A Place Not Quite the Same

South Horizons East, three weeks ago

Recently, I’ve visited South Horizons, the housing estate I lived in up until 2010, quite a lot. I’ve been three times in the past three weeks: the first time out of sheer curiosity; the second time because my dad and his uncle friends were playing soccer there; and the third time to have lunch with my old piano teacher. Before these three visits, the last time I visited was around five years ago.

As you’ve probably noticed, the recurring theme on this site is—overwhelmingly—nostalgia. And that’s because it’s usually this feeling, above all others, that compels me to jot my thoughts down. Along with all the sugary sentimentality, homesickness, and yearning, I think there’s also a fear in nostalgia—a fear that, if you don’t write something down to document how you’re feeling, the emotions could well disappear and never reemerge. Who knows if we’ll ever feel this way again? And so: here are a few thoughts of mine written down, in hopes of eternalizing my memories of the place I grew up in.

I moved from South Horizons to where I live now, Stanley, in 2010. Regretfully, only a few things stick out in my memory from my old home.

On schooldays, I would wake up at 6. After changing out of pajamas and watching, for a few minutes, whatever it was on Cartoon Network—Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends; Ed, Edd n Eddy; Tom and Jerry; The Powerpuff Girls—my dad would carry me, half-asleep, from Block 8 to where the schoolbus would pick me up. On the way, an old woman, unfailingly awake at this hour, would always tag along on our short journey, and she would invite herself to reprimand me. She’d lecture me about this and that, almost inevitably ending with the same talk about how lucky I was that I had a father who’d carry me every morning to the bus stop. My dad was glad for the company and free parenting; I found her annoying. Eventually, I christened her “smelly 婆.” I wonder where she is today.

After school, I would take the same bus back to South Horizons. Most afternoons, I would walk over to my grandmother’s apartment in Block 23. After a lunch, most likely of 出前一丁 and Ribena mixed out of concentrate, I would watch the same Cartoon Network shows while messing around with the cushions on the sofa, which, because they were stiff and rectangular, could be rearranged to imitate various structures. For instance, I could erect myself a military fort or pitch myself a camping tent. More often than not, I would use the pillows to play “shop.” With the cushions stood up like a hawker’s store countertop, I would lay out all my toys for my grandmother to “purchase.” I would bicker until she came over; chose one object from my selection of Pokémon figurines, Happy Meal toys, and Moshi Monster collectibles; and gave me a few dollars in return. I was quite the entrepreneur.

Like any other kid in Hong Kong, I would attend tutoring on most afternoons. Because I lived in South Horizons, that meant frequenting the eastern mall. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would go in for Chinese lessons at the Little Beijing Education Center, and on Fridays, I would have 3:30 PM piano lessons. At one point, I went to Kumon, which I hated and sought devices to cheat my way out of. (This included stealing answer keys, cajoling teachers into giving me passing grades on exams where I didn’t deserve them, and, when times were roughest, boycotting the institution altogether.) I also had swimming lessons on Friday evenings, arduous but rewarding hours of lapping the clubhouse pool. Maybe the reason I’ve always regarded the smell of chlorine so fondly is because of those long practices.

I also enrolled in art classes at a local studio called kid-A, which is probably the most worthwhile investment out of all these classes. Though the studio moved around from time to time (only when I was much older did I realize it was because rent prices were going up), I remember most vividly when it was across the HSBC, on the ground floor of the western mall. I loved that classroom, the “second floor” they built themselves out of wooden stilts. I miss those classes, miss calligraphy and sculpture and, most strongly, mixed media classes (because “mixed media,” back then, was a foreign phrase to me, and so the class was infinitely fascinating in my imagination). I was taught by Ms. Tuna-fish (whose real name was, rather uncreatively, Tina), Mr. Potato Head (whose name I never got), and a woman whose nickname, even, I’ve forgotten, but the round glasses they’d always wear, which I used to regard with such joy when asking for help or after finishing a piece, I don’t think I can ever quite forget.

