Two of my father’s siblings have resided in the US since the late 1960s, and I have pleasant memories of them visiting the Philippines and of us visiting them. These visits were occasions to eat together, recycle childhood narratives, laugh, sight-see, make new friendships, and create many lasting memories. Even as a child, I was fascinated with the amount of time that my parents carved out to host our guests, as well as the time my relatives set aside to host us when it was their turn to do so. I enjoyed receiving chocolates and wearable presents from our foreign visitors and friends as much as I relished packing food souvenirs such as cans of broas from Alaminos and Betamax-recorded TV shows (such as John & Marsha) that my parents sent off with visiting relatives and friends. Through my travels, I developed an interest in scour the aisles of local groceries and drugstores for merchandise that I had never seen in the Philippines and picked up items to pack in my luggage. In addition, I learned to layer clothing and choose footwear for temperate climes. For many reasons, I regarded my foreign relatives as more privileged than my family and wondered why they made trips back to the Philippines. Years after my family of four began to live overseas, after tasting the life of a "foreigner,"  I began to understand and value reunions.

Reunions provide great opportunities to return to the familiar. Emigrating means getting displaced. The wide range of emotions accompanying relocation relates to the newness of people, places, and things. Gone are the gatherings that “consumed” all our weekends; they were replaced by quieter events such as family walks in the parks and afternoon craft sessions at home. The house phone hardly rang because newly-made friends don’t call as frequently as good old friends in Pinas do. Instead of cooking Filipino dishes at home, we found convenience in whipping out recipes made from ingredients readily supplied by nearby grocers. We learned to read new road signs and drive on the left side of the road. It was quite a challenge to identify a General Practitioner (GP), a plumber, or an electrician in our new country of residence because in the Philippines, one only had to ring up a friend or family member for instant recommendations. Furthermore, observing that English is spoken differently across cultures, we learned to clarify and confirm our understanding of the spoken word and picked up local phrases from different languages. For instance, the elevator is called a lift in Commonwealth countries, and the first syllable of the word schedule is pronounced with a soft sh sound instead of a crisp sk.

Realizing how little we knew of each new place we resided in was humbling. In my 30s, I attended language school with afficionados in their early 20s who often picked up grammar patterns faster than I. When before we lived in a house in Quezon City, we now live in a flat and have learned, over time, to move around without bumping into each other in narrower hallways. In the Philippines, we disposed of all items straightaway in big trash bins; presently, we know the complicated art of segregating household trash. Confronting the novelty of our environment, my husband and I agreed that I would be the stay-at-home parent, altering thus my daily schedule so that it revolved around the children’s school activities and house chores. Making trips to the Philippines; thus, a rare instance when I was someone else’s Tita or cousin, ex-classmate, batch mate, or former work colleague once again. Coming home suggested a return to old food haunts (Yum Yum Tree in Rustan’s Makati and sinugno/ginataang tilapia in Dang’s in San Pablo, Laguna), home service massages (who could afford these elsewhere?), five-hour lunches (because there is no limit to recounting funny old memories over and over), carbo loading (pan de sal for breakfast, rice meals for lunch and dinner, puto or pancit for merienda, scrumptious cakes after every meal), and ballroom dancing (an earnest effort to shed some calories). A balikbayan is hardly alone, thanks to friends and relatives who offer pasyal, inom and kain as forms of rekindling or bonding.

Hosting visitors offers, as well, a return to the familiar. Suddenly, queuing is more fun because there’s company. Besides, there is a reason to revisit iconic restaurants that excite tourists more than locals. I observe how the rhythm of my spoken English morphs into a lilting, more cooey one that is peppered with nuanced Taglish or local terms for the visitor who understands.

Homecoming trips, just like holidays, are planned way in advance, unlike life. Visiting elderly or sick parents is the perfect example. How often and for how reasonably long may I carve out time from raising children and running households to visit my mother and father? Can I be with them in the moments when they need to rush to the hospital or when they breathe their last? The curse of emigrating lies in missing these moments. When Dad died last month, his body was cremated shortly, and his remains were interred after a simple mass according to his last wishes. I had to deal with the lump on my throat serenely and tell myself that he and I enjoyed fellowship when I visited him just four weeks previously. Fortunately, I managed to see my mother quietly pass away eight years ago. My trip was timely in that case.

It is said that we realize the value of things when we lose them. Relocating from our motherland and taking a different citizenship, however enriching our lives in many ways, drives this sentiment. For this reason, reunions that take place when I visit the Philippines and when friends and family come over to visit are quite unforgettable, and gift exchanges during these reunions strengthen important long-distance relationships that I have been blessed to have since childhood. After all, the root word for “reunion” is the Latin "unus,” which means one. Thus, reunion suggests being one again. How special is that?!

Last Friday, January 12, my daughter and I attended a kintsugi workshop not far from her apartment in London. After choosing a ceramic bowl to work with and donning an apron, face mask, and hand gloves, ten of us students huddled around a long table in front of our British teacher, Brandon, who kicked off the session with self-introductions, an icebreaker, and a short history of kintsugi—the Japanese art of mending broken ceramic with lacquer and gold powder.

