old year, new year

2008 had been a very eventful year: the first year of my life to share with a boyfriend, having moved twice, becoming a u.s. citizen, casting my first ballot in arguably the most historically groundbreaking presidential election ever (even though it still hasn't hit me how important obama's victory is; maybe it'll finally come to me when i have kids, and they ask me about the election when they study it in history class), gaining an official brother-in-law, having flown 5 times around the country for jobs, vacations, and holidays. i'm not sure if i can really catch up on everything.

becoming a u.s. citizen had brought up some questions within myself. i took the naturalization oath in a brooklyn courthouse. the room was filled with about 400 people, all there to become citizens that day. a man next to me got excited when someone started telling us about how we could still register to vote that day in the presidential election. like me, he wanted to have a say in the government he has to abide. most of the 4 hours were spent waiting for the judge to arrive. finally, she came and spoke nice words about how momentous this occasion was and how honored she was to preside over the ceremony. we had been given a flier with the oath of allegiance on it, and i looked over it before we actually did the oath taking. it starts off as such:

i hereby declare on oath, that i absolutely, and entirely, renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty of whom or which i have heretofore been a subject or citizen...

it didn't affect me upon reading it in silence in my head. but when i had to say these words out loud, i found myself unable to make a sound; i froze. i felt my heartbreak, in having to voice my renouncement to what was once my home, the only i had known for the first eight years of my life, a place that had become part of my identity. i felt like i was being asked to betray myself.

there was no doubt that i wanted to become a u.s. citizen. i had no problem reading the rest of the oath. i just didn't realize how much it would hurt to have to give up my ties (albeit only in a governmental sense) when the time came. i felt hong kong ripped from me once, when it was handed back to china after almost a century of british governance. then, the pop stars i grew up idolizing (in a tween obsessed manner that evolved into a mature admiration as their careers took on a more serious direction) started to pass away. they had all been little chips in the core of me that i wasn't even aware of. having to vocally give it up cracked that core.

i know there's still a lot of hong kong that will always be a part of me, but this superficial identification wasn't as superficial as i thought it was. one's citizenship only defines their home according to a map, the invisible boundaries that certain people have created. but there really is no border; there are no edges; the planet is round.

so today, i went to the post office and applied for a u.s. passport. having to hand over my certificate of naturalization unnerves me only because i am afraid it might get lost. the post officer who helped me put through this application warned that it now can take up to three years to replace the document. but i just let it go.

i didn't know of true unhappiness until we immigrated to the u.s. i think this explains why i feel so strongly tied to hong kong while my feelings towards the u.s. is more ambivalent even though i've spent more of my life in the u.s. hong kong has been my childhood fantasy land. and i'm sure it has to do with my age at the time of immigrating as well. i was just about to turn eight. most people probably experience their first true moment of sadness right around then as children become more cognizant of their surroundings at that age. i am certain that i would've had to experience something devastating soon had we stayed in hong kong. but the way things have turned out, i associate happiness with hong kong and heartbreaks with the u.s. but as tough as it is to get over the heartbreaks, i persist.