Homeseeking

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

In Homeseeking, the protagonists, Haiwen and Suchi, are displaced from their childhood homes in Shanghai and forced to live elsewhere. Throughout the novel, they struggle with their longing for home even as they create new homes for themselves in new places. The novel’s title, Homecoming, itself refers to this theme. It comes from a translation of a poem called “Homecoming” or “Returning Home” by early medieval Chinese poet He Zhizhang, which Haiwen quotes to describe his feeling of being “a stranger in [his] own hometown” when he returns to visit Shanghai after being away for so many years (78).

As children, Suchi feels entirely at home in the longtang, or neighborhood, in Shanghai where she lives. She shows her familiarity and comfort there in an early scene when she explores the neighborhood on her own before she starts school. Haiwen was born in Hong Kong, but he also quickly adapts to the neighborhood. Before Haiwen departs to join the military, he pauses to take in the familiar sights of the neighborhood, such as “the well-trod path between his house and Suchi’s” (5). He carries these images with him when he leaves and dedicates himself to remembering them.