What if "home" isn't a place you return to, but something you build along the way? In this solo episode, me, a bilingual writer born in Jinan, shaped in Auckland, London, and Lisbon, and now back in China, revisits the classic story of diaspora. Drawing on William Safran, James Clifford, and Avtar Brah, and on the Portuguese idea of saudade, she explores why returning to the homeland can feel like a second diaspora, and why writing may be the truest way of belonging.

What we covered:

1. The classic diaspora story: collective memory, the homeland myth, and the dream of return

2. Roots vs. routes: a life told as a chain of cities (Jinan, Auckland, London, Lisbon)

3. The new self-initiated, third-culture writer, and how this differs from older diaspora literature

4. Saudade in Lisbon, and how it differs from East Asian homesickness tied to family duty

5. "Homing desire" vs. desire for a homeland

   6. The return: becoming a "stranger in my hometown"

   
   

   References

• Diaspora (classic model): a dispersed community that keeps a shared memory of an idealized homeland and aspires to return (Safran).

• • Saudade: a Portuguese term for a deep longing for something lost, or something that may never have existed.

  • Third culture: a personal space built from several cultures, belonging fully to none of them.

  • Secondary diaspora: the feeling of being displaced even after physically returning.

  • Digital diaspora: scattered communities formed through blogs, podcasts, and self-publishing.

• Safran, William. "Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return." Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1, no. 1 (1991): 83–99.

• Clifford, James. "Diasporas." Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 302–338.

• Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge, 1996.

• Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Diaspora." In Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990.

• Brubaker, Rogers. "The 'Diaspora' Diaspora." Ethnic and Racial Studies 28, no. 1 (2005): 1–19.

• • Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Harvard University Press, 1993.

  Chinese diaspora and identity

  • Ang, Ien. On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West. Routledge, 2001.

  • Ong, Aihwa. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Duke University Press, 1999.

  • Wang Gungwu. Don't Leave Home: Migration and the Chinese. Times Academic Press, 2001.

  • Tu Weiming. "Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center." Daedalus 120, no. 2 (1991).

  Saudade and Portuguese culture

  • Michaëlis de Vasconcelos, Carolina. A Saudade Portuguesa (1914). The classic Portuguese essay on the concept.

  • Pessoa, Fernando. The Book of Disquiet. A Lisbon classic of longing and displacement.

  • Fado was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011.

  Watch

  • Pico Iyer, "Where Is Home?" (TED, 2013).

  • Taiye Selasi, "Don't Ask Where I'm From, Ask Where I'm a Local" (TEDGlobal, 2014).

  Credits and connect

  • Written and hosted by: Camellia Yang

  • Subscribe to Chiwi Journal

Have you ever looked back at your life path and realized that your most "calculated" choices were actually driven by an invisible hand?

Sparked by Paolo Sorrentino’s film Parthenope and its haunting theme song, I reflect on a decade of wandering, from an improbable visa in New Zealand, to a chaos-filled leap to London, to a sudden surrender on the cobblestone streets of Lisbon. We talk about why our rational brains construct neat narratives after the fact, how the Portuguese concept of Saudade offers a way out of the rat race, and why surrendering to your life’s script might just be the ultimate form of freedom.

• Film: Parthenope (2024), directed by Paolo Sorrentino.

• Music: "Era già tutto previsto" by Riccardo Cocciante (1975).

• The Stanford Commencement Address (2005): Steve Jobs on connecting the dots looking backward rather than forward.

• Philosophy & Theology:

  • Nietzsche: Amor Fati ("Love of Fate") — embracing every joy, tragedy, and setback as essential to your story.

  • Buddhism: Hetu-Pratyaya (因缘和合) — the interdependence of causes and conditions coming to fruition.

  • Taoism: Wu Wei (无为) — effortless action through alignment with the natural flow of the cosmos.

• The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus: Essential reading on finding joy and meaning within inescapable reality.

• The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa: Written by Portugal’s master poet in Lisbon, exploring the depth of Saudade and existence.

Enjoying the show? Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and share this episode with someone who needs to let go of the wheel today :)

What if the universe isn't hostile, nor is it benevolent, but completely indifferent to human existence?

In this episode, I talked about two masterpieces of existential science fiction: the 1972 novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and its legendary 1979 film adaptation, Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The Cosmic Picnic Metaphor: Why human civilization might just be an anthill next to someone else's discarded trash.

• Tarkovsky’s Visual Metaphysics: Analyzing the iconic stream scene in Stalker and the submerged remnants of human history.

• The Room vs. The Golden Sphere: Why characters hesitate when faced with a place that grants their deepest subconscious desires.

• Resisting the Absurd: Redrick Schuhart’s desperate final cry for humanity and how we find connection in an indifferent world.

Key Quotes:

"We are simply apes who picked up a discarded lighter. We know how to strike the wheel to create a spark, but we lack the foundational knowledge to grasp the underlying physics."

"Happiness for everybody, free, and may no one be left behind!" — Redrick Schuhart, Roadside Picnic

"When the universe offers no care, choosing to care for one another becomes our ultimate act of resistance."

Featured Works:

• Book: Roadside Picnic (1972) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

• Film: Stalker (1979) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

• Philosophical Reference: The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

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