After waiting for a few months, it was finally time to leave Hong Kong and move to Indonesia, which was in the winter of 1989. I was 12 years old at the time, and I don't remember at all how I felt or the atmosphere at home the day before our departure. Perhaps too tense and joyful; my memories of that time have disappeared. But what I remember most is the atmosphere when I met my parents' friends and siblings at Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport.

Almost all of them cried while watching us enter the Immigration area

In my memory, after we arrived at Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport, several friends from my parents and siblings came and congratulated us in tears, because at that time we intended to stay in Indonesia forever and never return to Hong Kong again.

In my memory, at that time there were my grandparents, my mother's friends in the same building, my father's friends, some of my grandmother's relatives, and also 2 uncles and their families came to say goodbye to us. The 2 uncles are my mother's older brothers who live in Hong Kong. I will tell you a little about them so that the reader does not get confused as to why my mother has 2 older brothers who live in Hong Kong.

Mother has 2 older brothers who were born and raised in Hong Kong

I once told you in one of the articles in the "About the Author" column before that my grandfather in Indonesia was a Hong Kong who came to Indonesia to try to run a business in Surabaya. My grandfather was born in Mainland China, then he married a woman from Mainland China and had a family there.

One day my grandfather decided to leave his family in China and then go to Hong Kong for reasons that neither I nor my mother know. In Hong Kong, my grandfather married a Hong Kong woman and had 2 sons.

My grandfather then left his family in Hong Kong and left for Indonesia to try to open a culinary business and also marry 2 Indonesian women, so actually my mother had a total of dozens of brothers and sisters.

Before my mother went with my father to Hong Kong, my grandfather gave me a phone number to contact my grandchildren's children who lived in Hong Kong and it was the first time that my mother met her brothers in Hong Kong.

Feeling happy when the plane takes off

At that time, we were using a Garuda Indonesia flight to Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. After boarding the plane, I asked to sit on a bench near the window, and I was very happy when the plane took off and I saw the clouds in the sky. I had previously taken a plane when I was with my parents on vacation to Bali; I was still under 2 years old at that time.

Arrive at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in the evening

I fell asleep for a while on the plane, when I woke up I saw that it was dark outside and saw the lights on the land that the plane was passing by. Not long after, the pilot of the plane announced that we would soon land at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport and immediately played a song, namely "Right Here Waiting" sung by a famous singer from the United States, Richard Mark. Until now, every time I get on a plane to visit Indonesia, the song automatically spins back in my brain, and when listening to the song my mind also sometimes remembers my 4 years of life in Indonesia.

Picked up by aunt number 2 and her husband at the airport

When I got off the plane and passed through Immigration, I saw aunt number 2 and her husband, whom I first met, waiting outside. Then we stayed at my aunt's house for the next few months while looking for a house around the South Jakarta area.

In the next article, I will tell you how I felt when I saw the city of Jakarta at night and the shock of seeing my aunt's house located in the Kemang area, South Jakarta.