{"id":24244,"date":"2014-08-21T00:41:26","date_gmt":"2014-08-21T07:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=24244"},"modified":"2018-10-14T21:58:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T04:58:57","slug":"homelessness-kind-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2014\/08\/homelessness-kind-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Homelessness? Or a Kind of Freedom?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The narrative surrounding diaspora usually depicts the painful loss of one’s identity and homeland. Audrey Chin, author of\u00a0<\/i>As The Heart Bones Break, challenges this conventional understanding by asking: w<\/em>hat if “homelessness” is actually a form of liberation from our roots?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Have you subscribed to diaCRITICS yet? Subscribe and win prizes!\u00a0Read more details.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"subscriber<\/a><\/p>\n

We have been in Vietnam for a week now, the first few days in the new family home in the Delta.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new home, housing the family altar with my in-laws\u2019 ashes,\u00a0is a modern grey and white villa near the lower branch of Mekong River.\u00a0 It\u2019s comfortable and airy with a small fountain and newly planted flowering bushes and fruit trees in a reasonable sized garden: a far cry from the cramped cluster of wood and brick\u00a0buildings down a\u00a0claustrophobic \u00a0alley.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Canttho<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Re-development in the old part of town meant the sixty-year old family\u00a0compound had to be torn down. We found a place to build the new house, but my Vietnamese husband and his siblings thought they should leave out a family altar.\u00a0Only two sisters and two nieces still live in the Delta; the rest have moved to Saigon, America, Australia, and Singapore. \u00a0My husband\u2019s generation, worried that maintaining a family altar would be too much of a burden for the widely scattered third generation, had\u00a0planned for a ceremony to scatter my in-law\u2019s ashes into the Mekong. They decided they would hold their memories in the heart\u00a0and be satisfied.<\/span><\/p>\n

The far-flung grandchildren wouldn\u2019t have it though. The older ones had grown up with their grandparents. Although they are all well settled in their new countries, they wanted a place in the Old Country that their children and children\u2019s children could come back too.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Consider<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

So now the new house is ready. And the family altar has moved in onto the top floor, facing a balcony and the Mekong breezes. The house and the altar are not fancy but\u00a0the\u00a0older grandchildren, now scattered all over the world, are delighted with it. They\u2019ve trickled in, in twos and threes and fours, over the last three months to pay their respects. Everyone says the same thing \u2013 it\u2019s exactly what they want,\u00a0\u00a0a welcoming ancestral space with lots of rooms, and not too many steps away from the river they grew up with. They are hoping their children too will come to visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cantho<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure. The two sisters are getting on. Will the nephews and nieces visit once these 2 familiar faces are gone? Will the old house be the old\u00a0home when it\u2019s occupied by distant relatives whom the great-grandchildren can\u2019t\u00a0communicate with?\u00a0My own children, who never met their grandfather and only knew their grandmother as a senile muttering old woman rarely go down to the Delta. A great grand nephew from another branch of the family, visiting from America, did not see the need to travel for hours\u00a0on bad roads to visit the tombs of\u00a0people he had no connection with.\u00a0 I can relate. My family, settled in Singapore for more than 100 years and speaking very poor Chinese, have no idea where my grandparents\u2019 ancestral villages in China are. And no inclination to visit.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cantho<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

To be able to put down roots is a gift.\u00a0 But when life uproots us and sends us wandering \u2026 homelessness gives us different opportunities.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0No longer attached to any one place, the children of my husband\u2019s diaspora have choices. Living betwixt and between, they can belong anywhere or nowhere, as they will. This is a different kind of freedom; perhaps, an unanticipated gift from diaspora.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you think?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/del><\/p>\n

\"Audrey<\/a>Audrey Chin<\/strong>\u00a0is a South-East-Asian writer who has been a daughter-in-law of the Vietnamese diaspora for over thirty years.\u00a0<\/span>As the Heart Bones Break<\/i>, her latest novel featuring the life of a South Vietnamese man and his family over the last sixty \u00a0years was launched and sold out at the 2013 Singapore Writers Festival in November.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Do you enjoy reading diaCRITICS? Then please consider\u00a0subscribing<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n

Please take the time to share this post. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS.\u00a0Join the conversation and leave a comment! Does diaspora really give us the gift of freedom? Or are we simply lost\u00a0wanderers\u00a0without our roots?<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The narrative surrounding diaspora usually depicts the painful loss of one’s identity and homeland. Audrey Chin, author of\u00a0As The Heart Bones Break, challenges this conventional understanding by asking: what if “homelessness” is actually a form of liberation from our roots?\u00a0 Have you subscribed to diaCRITICS yet? Subscribe and win prizes!\u00a0Read more details. We have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88894,"featured_media":24276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[1092,334,1440],"yoast_head":"\nHomelessness? 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