The first activity involved breaking our bowls. Following Brandon’s instructions, I placed my bowl on a hard surface covered with felt so that it stood on its rim, covered it with felt, and began to hammer flatly on a specific point on the bowl’s rim facing me—first with light taps that progressively became heavier until I heard a sharp clink, signaling the crack. Taking one of the bowl’s halves and placing it rim-side down on the felt surface, I covered its foot and commenced the same hammering technique on one point on the bowl’s foot until I heard another crack. I continued to do this sequence until my bowl was reduced to five broken pieces.

The second activity was attaching pieces, two at a time, via a cold weld. I vigorously mixed a strong adhesive compound for 15 seconds and allowed it to harden. Using a slim wooden tongue depressor, I applied the adhesive to the cracked surface of one piece and waited for it to cure before flushing the matching piece into place, holding it steadily for minutes while the adhesive hardened.

The third activity focused on flicking gold powder into the surfaces of the mend with the use of a flat brush. After passing some more time, Brandon instructed us to sweep gold powder onto the mend. As if by magic, the cracks that evidence the mending glistened before our eyes.

“Kintsugi” translates from Nihongo to English as joining with gold. Its origins recall how a feudal lord daimyo during the Edo period (1603–1868) asked his artisans to mend his favorite porcelain piece in a manner “better” than the Chinese way of using metal staples. During this time period, the craft of lacquering the surfaces of food containers and drinking vessels to make them impermeable had already evolved greatly. Painted screens were being lacquered too to make their surfaces catch the light; these were sent as tributes via emissaries to foreign countries where they were dearly treasured. Lacquer is a sticky substance, so it may have been natural for the artisans to divine its use as adhesive. The obvious advantage of mending with lacquer over metal staples lies in keeping the porcelain impermeable to water. The additional benefit of sprinkling gold powder onto the lacquer as it hardens lies in adding a distinctive and elegant decorative element.

Mistaken as a craft, kintsugi is considered an art form. It resonates with the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, which, loosely translated, refers to the acceptance of the fleeting and the imperfect.

In mending via kintsugi, movements are small and precise; furthermore, much care is taken in executing steps. Apply an uneven adhesive compound, and the resulting crack is too thick and may not look elegant. Distract oneself, and the pieces don’t fit perfectly, resulting in an uneven surface. Flick the gold powder carelessly, and the brush hairs touch the adhesive compound. Hurry through the steps and disregard the curing time of the adhesive, and the pieces fall apart under light pressure. The elegant kintsugi pieces at the Victoria & Albert and British Museums have even and smooth surfaces that belie their previously broken states, and their golden veins are thin like strands of hair.

“The world breaks everyone, 

then some become strong at the broken places.”  (Ernest Hemingway)

Kintsugi is written to be a meditative or spiritual experience. Some kintsugi artists narrate how their art practice resonates with their philosophy; for others, kintsugi is a response to a personal crisis. Here in London, kintsugi workshops are offered as social group activities and even corporate team-building sessions. While the ten of us participants had conversations with one another during the workshop, the bulk of our time was spent concentrating on performing the steps as accurately as we could manage independently of one another. As I worked on mending my bowl, I could not help but reflect on the seeming imperfections of my life, the difficulty of accepting my brokenness, but also how twists and setbacks have contributed to molding me into the human being that I have evolved into. I am quite certain that my daughter and eight classmates were in reveries of their own too.

This workshop we attended is a simplified version of the real kintsugi art form that requires more steps using different kinds of colored lacquer at several stages, various techniques of applying gold powder, methods of scraping extraneous marks on the ceramic, and longer curing time. In Japan, one attends weekly kintsugi classes because it takes months to mend a single ceramic. Nevertheless, this (kintsugi) taster workshop in London is successful in raising awareness for Japanese aesthetics. Kintsugi proposes how beauty can be celebrated by emphasizing, instead of hiding, brokenness. And that doing so does not happen instantly, but over a considerable period.

“Change is the only constant in life.” (Heraclitus)

Pieces mended through kintsugi are no longer food-grade. They cannot be washed in the dishwasher or placed inside a microwave. In other words, the bowl that I hammered into pieces so I could mend it via kintsugi lost its function as a food container. It is now merely a decorative object. This quickly inspires another reflection: while I can mend, for example, a relationship, it is much wiser to care deeply for it so it does not break.

Mending runs in our Filipino veins too. We stitch loose buttons and patch holes in our favorite clothing pieces. We repurpose decorative tin cans and well-shaped glass jars. How many homes have outfitted old Singer sewing machines into dainty tea tables or dressers? How many of us cut squares from our children’s shirts to sew quilts? By nature, we are nostalgic. We preserve things that remind us of the people we love. Perhaps the daimyo’s porcelain that was mended via kintsugi was a vessel of special memories too.

“The scars are the design. Your attention is drawn to the cracks and how they are mended. The beauty is in the brokenness.” (Justine Earley)