4 Tips to Feel Less Homesick from a Migrant Who Left Home At 16
By: Midori The Sea
Tags: Grief, Home, Depression, Family, Love

1. Watch some old funny TVs from your home town.

These shows should be in your mother-tongue and they shouldn’t feature the pandemic. They should be funny too; avoid anything too intense and philosophical. The best way to cure sadness is through laughter and love. The Americans are very good at that, it’s why Friends and Home Alone are being replayed every day and every Christmas. Let’s just pretend we can still afford an apartment in Manhattan with a crappy acting job.

You’re right, watching TV is a temporary escape. But man, we deserve it. We are sad! Recently, I started rewatching my favourite childhood cartoon called Chibi Maruko Chan. It was dubbed in Cantonese and was popular among Chinese kids of my generation. It’s about the life of Maruko and her friends in Japan. No one grows up in this cartoon so she and her friends always stay in the best year of their lives. Wouldn’t that be nice? (here’s an English dubbed version)

2. Get your mum’s recipe and make it for yourself.

I was so naive when I first moved to England. I thought I would embrace the local cuisine fully and never turned back to Chinese food. After three weeks of bland fish and chips, we finally went to a Chinese restaurant.

The restaurant offered bottomless rice, so we all ate rice to our heart's content. I think had 7 bowls of rice that night. That’s an obscene amount for a skinny Chinese teenage girl. But we ate and ate, clearing every last drop of sauce and spring onion pieces.

I made a note to learn cooking from my mum and grandma the minute I returned to Hong Kong for holidays. Those were truly valuable lessons and I can recreate amazing family recipes now whenever I need something to comfort my stomach and my soul.

If you have no access to your family’s recipes for any reason, thank God for Youtube. During times when you can’t even eat out properly, your own hands are your best bet.

Cooking takes you away from your overly high screen time and keep you busy. It’s also therapeutic and relaxing, so why not challenge yourself to some harder recipes too?

3. Journal/write a letter.

It’s a lot easier now than when I was a student to connect to our family and friends abroad. When I was in the boarding house, there was only one phone in the common room. My mum and I had to fix the time of our weekly conversations. I hated it because everyone could eavesdrop and it was not convenient.

The fact that it’s so easy to facetime our family doesn’t mean it makes it easier to truly connect. We are so easily distracted by whatever our phone or TV was showing.

As we grow older, our pride and independence sometimes also prevent us from being completely honest. I can’t tell my parents how paranoid and homesick I am during this pandemic when they have enough on their plates.

A letter is a lot more controlled; we can plan, draft and decide what to go in it. We can tell what we want to tell them, but more importantly, we can release what’s within our heavy hearts.

I sometimes buy special letter sets for writing (try Etsy). It makes the experience that much more deliberate. This is a time to meditate, make a cup of tea and write to my family.

4. Let yourself grieve.

Not all of us have a home or family to return to. Homesickness highlights our regrets, our guilt and our grief for people we didn’t manage to spend time with before it was too late. You might have similar thoughts like mine: If I hadn’t moved to London, maybe I would’ve more time to spend with my grandpa before he died.

We need to learn to let ourselves grieve, whatever that means for you, whether that’s anger, sadness, remorse, or gratitude.

When we are homesick, we must be honest with our vulnerability. We don’t have to be upbeat all the time. We can be sick, annoyed, sad and restless, or any other emotions. Men and women alike, suppression of homesickness will lead to an explosion one day, it’s like a timed bomb.