2022 Traditions Contest: Folding Cranes | Teen Ink

2022 Traditions Contest: Folding Cranes MAG

January 9, 2022
By Sam-Luo BRONZE, Rosemead, California
Sam-Luo BRONZE, Rosemead, California
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Guangzhou finds its way

back to our muggy kitchen


occupied again and again

by my mother’s homesickness I 


hear in the soft silences when she 

folds me cranes filled with


leek, pork, and scallions. I call

them birds — not dumplings 


because they fly me back years 

when America was only a dream. 


Naturally, I fold my own now —

hands caked in wheat flour,


asking how many pleats 

or feathers in clumsy Cantonese.


At dinner, my chopsticks pluck a 

boiled crane, bathe it clean in soy sauce 


and set it free like our heritage. 


The author's comments:

Having immigrated to the United States at a very young age, it's quite difficult for me to connect to my Chinese heritage. I am proud to be an American but it's difficult to define or feel for myself what it means to be Asian-American. In "Folding Cranes," I explore one of the most meaningful traditions I share with my mother in which I bridge the gap between what it means to be both Asian and American.


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