16/04/2026
Hong Kong stopped me in my tracks this trip and it wasn't where I expected.
We visited the Museum of History last week and I ended up frozen in front of a display case full of food replicas.
Salted duck eggs. Wife cakes. Hot coke with lemon.
My kids were ready to move on. I was still standing there.
The whole trip has been like that honestly. Walking the street markets, squeezing into cha chaan tengs, ordering food in Cantonese while trying to look like I knew what I was doing the whole time.
Honest truth.
I'd pause every single time before I spoke.
Even though I'm fully capable. I grew up speaking it as a second language so I can get by. Order food, ask where the bathroom is, have a basic conversation.
But sometimes a word comes out that I don't fully catch, or someone uses slang I don't recognize, and for a split second I feel like I'm on the outside of something I should be on the inside of.
So I'd hesitate. Even when I didn't need to.
I think for a long time I kept my Chinese side and my Canadian side in separate drawers. Like they didn't quite belong in the same room together. One felt more natural depending on where I was.
But watching my kids here, meeting extended family for the first time, navigating something completely unfamiliar without overthinking it the way I do, something shifted.
Both can just exist. At the same time. Without one cancelling the other out.
We're heading to Norway in a few days where my wife is from and the kids are about to get a completely different kind of cultural education. More walking, more exploring, more cold probably and another wonderful experience connecting with extended family.
However, I think I'm going to miss Hong Kong more than I expected.
But that idea keeps coming back to me. Two versions of the same thing trying to co-exist. I see it all the time with the people I work with. The body they remember having and the one they're waking up in now. Stiff mornings, moving a little more carefully, wondering if it's too late to feel like themselves again.
It's not. Those two versions aren't opposites. One is just the other with more mileage on it.
You don't have to choose between who you were and who you are now. You just have to start somewhere small.
Have you ever visited somewhere that surprised you emotionally, somewhere that made you feel something you weren't prepared for? I'd love to hear it.