Why I Go Back to Chongqing Every Year

Chongqing is hot. Not warm — the kind of heat that sits on you. It's frequently 40 degrees Celsius in the summer, and the air conditioning is never quite enough. You step outside and within a minute you're already wondering how anyone lives like this.

And yet, every year, my parents take me back. No exceptions.

When I was younger I didn't question it. It was just a thing we did — a month in China, visiting family, eating food I didn't get back home, then back to Michigan. As I got older and summers started filling up with other things, I started to understand that this trip was non-negotiable in a way most things weren't. My parents didn't ask whether I wanted to go. We were going.

I think I understand why now.

When I land in Chongqing, I see my grandparents. My younger cousin picks up the er'hu and plays something in the living room while dinner is being made. There's a particular kind of noise to those evenings — dishes, conversation, a television on somewhere — that I don't hear anywhere else. It doesn't feel like visiting. It feels like returning.

The closest I can get to describing it: it's like going on vacation, except the destination is the one place where you feel the most like yourself. Even if it's 40 degrees and there's no relief in sight.

I'm not always in a rush to get there. The flights are long, the heat is real, and a month is a long time. But somewhere around day three, when the jet lag has worn off and I've settled back into the rhythm of that apartment, I stop thinking about what I'm missing back home. This is also home.

That's what my parents understood that took me longer to get. You can build a life somewhere new without letting go of where you came from. The trip back every year isn't a concession to the past. It's how you make sure the past stays part of you.