin had been my home for many years because to him, I was now a foreigner, different from local vendors like him and others who continued to live there. It was the first of many occasions that made me reflect on the notion of belonging and not belonging.
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Works Cited
- Ho, Elaine L. 2009. “Constituting Citizenship Through the Emotions: Singaporean Transmigrants in London.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99 (4), 788-804.
- Kim, Youna. 2011. “Transnational migration, media and identity of Asian women: Diasporic daughters.” New York: Routledge.
- Kuo, Wen H.. (1989). Economic Reforms and Urban Development in China. Pacific Affairs, 62(2), 188-203.
