Hong Kong Notebook

I have an aunt who is a 90-year-old Chinese Catholic nun. Until last year she was confined to a wheelchair, badly arthritic, and totally blind, but then a miraculous operation gave her back sight in one eye. Last week, to celebrate the Chinese New Year, she bravely travelled from her home in Wicklow to Hong Kong — which she left 20 years ago and thought she would never see again. Her visit was a surprise for her sister, my 83-year-old mother, and so our traditional family dinner on New Year’s eve was an emotional affair. Together we had four generations’ worth of memories of Hong Kong — a city that has changed a great deal. My aunt talked about the Japanese occupation, and her 60 years with the St Columban Sisters. We all weaved our own stories in and out of her simple but extraordinary life. And we all cried, for different and distant reasons.