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Home: Part III

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Four years ago, I wrote Home: Part I - a reflection on Jeremiah 29 and the definition of home. Four years later, after a pandemic, a nationwide dialogue on systemic racism, and the destruction of democratic norms all over the world, it's been interesting to re-read and reflect on what home meant in 2019, and what home means now.

For more than a year starting in March 2020, I felt in some ways more connected to my homeland, the place I was born and raised, and the place of my people, more than ever. As with most people in 2020, regular Zoom calls with friends from the many phases of my life became the norm. The pandemic was an excuse to reconnect virtually with friends in Asia, London, the Bay Area, New York, Germany and more. Those Zoom calls made me feel more connected than ever to my people: we reminisced about our high school shenanigans, grieved over the state of our home, mourned the increase in anti-Asian hate... I was more determined to claim my homeland as my home; I was proud of where I came from, and being able to celebrate those memories reinforced the love I had for it.

And yet, those same routines mandated by a global pandemic also reinforced the place I lived in - Detroit - as home. For the first time in years, I couldn't satiate my desire for Chinese food or culture through travel. I had to find comfort and community in the place in lived. And I sure did - in ways beyond my imagination.

My neighborhood became my community more than it had ever been. We went on walks every morning and every evening, strolling by our friends' front porches, where we inevitably would find our friends and their children playing and enjoying the cool evening breeze. Those walks kept us, in some ways, more connected than ever. We saw our friends almost every day, since we were so isolated that we had to be more intentional in seeing people. We created new ways to hang out outdoors, played socially-distant tennis, and spruced up our yards to make them feel homey and welcoming. We became interdependent on each other - sharing grocery orders, cooking large meals and dropping portions off on friends' porches. We formed a bubble and spend every weekend in each others' homes, seeing their children grow week after week. Those two years reinforced the value of a community in place: people proximate to you who not only become your community, but literally become your lifeline in a time of isolation. When you don't see your actual family for years, your friends and neighbors become like family.

And yet, during those same years, I lost, probably forever, the ways in which my homeland - the place of my birth - was home to me. Much of my family still lives there, but beyond that, the home that I knew was no longer. That place defined so much of who I am: a confusing blend of eastern and western culture and identity, an uncompromising belief in the power of masses, an unwavering defence of the civil liberties of a people that have historically had little voice, and an indefagitable joy in resistance. 

In one shocking day - after months of ruthless teargassing, beating of unarmed protestors, arbitrary detention by those in power against a people crying out for a voice - those things that defined my home disappeared. Unilaterally destroyed with no one in mind but of authoritarian power.

I suddenly lost a home. I lost what made my home what it was, what I treasured, the ways in which it defined me and who I am.

And yet as I grieved, I realized that home is so much more than the place itself. I might have lost, in many ways, a place as home, but I found home in my people. Home is my friend's house where I can invite myself over on a weeknight to just laugh. Home is the joy-filled front yard next door that you can walk by and end up in conversation for hours - or being chased by their kids in circles. Home is where people know me for who I am, who will ask the hard questions because they know what I don't want to say, who understand the complexity of our identities and the different things that make us who we are. Home is the people that remind you of where you came from and what that place means to you. Home is the people that celebrate your greatest joys and will sit with you to grieve your gravest tragedies. 

Four years later, I'm still not sure what it means to truly call a place home. But now more than ever, I know how to find home amongst my people - the people who make you feel at home, no matter where you are.

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