Author's Note - I'll Be a Home for You
By Rozalia Boma Davies
dedicated to everyone who’s a foreigner in their own home
Author’s Note
There is a difference between Chinese as a nationality and Chinese as an ethnicity and cultural background. Mainland China and Hong Kong share many cultural traditions. However, Hong Kong historically has had its own distinct identity owing to its island status and 150 years of British colonization. It has its own dialect of Chinese, Cantonese, while the official dialect of Mainland China is Mandarin.
The answer to whether Hong Kong is a part of China depends on whom you ask.
Therefore, when characters in this book refer to “Chinese,” they mean the Chinese culture of Hong Kong. And sometimes, more specifically, the Chinese culture of Hong Kong that traveled all the way to the United States.
—
The name Aang is most famously associated with the character Aang from the Nickelodeon animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The creators of the show derived it from the Chinese characters 安昂 (ōn ngòhng).
Combined, they mean peaceful soaring. However, this combination of characters would not be used in Hong Kong as a person’s name. It sounds off to a Chinese speaker.
It is, however, a name popular in Indonesia. This book’s Aang just doesn’t know it.