Stranger Danger

I was hanging upside down on some rusty monkey bars when three elderly ladies walked over to my upside-down figure. As they approached me, I felt the blood rushing to my head and my heart pounding in my chest as I hurriedly tried to untangle my legs from the metal bars before I would have to say anything. I had always been a very little girl, driven by a strong impulse to explore the world. My desire to get to know other people has been a corollary to this curiosity. But I simply didn’t know how to. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I stayed home more than other kids my age in my early years due to allergies. Whenever I spoke to strangers, I felt like there was a wall between us, perhaps one that I placed there myself purposefully, but nevertheless an obstacle that prevented me from socializing. But they passed by my thrashing self and headed towards the person behind me, my grandma. Swiveling my head, I could make out her smile as she greeted them cheerfully. Unable to move, I was stuck with watching them talk about the weather and random things for a good 20 minutes. I had always run away successfully whenever someone came to speak to her on the streets, it never occurred to me to watch her. It amazed me how my grandma was able to converse so naturally. Her hands were peacefully resting at her sides instead of fidgeting around. Her ears didn’t erupt in a violent shade of red either. To someone who couldn’t do either of those things, it was

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admirable. The conversation was nothing like the curt and formal conversations that I saw my parents have on the phone, but a conversation between friends.

My grandmother was a calming, reassuring presence to me. She never lost patience with me, not even at my silly antics. From her floral shirts to her curly hair, she radiated a gentle aura. I have always thought the flowers on her shirts represent the way she interacted with people. Coaxed by my grandmother’s warm smile and sunny eyes, even the shyest of flowers would bloom. And whenever someone felt as if they didn’t shine as much as the others around them, she would help them bloom in their own turn.

A year later, I would be moving to New Zealand, leaving my grandmother and everything familiar and safe behind. I would spend the next seven years living on two continents, learning two languages, and experiencing much that was foreign at first but that would eventually become familiar. While I would return to China for the occasional holiday to see my family, I would have to learn to live without my grandmother’s reassuring presence. Yet during this time, I would learn to draw on her shining example and discover and develop my own inner strength while meeting new mentors and making friends along the way. The experience of living abroad gave me ample opportunity to reflect on my own culture and identity. What does it mean to be Chinese, or Kiwi,

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or Quebecois? What makes a person a true “native” --is it the way you look, your skin, or hair color? Is it being fluent in the native language, or is it just some elusive sense of belonging? While I may not have found answers to these questions (I am only fourteen after all), I have learned that success in life often depends upon our willingness to learn, to be open to new experiences, to make foreign things familiar. This is my story, though it’s only just begun...

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