First, a caveat—I’ve ummed and ahhed about the best way to do this with Substack’s capabilities, balancing my keenness to share with you but also my feeling slightly protective over it / not wanting it to be permanently publicly accessible. So, I’ve decided that this post will be available for all subscribers for the next two weeks (so until the next edition comes out, on 23 July). After that, it will remain available as a paid subscriber post only.
When I moved to Hong Kong at the age of 22 in 2017, I was pretty nervous. I’d never been to the city before, and didn’t know anyone there. I have a really clear memory of trying to get money out of a HSBC ATM on Des Voeux Road on my second day, jetlagged and homesick, and crying because my British bank had blocked my card for suspicious activity.
Of course, this was a big deal for me at the time, and life in Hong Kong became much more familiar and happier over the two years I was there. But, looking back now, I laugh because that ATM anecdote sounds very precious and shielded in comparison to my mother’s experience of migration to the UK from Malaysia in 1974. As she recounts below, she had a one way ticket, and there was no WhatsApp to quickly send a panicky message home for every problem that arose.
My mother Linda has been in the UK for fifty years this year, and recently celebrated her 70th birthday. On the day, she generously took the time to sit down with me for this wide-ranging conversation for Ginkgo Leaves, looking back on the last five decades. I am so proud of everything that she has done and achieved during this time, from her contribution to the NHS and healthcare here, to navigating an interracial relationship in 1970s Britain, to raising two children and now later in life, continuing that spirit of exploration and curiousity.
We have previously shared other conversations between ourselves for different projects, but here, we speak about things that we have never spoken about publicly before—and for this reason, this post is only available to free and paid subscribers rather than available as a public weblink as usual. I decided to format this as an audio piece, because I think there’s something special about the immediacy of audio storytelling, and I wanted you to hear our voices authentically and without any filter. (And it really is without any filter as I’m not well-versed in audio editing software just yet).
Below is a transcript which also has a couple of links and editorial notes in italics from me. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed talking together, and would love to hear any thoughts or responses you might have.
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