Learning to Listen
THE HAUNT PROJECT IS PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH WRITERS SA, AND IS SUPPORTED BY ARTS SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
Nonfiction by Samuel Lau
I heard but never listened
to ancient wisdoms
Christian mantras
Chinese customs
The ‘Confucius says’
All met with collective eyerolls
and sighs of ‘here we go again’
I heard but never listened
to stories of old,
Of ancestors past
The ‘back in my days’,
Poverty, hunger,
triumphs and losses,
all met with fleeting intrigue
then abandoned off the beaten track
I heard but never listened
to the stories of my grandparents
Their names unknown to me
Only known by their titles
Po Po. Gong Gong.
Ye Ye. Maa Maa.
Who they were, what lives they led
oft a mystery
or held together in fragments;
pieces of a puzzle
that I had little interest in assembling
Now
I hear
and try to listen.
…
What has changed?
Why now?
Why do I yearn for stories past?
Of lost relationships,
of culture lost.
Is it driven by guilt?
Am I searching to honour?
Or am I hiding from shame?
But now as I hear the language
The voices of my parents
I try to piece together the stories of old
Stories of grandparents, of ancestors past
The ‘back in my days’
The ‘Confucius says’
Poverty, hunger,
triumphs and losses
All met with fierce inquiry
then committed to record and memory
Through a broken understanding,
a half-arsed grasp of my mother tongue,
Fragments drift
of understanding, amazement,
confusion and frustration.
And as I hear and listen to these stories
I am overwhelmed.
Gratitude for those who came before
Guilt for those who suffered in those days
Pride in those who endured the journey
Love for those who provided the way
For me, for my future
My privilege and my pleasure
I try to hold these stories
Like holding water
cupped in the hand,
which slips between the fingers
or is lost in the overflow.
What do I do with this water?
Do I share it?
Allow it to nourish me?
I have with me an abundant well,
A lifegiving source from those who are now lifeless
I hold this gift in the palm of my hand
And I remember
To now
hear
and listen.
✷
I remember the exact moment when I heard that Po Po, my maternal grandmother, had died.
‘Po Po is now with God and has passed away peacefully in the early hours of the morning’, Mum wrote in her fragmented English on our family Whatsapp chat. I read those words alone on my living room couch, thousands of kilometres away from Gong Gong, Mum and Dad and all the aunties and uncles in Hong Kong who were at Po Po’s side as she breathed her last.
It was morning in Adelaide, as it was in Hong Kong—our worlds separated by just an hour and a half. All the colours of the room turned to grey, and the world quietened as I stopped hearing the carolling of the morning magpies. I sat there in silence.
‘Why don’t I feel … sadder?’
Tentatively, I unpacked my feelings. Here was shame and confusion. I wanted to weep but I couldn’t. I tried to make myself cry, but nothing came out. I felt even more ashamed.
I thought about Po Po, and how little I knew of her; how little I had seen of her and the few times I got the chance to talk with her. What was even her name? To me, she was just Po Po. Mum’s mum; a character of an old woman who played my grandma.
I did end up crying that morning—but it wasn’t for the loss of Po Po. It was for the regret and shame, that I had never tried to get to know her when I had the chance.
I was 18 years old at the time. Growing up in Australia, a child of immigrant parents, I didn’t understand that it was a privilege to be here nor was I aware of the sacrifices my parents had made to bring us up, so far away from home.
As a child, I had attended a Cantonese school with other Chinese-Australian kids— and did horribly. Those years were wasted. I did nothing but mess around, act out and disregard everything I was taught in those few hours every Saturday morning.
I do speak Cantonese now but not thanks to those classes. It’s just the language my parents speaks to me in; ground-breaking, I know. I never knew the importance of language until Po Po passed away and I realised I never had a single, meaningful, one-to-one conversation with her.
