The Secret Aunt

When I was a child we used to go on vacation trips to Hong Kong.

Christmas, Easter, Mid-Autumn Festival, Tuen Ng or Dragon Boat Festival and Chinese New Year.

Always I end up coming to everyone. Why? Because I have an Aunt living there. She's the thriftiest person

I ever knew.

My Mom is the opposite

Your shoe laces are untied again. She said we better get you new shoes. Remind me again to never talk to my Sister, she has the ugliest things even her bag is too old it's ancient.

My Aunt Cecilia lived in New York until she was in College she moved to Hong Kong after graduation.

She packed her bags and went on a trip to the Countryside in China. She is a cook and she developed her own organic meals and wrote her own cookbook entitled "My Travels in China Guided By Food, Recipes By Cecilia Mert.

She is a Vegan and Veganism is something new to Chinese people who loves their homecooked meals. She is an urban farmer too. So I guess she's not a fashion enthusiast like my Mother. She doesn't wear high heels like her, nor wears a trenchcoat and sun glasses at night like my Mom. But they both adore Audrey Hepburn, their favorite film is "Breakfast at Tiffany's. Even though my Mom and her Sister are opposites they both loved the same person. My grandfather, Sir Henry Philip Mert. He was a cook in her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II Royal Buckingham Palace in London. He was named after the Duke of Edinburgh and her Majesty's Husband Prince Philip. He was knighted too, so I guess he was very cool.

Aunt Cecilia was born in a farm in Long Island New York where after retiring my Grandfather Sir Henry purchased a small land and grew his own crops specifically grapes, and turned it into a Vineyard.

Aunt Cecilia is a free spirit. She lives her own life, mostly wearing overalls and a bee cap because she loves her bees and gathers them up on her rooftop, where all beehives are in Hong Kong. It's the busiest city in the Asia, and where my Aunt lives. She never married. There is an unspoken mystery about her life that I was always drawn to her. She leaves me handcrafted gifts whenever I visit, but I never saw her for more than 3 days at a time.

When I was eleven, my first period came. She gave me the biggest hug and told me I was a complete woman and that my world has just gotten bigger. Well my cramps didn't tell me that, but I was comforted by what she said.

I call her my secret, because she knows all mine. My Mom and her was never best friends, My Mom is dominant and always called her weak, Ruo in Chinese. They always fought for my grandfather's affection. She always had the old clothes my Mom doesn't like anymore. She always had the ugliest things, but she loved them and thought vintage is the most unique posessions and she treasured them, specially my grandmother Harriet Mert's hair pin. A gold humming bird hair pin.

My Mom hugged me at the Airport arrival, and she asked if I already ate, the first thing she noticed is I might have gotten bigger since she last saw me.