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The First Day of July

Thursday, 01 July, 2004

Today it is the 1st of July. Canada Day. The start of a new financial year (time to lodge your tax return!) In 10 days I will turn 26 years old, thus moving out of square rootable status into a number that only has four factors. (I look forward to turning 27 whereby I shall be a cube root.) I suppose it's 25 if you take into account I lost my 6th birthday over the International Date Line. In 11 days I shall celebrate my 20th anniversary of living in this country.

I remember quite a lot about Toronto—things which I'm pretty sure don't just come from photographs. I remember my father asking me before my brother was born whether I wanted a boy or a girl. I said “boy” because, to my four-year-old mind, it was logical that a boy should go with a girl. So my brother was born in April Fool's Day 1982.

I remember playing the piano with my father in the downstairs room. I remember having a birthday party the backyard of our house in Toronto and all the kids wore rabbit-ear crowns made out of cardboard and stick-on stars. I remember my old room which was in the attic of our three-storey house. I remember the basement which always had a particular smell. I remember my mother complaining about the raccoons that knocked over our garbage bin.

I remember going to school and ending up in the wrong kindergarten class (2 instead of 1) and having to be fetched and taken to the right class. I remember riding on a teacher's back as he slid down one of the poles in the playground&#&8212;something I had never dared to do because I was too scared. I remember after-school care and having popcorn occasionally (yum!) and celery and peanut butter often (I hated both but I used to lick the peanut butter off the celery). I remember the horrible animated film we saw about a cake that came alive and went around eating people (I got nightmares from watching it and my teachers didn't understand—they said it was supposed to be funny—ironic reversal—cake eats people instead of people eating cake. Why didn't I become anti-food after that?)

I remember being bored when my parents were at Chinese orchestra practice, and how I cried out, “Mummy!” upon seeing my mum on stage, MC-ing at one of their concerts, and the rest of the audience roared with laughter. I remember the fake poppies the shops sold on Remembrance Day.

I remember my father taking me to Ontario Island where we went on the rides with the little fire engines and police cars that we used to drive around and around the track. I remember seeing E.T. at the cinemas and crying because I was scared, though I didn't know why I was scared (it took me years before I actually liked going to the movies; when you're five, the large screen and the booming sound is quite disturbing).

I remember going out for ice cream and always choosing vanilla out of the many flavours on offer because I loved vanilla. I remember eating croissants at a basement caf´e; and savouring the butter. (I still love croissants and vanilla ice cream.) I remember entering a colouring-in competition and being disappointed about not winning.

I remember my schoolfriend Alex was better at using chopsticks than I was. I remember the grape vines in his backyard. I remember my two friends at school—Claire Yao and Amanda Martyn—were always doing things that I was always scared to do but they kept trying to talk me into doing them. One of them had an ice skating party for their birthday. I remember bringing rice bubbles to school for recess but they were called something else.

I remember the funny turnstile gates at my mother's workplace at the University of Toronto and the Christmas parties they used to have when someone dressed up as Santa and gave us little presents. I remember white Christmases and stringing together berries and popcorn to drape around the tree with the tinsel (I wanted to eat the popcorn). I remember seeing the milk drunk and the cookies eaten on Christmas day. I remember stockings hanging off the fireplace. I remember trick-or-treating on Halloween, dressed up as a ladybird. I remember wearing gingham and playing Little Red Ridinghood's mother in the school play.

It puzzles me that others can't remember much from the time when they were younger than six because I can remember so much. But then I had a major disruption in my life, changing countries, and that's probably why the memories stay. Or perhaps I have made it so in my brain because those years were the years when my parents were still together and we were still a family. I often wonder what would have happened had we stayed there. But I know God wanted us to come here and here is what he had intended for me—for us. I can't kid myself and think that a lot of the things that happened wouldn't have happened if we hadn't moved here. I am grateful I had those years at all. I know that they have contributed to the way I am now. I still feel a kinship with the land in which I was born (I still retain my accent).

Happy Canada Day!

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

(Download the sheet music)

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