My visits to Hong Kong, each one years apart, were always with my family. Me and my two older brothers would be introduced as a ‘collective’, set against a backdrop of eight aunties and uncles and their children—my millions of cousins. They would come and talk to me, prod my cheeks, ask me what toys I liked, what food I wanted to eat and comment freely on how fat or skinny I was. All in Cantonese, of course. I struggled to respond. I could manage basic words and phrases but would always blank out when asked something. I felt so stupid sitting there in awful, dumb silence because I knew the word in English but my Cantonese brain refused to turn on.
The experience of being inundated by family and relatives was always novel. In Adelaide, it was just Mum, Dad and my two older brothers. We were, and still are, a tight knit group who do everything together. But visiting Hong Kong was this collective experience multiplied tenfold: all these relatives with their own specific titles coming at you left right and centre.
In Cantonese, there are terms and titles that are used to address your relatives, specific to your relation to them. Which side they are on—maternal or paternal—decides which title is appropriate. English titles contain relatively blanket terms: aunty; uncle; second cousin; third cousin once-removed. In contrast, Cantonese and Mandarin have specific titles for every relative.
To me, this signals the importance of family in Chinese culture. Yet, as a second-generation Chinese-Australian, it is simultaneously a source of alienation from that same family.
I can never figure out who to call what and what relation they are to me. This is compounded by how often my relatives are referred to by their title rather than by their name—so much so that I very rarely know my relative’s actual names (be it Chinese or English). ‘Nameless’, they are characters more than they are individuals in my mind.
Language was alienation but also ‘otherness’. Growing up, I often disregarded it, or made jokes at the expense of my own culture. Sitting at the dinner table as a kid, I heard fragments of stories from my parents’ youth; sometimes they referenced old Chinese Confucian sayings that were quickly and simply translated so that I could understand. More often than not, the words entered one ear and escaped out the other, ignored and forgotten. It had all become noise; ritual to dinner-table chatter. A collective eye-roll between my brothers and me, another ‘here we go’ moment.
I heard but I didn’t listen.
Now, as I grow as a storyteller and artist, and as a person, I am continuously negotiating where I belong. I sit, intentionally listening to my mother and father, sharing memories of their mother, their father, their sisters and their brothers. I listen, intently, recording notes on both paper and in memory. I don’t wait for dinner time.
Much of the art that I create today is fuelled by the abundance of stories that I never knew my family had; stories of their sacrifices, journeys, triumphs and losses.
Listening, I am sometimes flooded with guilt and shame alongside a sense of my overwhelming privilege: I grew up in a loving family; Australian-born, I enjoy certain freedoms and riches; I can pursue a career as an artist. Yet, listening is also therapeutic and healing, helping me to recapture and reconcile my past and my present.
Not only has the challenge of fully inhabiting a hyphenated identity fuelled my artistic journey, it has allowed me to give back to my parents. As an artist, I might never give my family the ease of mind and the promise of stability that comes with job security. I know they worry about my future and what uncertainty lies ahead. I’ve always held guilt for that, and sometimes still feel it.
What I can offer though feels like a fair exchange—this intentional investigation, a joyful archiving of what has made us who we are as a family. This artistic calling allows me to do it in a way I never could have if I became a doctor, lawyer or physiotherapist (which I actually studied for three years in university before dropping out to enrol in drama school). If I’m able to give back to them this way, move them and stir their hearts, and give to them these experiences of human connection that only art can offer—and maybe squeeze out a few tears from them—then it will all be worth it.
Now, I deliberately claim that tension and dichotomy between guilt and gratitude. I never want to use the stories of my family, but I sincerely want to tell them because I am truly amazed by and grateful for what they’ve done.
The stories, spirit and lives of my ancestors I carry with me enrich my life, my family and my future. Driven by what haunts me, I feel I have become a better and fuller person.
Perhaps I should thank my ghosts.
✷✷✷
Samuel Lau is a Hong Kong-Australian actor and theatre-maker. An ACArts graduate, he has worked with organisations such as OzAsia, London Artists Projects, Carclew and ActNow Theatre. Sam is also a composer and pianist, and is currently developing Walk of the Ancestors, a theatre work in collaboration with Brink Productions.
