The Upstairs Window by Faith Dea
It wasn’t that high. Only the first floor of a twenty-story building. Yet the vantage point it offers a four-year-old looking out the window can be pretty significant. I’m standing there, having just arrived at our new, above-ground level apartment, peering out the living room window. This was our first home that I recall. And our new address? 32B 1st Floor Nassau Street, Mei Foo Sun Chuen, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
I was too young to know this of course. I just wanted to include it to show some of the British influence in Hong Kong. If you look up Nassau like I just did, you will make the connection with the Bahamas and Great Brittan and why they may have used this name for a street. It’s one of many streets, places, locations around Hong Kong that are non-Chinese.
By contrast, our American home we just left was simply, 1012 Fannin, Amarillo, TX.
I fail to remember anything about the home I just left, or even what it felt like. But this place, this very tall building crowded in by many other matching tall buildings was to be our first home here in Hong Kong. It wasn’t the size of the small apartment. It wasn’t the mold in the kitchen my mother recalls most, or what the bedrooms looked like for us kids. What sticks out in my mind was the fact that there was a window that looked out at other buildings all around us, and most of all, down several feet to the pavement. No yard, no grass, just pavement with some ornamental plants, a parking lot and people, always people with the same black hair walking around. The elevated house and the claustrophobia of this neighborhood felt unfamiliar and unsteady. My instincts pulled me close to the window. At least there I could get a sense of where I was in relation to my world that had dramatically transformed. My family and I had never lived in an apartment. Perhaps if we had, this wouldn’t have felt so different. This was our new “house” and the living room window made the biggest impression on me.
In the early eighties, Mei Foo Sun Chuen was considered to be an affluent, middle-class residential development, the first large-scale private housing estate at the time of completion. By the time we arrived in 1982, the last stages of the building had been completed only four years prior. There were older sections where construction had begun in 1968. Mei Foo covered 40 acres with a total of 99 towers. This was like night and day from quiet, spacious Amarillo, Texas.
This new neighborhood housed some 70-80,000 residents. That’s a lot of neighbors! My family and I had never experienced living and breathing in such close proximity to so many other people. My parents found out about this new place we would call home from corresponding with a local Chinese man they had never met or seen. There was no Zillow.com or house hunting opportunities. We were the new rotation of missionaries, ultimately following a long line of Christian missionaries from the West. As it were, an anonymous missionary family had lived in our flat for several years, but they had left, leaving the mold to quickly spread in the abandoned kitchen. Poor mom. It was quite a surprise for her!
Same day? Next day? Not sure, but I know our new friends showed up at our door to welcome us to the neighborhood. They were not Chinese. They were fellow American missionaries and came to introduce themselves. It didn’t matter that we were not all sent out by the same mission board. It didn’t matter how they knew we’d just moved in. What did matter was that they looked and spoke like people from where we had just come. I could immediately identify with these new friends. God must have known we needed another American family close by. I can see the new neighbors standing there; still strangers yet welcomed strangers. Their presence pierced through the foreign veil that had fallen over me, allowing me to acknowledge and make sense of all the unfamiliar. I have no idea what our parents conversed about as they stood there at our door. I was still standing over by the window.
I am a Christian, military wife, bio/foster/adoptive mother, active church member, and currently homeschooling my three kids. I enjoy gardening, hiking, coffee with new friends, cooking from scratch, and writing. Leading and participating in women’s ministries is also an important part of my life. I have been married for 16 years. My husband is a Space Force officer, currently commanding the largest space force squadron in the nation. I’ve always journaled. I relish the fact that I’ve been given the opportunity to put my thoughts into meaningful words. I would like to use this means of communication more and more to inspire, motivate, and encourage others, including my own children as they grow up. Writing has also been therapeutic for me as I try and unpack long-buried memories, emotions, and how I’m learning from each situation or experience.