Where is home?

Featured in

  • Published 20100907
  • ISBN: 9781921656170
  • Extent: 264 pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

WHEN I GET the urge to be elsewhere, as I sometimes do, it’s often my childhood home, Hong Kong. As I hanker for it, my mind’s eye evokes the sights, sounds and smells of the place with all the veracity of Aldous Huxley’s ‘feelies’ in Brave New World. I spent seven formative years in the former British colony, between 1963 and 1970. The family connection with the Far East dates to the 1920s, so it’s in my blood, and whenever I return it still feels like home.

At other times I long for the verdant landscape of Scotland. My mother’s family background is Scottish on both sides: her maiden name is Janet McLaren Scott and I use the surname as my middle name. I fancy I might be related to the author Sir Walter Scott, but haven’t investigated this. I don’t want to be disappointed.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

Stranger in a strange land

MemoirYOU DON'T LOOK Chinese," said one of a small group of boys who had encircled me."I'm not," I said, stating the obvious."But ya come...

More from this edition

A humanist on thin ice

EssayI FEEL LUCKY to have visited both of Earth’s polar ice caps. Seven years ago I voyaged to Antarctica on an Australian routine expedition...

Thousandth miles

EssayPHUC COMES TO give me flowers and my husband a bottle of wine. He has to catch two buses and walk a fair way...

Confusion with numbers

IntroductionTHERE ARE RELATIVELY few places where a people from a diverse, secular society can come together to find common cause and give voice to...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.