This is what generational diaspora feels like

I’ll be out of the office this month as I embark on a trip to my mother's motherland, China. While I’d love to call it my own motherland, it doesn’t quite feel like that yet.

The definition of "motherland" is "the country of one's birth or origin, often with an emotional or cultural connection." For me, the emotional bond isn’t as deep as I wish it were, and I often wonder if my experiences could be called diasporic, since I wasn’t born there, nor do I speak in their exact tonality, regional dialect, or use their proverbs and slang. I have a feeling this trip will give me an opportunity to explore and hopefully build that connection to my generational diaspora.

If someone were to ask me, "What does generational diaspora feel like?"

What's coming up for me is:
• It feels more like a journey when I visit than a vacation or a break.
• Even though I can speak the language, it's still considered foreign.
• Even though I want to feel connected to the people and my extended family, it still feels foreign.
• Missing kinship: Is there anyone here who truly gets me?
• To be honest, there’s general anxiety with every interaction: What if I feel let down by my race? What if I don’t fully understand their tonality and intentions? Do I really know the culture if I haven’t spent time here?
• Because separation from the land is such a complex struggle: Can it even be called diaspora when I was born elsewhere?

Interestingly, 'motherland' can also mean a place with significant ancestral importance, even if it’s not where you were born. In that sense, I hope to find a deeper connection to my roots during this journey.

Realistically, two weeks may not be enough to fully connect with deep ancestral wisdom or break generational cycles. However, I hope this trip will serve as a catalyst, helping me reflect on decolonization and immerse myself in processing aspects of my generational diaspora.

A creative practice I will be tapping into during my trip as someone who is processing aspects of my generational diaspora…

I recognize that, as a child of “immigrants,” my parents didn’t relocate by choice but out of necessity. Displacement and forced migration are central to how their story unfolded. I know this will show up in my body as I engage with the spaces I visit.

Whenever I have the capacity to recognize an embodied generational and historical wound coming up, I will be choosing to breathe into it as a practice. This means not trying to change it and practicing curiosity about this feeling.

When I visit places or have conversations with extended family and locals, I’ll pause and tune into how my body feels. These sensations—whether they evoke belonging, disconnection, yearning, or unease—will be important to notice.

I plan to translate these sensations into intuitive sketches, abstract drawings, or simple colour fields in my journal as a form of documentation (art as therapy if you will because I know that art is healing) in the next blog post. Weaving together the past and present will help me process my feelings around belonging and displacement.