The western mall remains in my memory quite strongly. I spent so much of my childhood wandering through it, thinking that it must’ve been the largest building to ever exist. I remember the Indonesian food market (Indo, was it called?); the KFC (always a treat); the Fortress; the ParknShop; V-8 Bakery; Celia’s Gift Store (where I bought my first wallet, shaped like an ice cream bar); the JUSCO (which opened somewhere around 2006); and the Korean candy store, from which I would buy Tohato chips, an unbelievably addictive Thomas the Tank Engine bubblegum, and pink tubes of circular biscuits, which reminded me of a deliciously salty Eucharist cracker. I remember the food court on the highest floor—McDonalds, the pizza place, the congee store, the Chinese restaurant that served both dim sum and hot pot. I especially remember the dimly-lit stationery store, which I would spend incredibly long hours looking through, deciding what items were most worth spending my allowance on.

Of course, everything has changed. After watching a beautiful sunset from the promenade three weeks ago—I’d never noticed South Horizons sunsets when I was younger; maybe sunsets are one of those things you begin to appreciate only when older—I went to the mall and took a quick stroll with my (rather uninterested) dad, merely to be saddened by how much was different. Now, ParknShop takes up the entirety of where the food court used to be. The Fortress has moved to a smaller place on the first floor. Most of the stores I knew (and loved) are gone, replaced by new and unfamiliar restaurants, boutiques, stalls. Celia runs her gift shop in a much smaller space in the east mall (you can just about see it in the photo I took); she didn’t recognize me when I walked in. And the MTR station and cinema—I don’t think I’ll ever get used to those being there. The South Horizons I knew then is perhaps only that—the South Horizons I knew then. Because the place that’s there today doesn’t quite feel the same.

Incidentally, as you can see, I’ve undertaken a similar process of modernization with this website. Dereksfault is no longer hosted on Blogger, but on Squarespace. I loved my Blogger website: it felt homemade, familiar, and, most importantly, mine. The Squarespace rendition, on the other hand, feels just like the mall in South Horizons today: somewhat similar to what it used to be, but much more sanitary. A mere hollow of the old thing.

But, ultimately, Blogger was just too confining. All sorts of problems, from constant HTML bugs to aesthetic issues (for instance, it has long annoyed me that my pictures on Blogger had to be so small), led me to finally pull the plug.

Still, finally deciding to end the Blogger dereksfault has taken me quite a while. And the reason behind it is that, just like South Horizons, Blogger has been a home of mine for so long. I started dereksfault in response to my trip to the Dominican Republic with Fay, because I just couldn’t bear to let the memories of that experience fade. Since then, Blogger has carried me through the years. And while I may not have populated my blog as much as I would have wanted to do, it was nonetheless incredibly important to me. It formed a large part of my identity; if there ever was something that properly captured who I am (and when I say this, I mean the person I truly feel myself to be, from within), it would be the dereksfault I first built out of scratch.

I’ve learned by now, though, to let bygones be bygones. You can access the old dereksfault still, but, from now on, the new, foreign Squarespace website will continue on with me on this adventure. I hope I grow to love this place. I hope it grows to become part of who I am too. I guess this process is inherent in moving on, in growing older.

The lunch with my old piano teacher, Michael, was delightful. Nicky and I showed up to his new studio (in the west mall, where ParknShop once was), and he treated us to dim sum at the clubhouse (where I used to go swimming). We told him about our lives in Stanley, in America, about how we’ve been the past eight or nine years. We told him online school is tough, but what better option do we have? And he told us about how he was doing—how he moved out of his old studio into a much larger space, how he lives in South Horizons now, not Tai Koo Shing. He’s big on Taekwondo, and he’s still obsessed with action figures. His daughters, Yoyo and Amadeus, are six and eight. Last I remember, neither of them had been born yet.