On the Way: Living Between Places, Languages, and Selves

By Fan Yang

I was born in Inner Mongolia and spent my early childhood there. Later, I moved to Tianjin, where I continued my education from junior high school through my undergraduate years. After graduating, I moved to Kyoto, Japan, to pursue graduate studies for about three and a half years. Most recently, I relocated to Hong Kong to begin my PhD journey at the University of Hong Kong.

Each of these places has a very different atmosphere, shaped by different landscapes and rhythm. Inner Mongolia is known for its vast grasslands and deserts. Tianjin lies on the North China Plain, near Beijing, capital of China. Kyoto is a basin surrounded by mountains Kyoto is a basin surrounded by mountains, with the Kamo River (Kamogawa) running through the city. Hong Kong is a vibrant island city with its vertical skyline and ocean views.

I cherish memories from each of these places, and they remain part of my lived experience. Yet, when I reflect on my journey across these regions, I realize something unexpected: I do not feel a strong attachment to any single place. Sometimes I even struggle to answer the simple question, “Where is your hometown?” Instead of searching for one fixed point of belonging, I have gradually come to appreciate the uncertainty of the future. For me, moving across cultures has become a way to explore new possibilities and expand the horizons of my life, and my inner self also tends to exhibit a fluid nature, with ever-changing identities and positions across different contexts.

Language has played an important role in shaping my trans-Asian identities in these experiences. My first language is Mandarin Chinese. Later, Japanese and English became my second and third languages, serving as working languages during my time in Japan and now in Hong Kong. While living in Japan, my daily life often involved switching freely among these three languages. English was mainly used for academic contexts. Japanese was essential for everyday interactions. Mandarin remained the language of social connection, especially when spending time with friends from the Chinese community.

This linguistic differentiation does more than facilitate communication. It also shapes how I present myself. I often feel like slightly different versions of myself depending on the language I use. When speaking Japanese, I tend to be more polite and attentive to social cues. English brings out a more professional and formal side of me, often accompanied by fewer or more restrained gestures. In contrast, Mandarin feels the most relaxed and intimate, as it is typically used in close relationships.

These experiences remind me that language and identity are mutually constitutive. Learning a new language is not simply about acquiring a tool for communication; it is also about gaining a new perspective through which to think, interact, and engage with the world. Through this ongoing process, my identity has become increasingly dynamic and fluid, continuously reshaped by shifting linguistic contexts and the different ways I present myself to others.

Even my food preferences have evolved in unexpected ways. Living in different places might suggest that I would gradually develop a taste for local cuisines. However, my palate has taken a rather different path. I do not particularly enjoy beef or lamb, which makes it difficult to fully embrace some dishes from Inner Mongolia. After several years in Japan, sushi and ramen no longer excite me as much as they once did. And despite living in Hong Kong, I am still getting used to dim sum. Instead, I find myself craving spicy foods from places I have never even lived in—Thai cuisine, the bold flavors of Hunan cooking, and spicy Korean dishes. In a way, my taste buds seem to travel even further than I do.

Looking back, I have become more aware of the many small changes that accumulate through these experiences. Each place, each language, and each encounter with new people subtly reshapes how I see the world—and how I see myself. I have come to enjoy this ongoing transformation. Rather than searching for a fixed destination and identity, I have learned to appreciate the feeling of always being on the way.

This collage features Inner Mongolia, Tianjin, Kyoto, and Hong Kong, where Fan Yang has lived through various stages of her life.

From Monoculture to Multiculture: My Hong Kong Journey of Acquiring a New Home and Identity in Singapore

By Joshua Lee

Unlike Fan, I could be described as a local Hong Konger through and through. I was born here, and completed the entirety of my education within the city. Cantonese and English, the languages of Hong Kong, are my first languages. However, I’m legally a Singaporean Citizen subject to Singaporean Law. This is because I was born to Singaporean parents which allowed me to inherit citizenship by association. That said, for most of my life, Hong Kong has been the only home I know. Apart from sporadic visits to the city state to see my paternal relatives, I had little to no memory and attachment to my Singaporean identity.

