When Going On Vacation Means Going Home
Published in Souvenirs Magazine’s spring 2020 issue
At 6 months old, I was tucked away gently on a plane full of strangers, periodically hushed by my parents as I traveled for the first time. To them, this was not just an exotic family vacation or a quick getaway — it was a trip that would take my sister and I to their childhood homes.
My parents shaped my first experiences with travel, and there’s no doubt that others can say the same about theirs. But while most recall building sandcastles at a beach in Florida or roasting s’mores on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere, my earliest travel memories are ones from halfway across the world. For those whose parents are immigrants, like mine, childhood vacations entail something much different than the thrill of Disney World or a relaxing lazy river in Wisconsin Dells. Instead, they include a stay at Yāi’s (grandma’s) house in Thailand or a pitstop to Chú’s (uncle’s) neighborhood in Vietnam. It’s where we see the places in which our parents grew up and where we meet our longdistance family members for the very first time.
That’s still the case for me today as it was 21 years ago. Each rare trip to my mom’s hometown of Bangkok, Thailand is filled with a long list of people we have to visit: her friends from school, her father’s former coworkers, her mother’s former students, her aunts, uncles, cousins. In this way, travel is something of a necessity — a bridge to understanding the far-away world of my family and the individuals who changed my parents’ lives. When I get to see those people and places that their childhoods are connected to, I experience the joy it brings them to return home. At the same time, I feel the ache they must have held when they left everything they knew to come to the United States. Fortunately, these trips do their best to make up for lost time, where everything and everyone has changed since they once lived there. It’s here that I’m introduced to new faces and reintroduced to those I met years ago. They practice their English with me, urge me to try their favorite foods, take me to the market where there’s no shortage of fruits I’ve never seen. More importantly, they share stories of their lives with me, patching up the gap of time since I’ve last seen them and pulling together the space that exists between us, which is continents and oceans apart.
For me, I travel to reimagine my parents’ lives as they were decades ago. My mom loved eating fish cakes from street carts, writing about pop stars and hanging out with her best friend Hen. My dad helped run his family’s hatchery, spent time playing with his nine siblings and always did well in school.
For them, they travel to give me a view of the world that is more than just a relaxing stay at an allinclusive resort. They show me the cultural differences that separate us and the similarities that all tie us together. They show me the world through their eyes. They take me to a place that is their home, and now, mine.
Story featured on page 31