Homeseeking

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and rape.

In China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, people speak many different Sinitic or Chinese languages. In Homeseeking, author Karissa Chen emphasizes these different languages and shows that they can challenge mutual comprehension. In most of mainland China, people speak Mandarin. In Shanghai, where the protagonists grow up, people speak a local dialect referred to as Shanghainese. In Taiwan, where Haiwen is stationed while in the military, people speak Taiwanese. In Hong Kong, most people speak Cantonese.

The use of specific languages has a political, class, and/or social element. For instance, people view Haiwen with suspicion in Taiwan because he speaks Mandarin rather than Taiwanese; this marks him as a member of the occupying national military. In another example, Haiwen and Suchi bond by speaking their native Shanghainese, a mark of their shared origins.

Chen most clearly represents the different languages in the way the characters’ names shift depending on where they are and the language being used. In Sinitic naming systems, family names precede the personal name. When these names are Anglicized, the order is reversed. This is how the protagonists are named throughout the novel and in their respective languages.