My Asian mother has this tradition of calling me – regardless of where I am in the world – whenever it’s November 2nd, 11:24pm in Hong Kong. The precise time that I was born. Although, being Chinese, she never liked the number 4 and I swear she always told me I was born at 11:23pm.
She’ll retell the story. How much it hurt. How they dangled me by the neck like a pterodactyl cupping its prey above her.
How wet
and ugly
I looked.
They gave me a bath, combed my hair swept all the way to the side, and returned me.
I looked more acceptable then.
Except for my nose, nostrils facing the sky.
I was born on a Saturday night.
Thank you, 媽咪.
I love you.
This entry was written by , posted on November 2, 2011 at 3:01 pm, filed under Joey Ng, Writing and tagged Birthday. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.