Cage in Heaven

Cage in Heaven

Process writing:

This was me when I was growing up in my little world. This was my feeling of pain, sorrow, and joy during my childhood. I felt all these emotions and more growing up in the busy Hong Kong City. Looking back at my childhood, I realized why I came to the United States. I adore my father and siblings for all the hard work they have done for me to come over. I realized the warmest and only love is that of a family.

Hong Kong is six million hearts beating in rhythm. This pellet of land bustles with boiling commotion. Sirens scream like tea kettles. It is modern and prosperous, just like a little New York City of the Orient. The majority of people in Hong Kong hanker to live in loft houses of 3,000 square feet facing the fascinating skyline and immense harbor. Dreams of dreamhouses push the people deeper and deeper into their hard work, including my father. But beneath the city’s captivating surface, the noise of automobiles and prosperity overpowers thousands of sorrowful stories. Since poor people cannot afford the high rent prices, they have to jostle in bed-size apartments and partitioned rooms in the cocklofts of aged buildings. As I lived in Hong Kong, I should have been satisfied to have a 500 square foot big home. But, after my father left home, I found neither the eye-catching harbor view nor a vast house to be heavenly. Instead, a bed-size apartment on top of a dilapidated building was my firmament.

I gazed at my father, sister and brother from the corner. My eyes followed their weighty pace until their laden shadows disappeared at the end of the indistinct hallway. I was still very small at that time. I could not even reach the doorknob, so how could I under...

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... my father. I didn’t long for life in a big house anymore.

The world under the aged building was blossomy for those materialistic people who chased modernization. That world didn’t belong to me. Another world was waiting for me. That world was the cage in heaven where I could have family warmth. Steven made a reckless move for his family. For the same reason, my father went to New York to make a better living for his family. There was no abhorrence in my heart anymore. I felt so sorry for my father, and had to apologize because I had misunderstood him for the past 15 years.

I stood near the cage in heaven again, appreciating the melody made by the factories, and I forgot the hullabaloo of the city below. I took out my cell phone and called. When I heard the voice that I wished was more familiar, I shouted out, “Papa, meet you in New York City soon!”