A home away from home
By Shouyi Yan
Shouyi Yan is a student at California State University, Chico studying Game Development with a minor in Creative Writing. Growing up in Beiliu, a rural town in China and immigrating to California at the age of 5, she is a first-generation college student and the oldest of four children.
Beiliu, Northern Stream
A river that never stops flowing
Our homes were made from crumbling red bricks
They were thin and several stories high
with rusty pipes exposed on the sides
and laundry peeked out from the rooftops
Our streets weren’t developed
Dirt, not concrete, beneath our feet
We didn’t have stop signs or traffic lights
or white lines on the ground drawn for safety
Our people didn’t sit inside cars
We rode on scooters and drove motorcycles
It was freedom to feel the chill of the wind
and smell the Earth after rain
It was the food that made it home
Yellow, bumpy chicken skin
Hot, honeyed sausages
Sticky, glazed bing tang hulu
The first time I went back home,
red bricks became cinder blocks
and people found jobs in the city
They would sit in buses for hours
to bring wealth back to their family
The second time I went back,
Asphalt covered the soil beneath our feet
Cars stopped behind white lines of safety
Kids didn’t have to play frogger anymore
They were taught to cross at the green light
or wait for the change
But patience was never a trait of water
And a river never stops flowing.
Interview With The Author
What inspired the creation of your piece?
"A home away from home", comes from the changes I see in my hometown, Beiliu. I lived there for the early years of my life and after immigrating to the United States, my family used to go back for summer vacation bi-yearly. However, due to financial and familial reasons, my summer visits to Beiliu grew less and less. The last time I went back was in 2016 and had stayed only for a few days, a short time compared to the month-long vacations I used to have. Recently, my mother showed me pictures of the buildings and streets of Beiliu becoming modernized. In the span of time when I wasn't looking, the quaint, rural town I knew became more of a suburban city, for the better and the worse. The better: new technologies and better electrical and plumbing systems. The worse: the shrunken, now-dirtied river and giving up the home I knew to the inevitable flow of time.How did you start writing?
I had read a lot as a child and practically went to the library every weekend. I fell in love with the worlds and relationships created in books such as The Sisters Grimm and A Series of Unfortunate Events. I don't really have a favorite author but I have a long list of favorite books. Growing up, I became more interested in writing instead of reading to see if I could come up with stories of my own.Why do you write?
In high school, I realize there was more to writing than just books. After playing many story-driven games like the Mass Effect trilogy, the Dragon Age series, and countless visual novels, I became interested in writing stories for video games, hence my major in Game Development. As of now, I write more as a hobby than anything professional. A lot of my works ended up scraped or never finished even to this day.If asked to define your work in three words, what would those words be?
Home in time.Is there anything you would like those who view your piece to know?
Food tastes the best at home. My favorite food is my hometown's wonton soup; I am sometimes overcome with nostalgia for the flavor because it can't be found anywhere else. I hope my piece invokes a similar sense of nostalgia, a longing for something that only exists in a place you'd call home.
Editor’s Note
“There is a beautiful sense of nostalgia presented in this piece. Home, for many people is a special place, a place that can feel magical in some regards. This poem especially reflected that as it used the senses to tell a story of a place that was once simple and warm, now cold, rigid and contained. The language was artistic and comforting while the imagery was clear and detailed, allowing readers to picture their own home and what it means to be there.”
