After four months in Beijng I visited Hong Kong and it was almost like coming home. I’d never been to Hong Kong before but the city breathed familiarity. Old English influence was in the street names , secluded walkways, sidewalk walls, wrought iron gates and lush tropical growth that reminded me of colonial Jamaica. Cluttered Chinese store fronts with battered doors and cool , dark interiors posted signage in indecipherable text but familiar cantonese pinyin. KwongTung, San KaTsuen .. so different from the mandarin Xi’er and Dongsishiqiao. In Hong Kong the air is musty, verdant and flavoured with salty sea breeze.
It was exotic & unusual yes – there were hidden shrines to ancient village deities and roof top temples with chanting monks -but familiar in the reverence for ancestors and the musky smell of burning incense. On the steps of temple I recognized my grandmother’s features re-incarnated in an old woman who could have been my Ja Poh forty years ago.
It was as if I had stepped back in time, as if I’d been here before. As if I’d come home.
Hong Kong, 2010
The Sandy Chronicles 
Beautifully written! I can relate, because when I spent a month in Hawaii I had continuous flashbacks to Australia, my childhood home. The streets in the indigenous language, the same relaxed beachwear attitude, the same fruit and colorful flowers. People gardening in their flipflops in the evening. Little things like that gave me déjà vu.
(Hang on, have you been blogging for ten years already?!)
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I wouldn’t say I’ve been actively blogging for ten years. I had a blog but really I posted only a few entries in the first five years. Which as you know, is a death practice of any blog. It’s only been in the last four years that I’ve been active, this year being the most. Friendly Friday has been pivotal in forcing me into a regular habit of posting 🙂
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