However, everything changed the year I reached 18 years old. After I completed my HKDSE exams in 2018, I was drafted into the Singapore Armed Forces as per the 1970 Enlistment Act. My decision to return to Singapore back then was not a personal choice, but a legal one. Therefore, Ladang Camp on the small island of Pulau Tekong, and later Sembawang Camp and Clementi Camp, became my temporary homes during my brief two years as a Singaporean. Singlish replaced Cantonese as my main mode of communication, my Octopus was taken over by my EZ-link (now SimplyGo), and what defined me in Singapore wasn’t my HKID, but rather, my “Pink IC” and “11B”. (short for identity card and army identity pass respectively).

What fascinated me the most during these two years was my changing perception towards language and linguistic identity. True, Chinese and English are both official languages in Hong Kong and Singapore, but in practice, they play completely different roles. In Hong Kong, English is mostly an academic language. Outside of home, I have only used it for boring past paper practice during my HKDSE studies. Accent is also a particularly contentious subject. The Hong Kong accent is seen as unsophisticated and improper, and I was heavily discouraged from acquiring Hong Kong English by my schools and family. To them, a neutral “accentless” BBC English is regarded as the ideal.

Even though Singapore has a similar problem (as those who know about the Speak Good English movement during the early 2000s will agree), I actually found the opposite to be true in the Singaporean heartlands, where I stayed during my training. Singlish is a blend of the four official languages (& dialects) in the city state. My Cantonese and Mandarin proficiency therefore allowed me to mimic a variety of Singlish commonly spoken by Singaporeans and Malaysians of Cantonese descent. That said, it still took me a good year to understand and use Singlish fluently. Case and point, I only learnt to use “ok can” instead of “sure of course” after 8 months.

By the time I resumed my studies in HKU SPACE, I found myself oddly missing Singapore. Of course, the main reason is that I had to leave the various friends and mentors I made on that small island. But one particular reason is that I missed the dynamic language space in Singapore. Back in Hong Kong, English became an academic language I only used for classes and assignments, but my Singlish pronunciations remained, which caused numerous comedic episodes. During one introductory literature class, a friend confused me as a Scottish person because of my strange word stress, vowel pronunciations, and tendency to use “ya” instead of “yes”. I also found myself struggling massively with classes on Phonetics & Phonology and Hong Kong English, specifically in sections that focus on vowel pronunciations by ESL speakers in Hong Kong. In other words, my brief stay in Singapore left its linguistic mark on me, and I have forever lost the illusion of “accentless” English. Singlish is the language variety I found to be a more adequate representation of my multicultural experience, where Chinese, English, and other languages can truly work together to create a collective social experience. This is precisely why I longed to return to this unfamiliar home of mine every year, to reengage with this ludic transcultural experience that I couldn’t replicate in Hong Kong.

Some may insist I’m a Singaporean because of my passport and remaining commitments to the Singapore Armed Forces. Others may say I’m strictly a Hong Konger, as I speak Cantonese better than Singlish and Hokkien, and I spent the vast majority of my life in Hong Kong The postmodernist literary scholar side of me, however, denies such fixed categorizations. Either view is too easy an answer, and neither captures the nuances of multicultural experiences that we Gen Zs have. Hong Kong and Singapore are both my homes, and it would be such a betrayal and tragedy to deny either.
 

This collage portrays Joshua before, during, and after his national service in Singapore, a visual representation of growth through his transcultural experience.

Coda: Fixation as An Impossible Endeavour:

Rather than reinforcing fixed categories and rigid boundaries of “where we come from” and “who we are,” it may be more conducive and humane to explore “how we live,” “how we experience,” and “how we feel.” In doing so, we can better capture the lived experiences and fluid identities of people like us—those who move across and within Asia. For all of us, to appreciate the beauty of the contemporary world is to embody the chaos and instability within and around us, with culture and experiences around Asia as a case in point.