Where I Am From
(Hiding in Plain Sight)
Written by Suyin Tan
This piece was inspired by Trust and Travel’s Morocco writing retreat in 2023. In particular, learning about the universality of the particulars encouraged me to reclaim and celebrate my own personal and creative voice, cultural identity and roots, all of which I had previously sought to “universalize” through erasure for most of my adult life as a first-generation immigrant. This piece was started in the Ourika Valley, Morocco in October 2023, as I was in the middle of moving countries. It was finished after my recent move from the UK to Portugal in November-December 2023
I am from a tiny island about 1 degree north of the equator that, on the world map, is practically invisible.
I am from all the places where, growing up and grown up, I got lost, and was not found, where I hid, and was not sought. Sometimes, I waited to be sought. Sometimes, I wished not to be found.
I am from under the jasmine bush, covered with fallen petals of midnight-blooming jasmines, where Mama reaches out her hand for mine every morning as she picks the blooms to place fresh on the altar, next to the warmth of unhurried incense and the assured flicker of the lotus-shaped oil lamp.
I am from behind the mosaic pillar, watching me with its thousands of glittering stone eyes, as I watch Mama hang up the laundry with ancient wooden pegs on the tek ko, which dance click-clack in the wind, dressed in their wash of rainbow colours.
I am from the tiny corner of shadows between the sofa and the wall, waiting for the right moment to leap up and surprise Ah Kong as he comes home after work, wondering if his granddaughter is staying over that night, so that we can laugh together at his surprise and watch the WWF together on late night TV.
I am from under the bed in Mama and Ah Kong’s room, clothed by darkness as I carry my wish not to leave my grandparents’ home to go back to my own, where I have to grow up and stop being a child. I am found by the sounds I make while crying – having forgotten that the number one rule of the game of hide-and-seek is to stay quiet.
I am from under the kitchen table of my own home, sheltering together with my little brother from red chilli lime and garlic vinegar rain, as we carry both our wish to be noticed and our wish to not be noticed, depending on whichever makes the rain stop first.
I am from the words being delivered to me at the Chipotle’s in midtown Manhattan, as I carry my wish to hide under the table, away from the words of extreme concern about the life direction of a 24 year old who has moved halfway around the world to graduate on a university scholarship and get hired for a job in New York City that sends her on her dream of international travel, but has ultimately failed miserably at becoming an actual accomplished Asian child (read: doctor, lawyer, dentist, accountant – only, and in that order). In that case, what was the point of all this?
I am from the 23rd floor of a floor-to-ceiling glass corner office for lawyers in London’s Canary Wharf, that comes with a rooftop Olympic-sized pool on the 30th floor which I never have time to use, where I find myself carrying a few more things than I expect – a tiny burst of pride for having made it after all and shown the point of it all, the echoes of shrugs and grumbles that making it at age 30 is making it about 10 years too late, the invisibility cloak worn by all good immigrants in their adopted countries (make sure you blend in – conceal and reject anything that makes you seem different, stay out of trouble, work hard and pay taxes), the purposeful email from my manager to our clients (copied to me), explaining that despite how it looks from my name, I am in actual fact a lawyer who has been admitted to the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and who is employed by the firm’s London headquarters rather than one of its Asian satellite offices.
I am from many more names than I am normally given the time, space, care or context to introduce myself with. I am from the name I was born into – a family and ancestral clan name that precedes my given name, a name that is expressed in four different written languages and three different spoken languages, and at the same time, I am from the name I have chosen for myself to grow into – a name where I intentionally place my own first name before my family name.
I am Tan Su Yin, Chen Siyun, 陈思韵, 陳思韻, and at the same time, I am Suyin Tan.
I am from a name that means – the contemplation of, and reflection on, rhyme.
