On Sunday, we returned from our first trip back to Yunnan since we moved to Beijing over a year ago. Originally, the plan was to move back to Kunming (something I wrote about several months ago in an article describing the advantages of 2nd tier cities), but as we decided to stay in Beijing for at least another year, it was time to visit home. My son was born in Kunming and all of our Chinese relatives live either in Kunming or in the village where my husband grew up, about 150km outside of the city, but since my father in law passed away in 2007, and my mother in law died before my husband and I were married, our incentive to return home has lessened with the passing years. Still, I feel it is important to give my son a connection to his aunts and cousins, even if we might only see them once a year or so. With that in mind we made the mind-boggling 3 day train journey from Beijing to Kunming (as air ticket prices in July are astronomically high, with the amount of students traveling home for the summer holidays).

Photo: october_zju

When we first arrived in Kunming, we were greeted by traffic and construction. The city had changed while we’d been away, and previously narrow streets had become wide boulevards, and two way roads had turned one way. Furthermore, much to our annoyance, trying to get a taxi required pushing and shoving and sometimes out and out fighting, rather than the orderly queuing up and waiting your turn for a car that we’d become accustomed to at the Beijing train stations and airports. My husband remarked to me that living in Kunming for so long we’d never really thought much of how luan, or chaotic, the place could be, we simply accepted it as it was. It was only once we’d gotten a taste of the big time that our beloved Kunming started stacking up unfavorably.

The points in Beijing’s favor seemed to just keep piling up. Trying to get from the train station to the bus station, with a baby, 2 huge backpacks, and several bags of assorted things, we were repeatedly turned down by cab drivers who deemed the fare too small to bother. What they were holding out for, I can’t imagine, for even the highest fares in Kunming rarely go above 20RMB, and refusing us for the chance to make at most an extra 5RMB seemed petty. But this was, as my husband kept pointing out, a “small place.” Funny, it never seemed that way 2 years ago when I lived there! Could our perspectives have changed that much in only a year? I had always imagined a joyful return to Kunming, a city I adored for so many years. I imagined walking down those same old familiar streets, greeting those faces I’d come to know, and visiting treasured friends.

Surely, I thought, it would be different when we got to our own turf, the area we used to live, where I knew most of my friends would hang out. But walking down 121 Street and around the corner to Wenlin Jie, I didn’t see a single person I knew. Strange foreigners eyed me, my baby and my luggage up suspiciously, probably pitying us, much the same way that I used to pity people who only fleetly backpacked through Kunming. My favorite cafe had only one familiar waitress, the rest looked at me with no recognition in their eyes. My husband and I spent the evening walking around Green Lake Park before finally meeting up with one friend we could find, who spoiled us by sitting down with us for about 10 minutes or so, before moving on to more pressing matters.

We stayed a day or two and gradually caught up with a few people, mostly my husband’s old friends, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kunming had changed, that it was no longer home in a way that I had imagined it always would be. Perhaps it sounds funny coming from a foreigner, but I’d put down roots there. When I lived in Kunming, of course people came and went, but there was always, it seemed, a core that would remain, and at that core, there I was. The city changed, but I was there witnessing the change, and changing myself. All of a sudden I was out of my element, and it felt odd and a bit sad at the same time. Going down to my husband’s village, by comparison, was comforting. There was the big old house that my father in law

had built with his own hands, there were the pigs that the neighbors kept, there was my brother in law and his big, modern, 3 story house that he’d put up several years back and kept cluttered with all manner of farming implements, tools, knick knacks, and dried goods so that you could barely come through the door. There were my parents’ in law’s graves, overlooking the corn fields and the river below. There was the river, the mountains and all the familiar faces that would never, ever leave or move on. By comparison, the village was dependable, unchanging. Sure, it might modernize slowly, with an internet bar or a new supermarket, but in some essential way it also remained the same.

We traveled around Yunnan for about a week and a half and saw more and more signs of change. Zhongdian had acquired an “old” town (and a new name) since I’d last been there, and Lijiang had started charging admission. We returned to Kunming one day before our train back to Beijing, exhausted by our trip, and perhaps just a tiny bit disappointed. We’d been searching for something, perhaps something soothing and familiar, but we hadn’t found it. Most disappointing for me was that I’d managed to completely miss my best friend in Kunming, Mike, who was coincidentally visiting America just at the time of our visit. He was scheduled to return, we were told, the day after we were to leave. Reluctant to leave, but not knowing what else to do, we decided to wait out our last day and try and make the most of it. Appearing at my old favorite cafe for breakfast, there were all the waitresses I’d known – last time they’d simply had a day off. They fawned over my son, and then, one of them told me that Mike was back. A few minutes later, he walked in. He’d come back a day earlier than expected it seemed, and we caught up for a good hour or so, which, while not really enough, was better than nothing. Invigorated, my husband and I decided to walk around the block to Green Lake. Who did we see, but an old roommate of mine, and then again, an old shopkeeper that I used to buy clothes from. As the day went on, I ran into more and more old faces, and reconnected with some old placed I’d known and loved. On the last day of my visit, I finally found the Kunming I was looking for, proving that yes, you can go home again. The home may not be the exact home that you left, but as long as some essential thread of what you loved about that place remains, home will always be there and waiting.

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Related Links:

My Favorite Places in Yunnan
Relocating My Life: My Epic Move From Kunming to Beijing
Why Second Tier cities are the first choice for many expats

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