Written by Eugene Tang (加樂)

Home Sweet Home? Not quite. 

Coming back to Calgary in January 2020 was supposed to be a short holiday to celebrate Chinese New Year with the family. I remember leaving my Beijing apartment with only a week’s worth of clothes. It was only a couple days after I arrived in Calgary that the city of Wuhan was put in lockdown. It was then followed by the provincial lockdown and then a national one. Okay, I guess I'll have to stay in Canada for a while longer than I planned. Today, it has nearly been 5 months since I stepped onto Canadian soil, and the world has totally changed.   

I know I am not the only one going through different bouts of emotions throughout this pandemic. Everyone has been affected in some way and we are all trying our best to deal with it. For me, coming back to Canada after a decade working in Asia was frustrating and confusing. I was a Canadian struggling to adapt to life in Canada. This was reverse culture shock amplified by the pandemic.  

2020年一月回到卡爾加里本來應該是與家人一起慶祝新年的假期，我記得我從北京只帶上足夠穿一個星期的衣服。我到卡爾加里那時候正是武漢鎖市的隔幾天，緊接著就是鎖省、鎖國。好吧！我想我可能需要待在加拿大比我計畫中的時間還要長一些了。今天距離我踏上加拿大的土地已經有五個月的時間了。

我知道我不是唯一在整個疫情中經歷各種影響的人。 每個人都受到某種程度的影響，我們都盡力在應對。 對我來說，在亞洲工作了十年後回到加拿大，我感到很沮喪而且很困惑。 我是加拿大人卻努力適應著加拿大的生活，這是疫情引起的反向文化衝擊。

Working in Asia for so long, I rarely came back to Calgary for more than a week at a time. Usually, it begins with time spent adjusting to jet lag, running errands for parents, and then ends off with a rush to buy things I can’t buy in Asia (such novelties like maple syrup and ketchup chips)! It never occurred to me to reach out to childhood friends because there never seemed to be enough time. In fact, I had lost contact with most of them. I was in a city where I barely knew anyone except my parents. I slowly realized that with the spread of Covid-19 in Canada, I was going to be in this "foreign" place with no friends for an indefinite amount of time.

在亞洲工作了這麼長時間，我很少在卡爾加里留超過一星期。 通常先用幾天來調整時差，為父母辦點事，然後最後是急著採購一些在亞洲買不到的東西（像是楓糖漿和番茄醬薯片）。 我似乎從來都沒有足夠的時間，來見見朋友，實際上我和大多數人都失去了聯繫。 我在一個除了父母之外幾乎不認識任何人的城市，才慢慢地意識到，隨著疫情在加拿大散播，我不知道會在這個陌生的地方待多久。  

What did this mean?

I had no one to have ZOOM parties with. I had no place to go meet new friends. No dating apps. No trips to the coffee shop. I knew I was desperate when I started to look up old friends and classmates on Facebook. It felt so obscene, and yet I couldn't help myself. I wanted to reach out, but couldn't bear the embarrassment of rejection. What if they don't remember who I was? What would we talk about? Most were married and had kids to tend to, while others worked in industries I had no knowledge of. The emotional and psychological distress was excruciating. I really wanted to go back to Asia.

I wondered how many were like me? In this peculiar predicament as I was. Stuck in this weird place of being at a home away from home that did not feel like home. It suddenly occurred to me one day that these feelings, strangely enough, might be akin to the immigrant experience. Feelings of isolation in a foreign land and missing home. Not knowing anyone and having to start forging new relationships with strangers. I had to figure out how to get by somehow.

這代表什麼呢？

沒有地方可以讓我去認識新朋友，更不用提手機的交友應用程式，連到咖啡館坐坐也不行。我知道當我開始在Facebook上找舊朋友的時候，我已經非常絕望了。我想跟人接觸但真的非常無助而且不能忍受被拒絕的尷尬。 如果他們不記得我怎麼辦？ 我們會有什麼話題可聊呢？ 大多數人要不是已婚，就是有孩子了。情緒和心理困擾令人極為不安，讓我真的很想回到亞洲。

到底有多少人像我一樣？ 像我一樣在這個異乎尋常的狀態中，待在這個陌生的【家】呢？這些感覺可能類似移民的經歷吧！

The first thing I did was to reach out to my parents. It was an opportunity to connect and to better understand their own experiences as immigrants in Canada. I started to ask questions and listen to their stories during our daily walks. Moving from Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Calgary, facing difficult language and cultural barriers, there was a drastic change in lifestyle for them. There were so many stories I never even heard of before: how they sat for hours watching shows like the Wheel of Fortune to pass the time, the struggles of starting a new business in Chinatown, even having to adapt to not being able to order a glass of warm water at a restaurant were things I never knew about. The stories of missing their friends and family in Asia almost brought a tear to my eye. These conversations helped create a closer bond with my parents. A deeper understanding of Mom and Dad almost felt like meeting two completely new people. They were becoming new friends.

With a newly found empathy and appreciation, I also started to reach out to my other immigrant friends that I had in school. I wanted to hear more of their stories and their experiences. Being fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese after living in Asia, our conversations could now flow in and out of those languages that I couldn’t have had before. As a Chinese Canadian, I could finally relate and understand better the ‘Chinese’ part. I was only just discovering the Chinese Canadian community now. 

In my next installment, I’ll share more about what this pandemic has inspired me to do!

第一件我做的事就是找我的父母聊天。 這是一個很寶貴的機會，讓我更了解他們移民到加拿大的經歷。 在我們每天的散步時，我開始問他們很多問題，並聽他們分享故事。他們從廣州和香港搬到卡爾加里，面對語言和文化上的障礙，他們的生活方式發生了極大的變化。我以前從未聽說過這麼多他們的經歷：他們如何看像是《命運之輪》這樣的節目來打發時間，在唐人街開始新的生意，他們也會想念他們在亞洲的親朋好友，等等。這些我從來不知道的事-- 幾乎讓我濕了眼眶。 這些對話讓我跟我的父母有了更緊密的關係，爸爸媽媽像是兩個剛結識的新朋友。 

帶著這種新發現，我也開始接觸我在學校裡其他移民的朋友，聽聽他們的故事和經歷。在亞洲生活過之後，能夠說一口流利的普通話和廣東話，現在我們可以分享更多。作為一個加拿大華裔，我終於可以發掘更多的加拿大華裔的社群。

About the writer, Eugene Tang