I am from breakfasts of kaya toast, half-boiled eggs with dark soy sauce and white pepper, kopi c, teh hahlia, soya bean milk and roti prata kosong with assam fish curry, I am from lunches of nonya laksa, nasi lemak, otak otak, grass jelly and fish noodle soup, and I am from dinners of black pepper crab and drunken prawns, Cantonese pork bone soup with winter melon and red dates, Teochew steamed pomfret with pickled vegetables and Hainanese poached chicken with grated ginger, spring onion, sesame oil, red chilli lime and garlic vinegar, dark soy sauce, cucumber, and rice, of course, always rice.
I am from midnight snacks of curry puffs, murtabak, milo dinosaurs, bandung and carrot cake (the real type, where the cake is savoury rather than sweet, and the carrots white rather than orange), I am from lunar new year’s eve reunion dinner feasts of Mama’s five spiced Hokkien ngoh hiang, I am from dragon boat festivals of savoury glutinous rice dumplings stuffed to bursting with soy braised pork belly, shitake mushrooms and chestnuts, mid-autumn festivals of snowskin mooncakes in flavours of lotus and lychee, jasmine tea and animal-shaped lanterns, and winter solstice festivals of glutinous rice balls stuffed to bursting with black sesame paste and peanut paste (even if we lived on a tropical island with perennially only two seasons – hot and monsoon).
I am from primary school tuck shop food of braised chicken wings, won ton mee, soto ayam, and paddle pop ice cream, recess games of hopscotch, five stones, and marbles and the collecting of national flags of the world erasers.
I am from one of the world’s tiniest countries that is actually a city, that people commonly (and always without recognition of irony) mistake for being part of one of the world’s largest countries.
I am from a country where the national language is not a language I have been taught how to speak, where my mother tongue comes in two distinct forms (Mandarin and Hokkien) that are in fact my second and third languages, where my first language and the language of my truest self-expression is not a language for which I will ever be recognized as a native speaker, because there are former British colonies with obviously native English speakers and then there are former British colonies with obviously non-native English speakers.
I am from halfway around the world, far away from the bedsides of Mama and Ah Kong in their final moments, from my mother and my younger brother after they’ve had life-changing surgeries, and from my father when he cries and feels most alone, far away from the words I have and do not have, to tell them that despite how it looks from the distance between us, I love them most out of a whole wide world of people.
I am running away, from the only lives I have ever known, but have decided are not all I want to know, and I don’t tell anyone that I am hoping not to be found, at least for a little while.
I am calling for help (first in my fourth language, Spanish, and then as I get more anxious, in English), from inside a stuck elevator in the Barrio de Santa Cruz in the Andalucian capital of Sevilla in May 2022, hoping to be found by anyone at all, because I have a flamenco show to get to, and flights to Switzerland and Peru to catch.
I am reading, from a café in Marrakech, 18 days after the Moroccan earthquake of 2023, that if stuck inside a building during an earthquake, getting under a table for shelter is the recommended thing to do, in order to stay as safe as possible until you are found and rescued.
I am remembering, from conversations with my father, that I should be thankful to have been born in one of the safest countries in the world (so safe that it’s safe even from natural disasters), and I should do my best to avoid travelling to or living in places where natural disasters are common, expected or overdue, because aiyah, why would you risk your life for no reason?
I am remembering, from something I once read that continued staying with me – that home is the first place we find that we don’t feel like running away from.
I am learning, that where I don’t feel like running away from is a place where, when I hide under a table, I will still be seen and I can wish with all my heart to be found.
About the Writer
Suyin was born and grew up in Singapore, and has just moved herself and her life to Porto, Portugal after living for almost two decades in various cities of the world, including London, New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Copenhagen and Cape Town. She writes at A Tangerine Moon on Substack, from the perspective of one who lives at the border — “in sight of two worlds and looking towards the unknown”. Her writing explores themes of finding home and belonging through exile, leaving behind the path well-trodden to step into the great unknown, the nectar of slow and solo travel and the art of walking in beauty wherever we are on the journey.
