[ESSAY] “Home” by Daniel Cheng

^{Right: A photograph taken by the author in Newfoundland
Left: A photograph taken by the author during his first semester in Waterloo}

I’m flying home to Newfoundland for Christmas, for the first time since leaving home. I had a layover in Ottawa, and after many delays, I’m finally on my way home to St. John’s. I find myself seated next to an older woman, and she strikes up a conversation with me. I learn that she lives in Ottawa but grew up in St. John’s and, like me, is returning home for the holidays.

She then begins asking about my life. I explain that I also grew up in St. John’s, but that my parents were born in China.

Then she asks, “Do you consider yourself a Newfoundlander?”

I’ve always struggled to define my identity. I was born in the United States to Chinese parents who were studying there. However, at the age of three, after years of searching, my father was offered a professorship, not in the United States, but in Canada. So to Canada I went.

In 2010, I arrived with my parents in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Although I do not know the exact figures, I can safely say that I grew up around very few Chinese people. The Chinese community in Newfoundland is very small, and many people, when given the opportunity, leave for the Greater Toronto Area to be part of a larger Chinese community.

Growing up in such an environment had a profound influence on the person I am today. From a young age, whenever I was not with my parents, I was immersed in a distinctly non-Chinese environment, whether at daycare, at school, or in after-school programmes. I learned to eat with forks and spoons. I learned manners in English. I learned how to be a person in English.

So when I was asked whether I was a Newfoundlander, I thought that I was. I grew up surrounded by Newfoundlanders, so what made me any different? Or so I believed.

In elementary school, we learned about Newfoundland traditions, ugly sticks, fishing, kitchen parties, and I knew all about them. Yet whenever I went home and asked my parents about these things, they would tell me they had no idea what I was talking about. Of course, why would they? They had little connection to the province. So although I understood Newfoundland culture in theory, I never truly experienced it. At the end of the day, I grew up in a Chinese household, albeit one surrounded by a non-Chinese culture.

Sometimes I feel that, because of this, I never gained a complete picture of either culture.

Take, for example, the question of what my first language is. I always have to pause and think. Technically, it is Mandarin. Although I was born in the United States, I spent most of the first two years of my life with my Mandarin-speaking parents and grandparents in China.

That said, once I started daycare and then school, my opportunities to practise and develop my Chinese steadily diminished, and English gradually became my dominant language. But can I truly say that English is my first language? I sometimes tell people that English technically is not my first language, even though it is my dominant one.

Even that statement has given me pause. Although I can read, write, and communicate in English to a very high standard, in some respects I feel more comfortable in Mandarin.

English is the language I use for the outside world, with teachers, in shops, and at school. Yet with the people closest to me, my family and friends, I predominantly speak Mandarin. In Mandarin, I feel far more comfortable expressing certain ideas and emotions, and I often say things that I would never say in English, simply because there are so few people with whom I would feel comfortable expressing them in that language.

In fact, my parents have always told me that, when I speak English, I do not sound like a native speaker to them, unlike my younger brother, who was born and raised in Newfoundland.

That does not mean Mandarin is my primary language either. I recently travelled to China alone for the first time, and it was one of the most linguistically challenging experiences I have ever had. My limited vocabulary, coupled with my near-complete illiteracy, left me overthinking almost every interaction, including many that I was perfectly capable of managing.

My experience with language mirrors my experience of identity as a whole. What should I call myself? Am I a Newfoundlander? Chinese? Am I enough of either? Perhaps I could simply say, “I’m Chinese-Canadian.”

I began my studies last autumn at the University of Waterloo. The university has a sizeable population of students of Chinese descent, many of whom grew up in the Greater Toronto Area.

When I arrived at university, I encountered a new kind of person. Many of these students, like me, were Chinese-Canadian, but they had grown up in communities large enough that, if they or their families wished, they could spend almost all of their time among other Chinese-Canadians. At times, it felt as though I was meeting people from an entirely different culture.

Take Christmas, for example. Growing up, it was everywhere. All of my friends celebrated it, and my parents saw no reason to stop me from celebrating it as well. Yet after speaking to many Chinese-Canadian students from the Greater Toronto Area, I learned that Christmas simply was not particularly significant to them. Their families did not celebrate it, their friends’ families generally did not celebrate it either, and it was simply another holiday that came with a long break.

Since arriving here, I eat with chopsticks whenever I go out. I am not accustomed to using them, but I do not want people to think that I am somehow not Chinese enough, especially when so many Chinese-Canadians from the Greater Toronto Area use them naturally. At home, however, I still reach for forks and knives.

That, in turn, made me question whether I could even call myself Chinese-Canadian. Am I even Chinese-Canadian enough to be Chinese-Canadian?

I tell the woman on the plane, “Yes, I think I am a Newfoundlander.”

She laughs quietly to herself before pausing to think.

“Well, I suppose you have to. You couldn’t really consider yourself Chinese.”

Yet I can tell that she does not truly believe I am a Newfoundlander either.

Perhaps she is right.

But does that mean I have no identity?

No.

^{How to cite: Cheng, Daniel. “Home.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 14 Aug. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/08/14/daniel-cheng-home.}

Daniel Cheng was born in the United States but has called St. John’s, Newfoundland, home since childhood. He currently lives in Waterloo, Canada, where he studies computer science and mathematics. Home is his first published work.