Now that my classes at the university have ended for the year, I’m looking forward to summer vacation. In a little more than two weeks I’ll be flying to America to see my family, and on the way there, I’ll do a stopover stay for a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland. I’ll blog that trip in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned.
Reading is one of the things I enjoy doing during the summertime when I’m back home. Just recently, when looking for reading material to carry me through the next three months, I discovered Jean Kwok, a Chinese-American writer who emigrated from Hong Kong when she was very young and now lives in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband and two children. Kwok’s first book, Girl in Translation, a novel that is based quite extensively upon early experiences she had in the Big Apple melting pot, was recently published and seems to be getting pretty good reviews.
Kwok can be seen talking specifically about her novel here. I’ve included a CNN interview in which she focuses less on the book and more on her upbringing and the interesting concept of “identity.”
I feel that I have a lot in common with Kwok. Of course, we both write, but I’m thinking mostly about the fact that the two of us have spent significant chunks of time living outside the countries where we were born. Such people, with a foot in two different worlds, are very interesting, I think.
Each year, as I get ready to jet back to Texas, I always spend some time thinking about who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I’ve changed now that I’ve become so international. The conclusion that I always come to, at the end of all that thinking, is that I’m now the intriguing Mr. Gray Kwok refers to in her interview.
Tags: Relationships
