This Is How I Saw Lulu Wang’s The Farewell:

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BY STAFF WRITER ASH HYUN ‘24

This is how I saw Lulu Wang’s The Farewell: 

The sprawling apartment complexes and skeletal frames of skyscrapers look down on her as she takes a taxi. They appear small in the reflection of the window. Now, Billi stands in her grandmother’s apartment in Changchun, China. She is in her 20s, but it seems like she is once again a child. She had left this country when she was younger, and instead of coming back as an adult she has crawled back into the body of her child self. She has only ever known the country as a child. Her grandmother, who the family calls Nai Nai, is smaller than she remembers. But when she embraces Nai Nai, it feels like they fill the room. 

Nai Nai’s little apartment is familiar. A potted plant hangs from the ceiling right in front of the window. A soft white veil acts as a curtain. There is a single wooden table: its old age is poorly hidden by an even older tablecloth and its surface is covered with framed photographs. Still frames of babies sitting on a kitchen table or staring absentmindedly at the camera in a woman’s arms, are a reminder that time has passed. Framed calligraphy and a painting of a crane on a scroll adorn the walls. These are things that she loves. Things that make her home. 

Nai Nai’s apartment reminded me of my own farewell, only my grandmother’s apartment was even smaller: a small living room in sunny LA containing a couch, a TV-less TV stand, a framed 1000-piece puzzle, and a glass sliding door to the balcony where she kept her persimmons to dry. When I was in elementary school, I would visit sometimes and when I did, I slept on the couch. My grandmother insisted that I take the master bedroom, but I told her I liked how the sun leaked through the glass door in the mornings. The truth was that I hated it because it always woke me up. But she would frequently grumble to herself about her back whenever she moved, the words sliding from between her teeth. The couch would have to do.

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The family eats at a round dinner table. They argue over whether China or America is better. Nai Nai says that China is their home. Billi’s dad says that they are American. They have American passports. The others glare at him. He has confessed infidelity. Nai Nai says that no matter what, they are Chinese. They have Chinese blood. 

My grandmother always said that while I look and sound American, my blood will always be Korean. Home was where the blood was. I never questioned her because she had different homes. She took her family from South Korea to South America when my mother was young. There were fewer Korean people, but more sun. That’s why when they moved to America, my grandmother chose Los Angeles, California. It wasn’t the same sun as the one in Argentina or Brazil or Paraguay or Uruguay, but it sufficed. It dried her persimmons and warmed her blood. 

My grandmother had resisted assimilation. To her, it was the equivalent of surrender. She would not let go of her way of life nor the things she loved just because she was on colder land. The only things she knew how to say in English were “yes,” “no,” and “I love you.” “I love you” was synonymous with “goodbye.” It was also the phrase she turned to when there was nothing left to say. 

Nai Nai is getting old. Nai Nai has cancer. Nai Nai is dying. That is why Billi has come back home. To say farewell. Nai Nai doesn’t know that she’s dying. The family thinks it’s better if she doesn’t know. They thought that it was better if Billi didn’t know. It would make everything less painful.  

I was told that my grandmother was dying a week before my mother left for California, where my grandmother was already at the hospital. I asked if I could go too. Of course I couldn’t. I had school.  

Billi remembers that when she was younger, she had to go to school instead of her grandfather’s funeral. The last time that she had seen him, he was smiling. He was healthy because he did not know that he was sick. She was happy because she didn’t know either. He would remain that way in her mind. School had taught her how to remember only the things you need. 

I was in English. We were talking about how to write a personal essay. Words crumpled to the ground as I thought about my grandmother in her hospital bed. I hoped that she was by a window. The doctors probably didn’t know how much she loves the sun. 

The next week, my mom came back. I knew that it meant that there was nothing more for her in California. She had said her farewells, even though I’m sure they were too quick. But I never said farewell to a person. I just never saw her again. There’s a narrative that I will never know because I never got to see her, closure that I was never afforded. But at the same time, my last memory of my grandmother is a happy one. It is not in a hospital where she is craving sunlight and her dried persimmons. It is in her little apartment. Her home.  

My grandmother knew what love was to her. She knew how to love, and she loved so deeply that it hurt. I’m sure it hurt her too, because I never knew how to return it. It seemed like it didn’t matter because she had so much to give. 

The day my second cousin was born was also the day my grandmother lay on her deathbed. She had gotten the call that my cousin had given birth, and something surged within her. She had fastened herself to this world a little bit longer. Her reason? “I don’t want her birthday to be the same day as my death.” She died the next morning, hours after my second cousin was born. Her last words were “I love you.”