Jack Chiu graduated from of the Master of Narrative Practice and Community Work at The University of Melbourne in 2020. He worked in the social services in Hong Kong specialising in youth work for over 28 years and now resides in the United Kingdom. Jack currently provides online consultation on narrative practice for agencies in Hong Kong and is exploring the history and nature of the UK.
livethemoment100@gmail.com
To emigrate is a tough decision. Many people who move to a new country face what can feel like overwhelming challenges. When we are occupied with such challenges, we can find it hard to recognise the skills and knowledge we hold about making it through tough times. And when we start to overcome some of the difficulties, or figure out ways to make our lives better, we may not think about how our stories and experiences could be helpful to others. As an emigrant from Hong Kong, I joined together with other Hong Kongers who had settled in the UK, Canada, Australia and Singapore, and with others who were still thinking about leaving Hong Kong, for mutual support and to document what we had learnt through facing the challenges of emigration. We hope that these stories of people’s skills and knowledges might offer company and hope to others who have made the difficult decision to leave home and embark on life in a new country.
All names used in this audio recording are pseudonyms.
Key words: Hong Kong; migration; diaspora; therapeutic document; collective narrative practice
English:
Cantonese:
Chiu, J. (2024). Wai lo gatherings: Documenting continuing connection among people from Hong Kong [Audio recording]. International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (2), https://doi.org/10.4320/ZUID5303
The collective document described in the audio can be downloaded here.
Audio notes
I moved from Hong Kong to the UK in autumn 2021. A wave of COVID-19 was breaking, and I was required to quarantine in isolation for 10 days. The disconnection together with the dark and cold weather made me feel lonely and depressed. I very much wanted to connect with anyone who might relate to what I was experiencing.
Emigration is a complicated process. It is not like being a tourist who travels for fun or relaxation and has a date of return. Most people leaving Hong Kong leave for good. Once they make the decision to go, many leave soon after. There are massive tasks to handle before leaving: all the emigration paperwork, financial arrangements, ending house or utility contracts, medical checks, job handover, sorting out what we need to bring – to list just a few. Getting all this done in such a rush together with uncertainty about the future can be overwhelming.
When my family left Hong Kong during the pandemic, we were left with no time to contemplate what the future would hold, what we would bring with us, and who we hadn’t said goodbye to. What we finally brought with us consisted mainly of hope and aspiration, together with fear, stress, anxiety, uncertainty, sorrow and guilt.
After the quarantine, life in a new country began. We unpacked our hope and began to deal with the inevitable difficulties of adjusting to life in a new place.
A few weeks after we arrived, my sister asked if I would like to meet a friend of hers who had moved with her family to the UK six months before us. I thought I might get some insight from this family about how they had adjusted to life in this country and how they handled some of the issues that I was coming up against. They were happy to meet and pleased to be able to talk with someone face-to-face in Cantonese.
I asked about whether they had come across any difficulties since they arrived in the UK and how they had overcome these. They shared that they had felt overwhelmed and lost for the first three months. Worrying that their English was insufficient and not wanting to be a burden to anyone, they hid at home, scouring government websites for information. However, they had a very nice neighbour who was from Poland. This neighbour encouraged them to be unafraid of asking for help. He told them about how he had a tough time adjusting and settling into this country when he arrived a few years before. Sharing some of their difficulties with someone who could really hear and understand made a difference to them. My friend compared the support she had found from her neighbour to the experience Hong Kongers describe as “wai lo” (圍爐).
Importance of wai lo 圍爐
Wai lo describes a way of being together and supporting each other. Wai lo suggests sitting around a fire to keep warm, but instead of the warmth of a fire, we are warmed by the support and acknowledgment we offer each other.
People with who share the experience of migration often face similar difficulties. Each finds their own ways of getting on in life and dealing with the problems they encounter.
I thought that the idea of wai lo might contribute to overcoming isolation – a way to bring together people who had a shared experience of migration and the difficulties it can entail. I imagined people coming together in person, or talking over the phone or in a group chat. They could share some of their uncertainty, worry, sorrow and guilt with someone in a similar situation, and perhaps also share some of their hopes and ways of getting through the tough times.
I started initiating wai lo gatherings with more and more friends and began to document their stories so that people could speak through me to others. I combined wai lo with ideas from my learning of narrative approaches to therapy and community work. In narrative practice, we centre people as experts on their own lives and we view problems as separate from people. Narrative practice assumes people and communities to have skills, abilities, values, beliefs and commitments that can help them in addressing problems. Identifying and sharing these among people in situations of hardship can get people reclaiming their lives and protecting what is important to them.
In doing wai lo together, we found comfort in our difficulties and feelings being recognised and acknowledged. We were also able to identify and share some of our stories of finding a way through the tough times, and to document them so they might be of benefit to others.
References
White, M. (1988). Saying Hullo again: The incorporation of the lost relationship in the resolution of grief. Dulwich Centre Newsletter, (Spring), 7–11.
Denborough, D. (2008). Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups and communities who have experienced trauma. Dulwich Centre Publications.
