Wednesday, September 6, 2017 // The Statement
6B

DESIGN BY MICHELLE PHILLIPS

Home

M

y 
mother 

would 
often 

express 
a 

desire to move to the West 
Coast when she retired.

In Seattle, or perhaps 

San Francisco, the win-
ters are milder, the cities 
livelier and there are more 
native 
Chinese 
speakers 

for her than in our Detroit 
suburb. To her, Michigan 
winters are too long, the 
suburban sprawl of south-
east Michigan too quiet 
and the options for quality 
Chinese food too limiting.

These places beckoned 

to her because they resem-
bled 
— 
culturally 
and 

physically — where she 
had grown up: A bustling 
city nestled in Southern 
China.

Growing up, this love of 

one’s childhood home was 
alien to me. I had lived in 
Canton, Michigan for the 

entirety of my formative 
years. Before 
leaving 

for 
college, 
I 
had 
only 

moved 
once; 

when I was two 
years old, to a house 
in an adjacent subdi-
vision that was also in 
Canton.

Tucked 
on 
the 

westernmost edge of 
the Detroit suburbs, 
Canton 
Township 

primarily 
consists 

of subdivisions con-
structed 
within 
a 

five-year 
window 

beginning 
in 
the 

late 1990s; each house 
is 
seemingly 
plucked 

from the same catalog of 
a dozen or so designs. A 
grid of roads connects the 
vast low-density residen-
tial expanses to a few strip 
malls and big-box retail-
ers, interspersed with the 
occasional 
public 
green 

space.

Because such a large 

portion of the population 
consists 
of 
transplants 

who followed the late-90s 
building boom, it lacks the 
social cohesion that one 
could expect in a small 
country 
village. 
Mean-

while, the low population 
density of the suburb also 
means that the area lacks 
the benefits of a large city. 
The cohesion is further 
stunted by the fact that 
most of the working popu-
lation evacuates to offices 
and factories beyond the 
township limits every day.

For 
one-third 
of 
the 

year, the weather hangs 

between summer and 

winter; 
too 
warm 

for 
snow, 
yet 

cold enough 

to chill 

off 
any 

leaves 
from 
the 

trees or green 
from the grass.

To the credit of the 

community, 
Canton 
was 

— and continues to be — 
far from a “bad” town, 
and it is a town that I owe 
much of my comfortable 
and 
privileged 
upbring-

ing to. Crime is sparse, the 
public schools are filled 
with 
opportunities 
and 

the front lawns are well 
mown. Yet to my younger 
self, this suburban perfec-
tion felt more like subur-
ban monotony. Michigan, 
as a whole, seemed to be in 
a perpetual state of melan-
cholic decline: Detroit and 
the automotive industry a 
shell of their former selves, 
people and jobs being two 
of 
our 
most 
auspicious 

exports.

Around age 10, I vowed 

that I would leave Michi-
gan as soon as I was old 
enough. I had come to 
understand 
there 
was 

a 
more 
colorful 
world 

beyond the Midwest; pre-
sumably free from long 
winters and boredom.

However, 
when 
the 

time came to choose a col-
lege, I deferred my quest 
to escape the Mitten for 

at least four more years 
to come to Ann Arbor. 
I 
had 
momentarily 

allowed myself to be 

mesmerized by Ann 

Arbor: by the city, 

the 
University 

of Michigan’s 

programs 

and 
school’s 
programs 
and 
in-state 

tuition long enough 
to put down my enroll-
ment deposit — despite its 
location, a 25-minute drive 
from the town I so vowed 
to leave behind.

At the tail-end of my 

sophomore year of col-
lege, I received an offer 
to intern in Miami, and 
my choice seemed natural 
enough. This was my first 
opportunity to live outside 
of Michigan on my own for 
more than the length of a 
vacation, and Miami rep-

resented to me everything 
Canton was not.

But while I was charmed 

by the beaches, colorful 
neighborhoods and palm 
trees of south Florida, a 
subtle nostalgia for what 
had been the classic fix-
tures of a childhood sum-
mer in Michigan crept on 
my conscience.

There 
would 
be 
no 

weekend trips this sum-
mer up to the lakeshore 
in Traverse City where I 
could hike the Sleeping 
Bear 
Dunes 
and 
polish 

Petoskey stones from the 
frigid, 
clear 
lake 
water. 

I would be absent for my 
hometown’s “Liberty Fes-
tival” and firework display, 
always conspicuously held 

two weeks before the 

actual Fourth of 

July.

When-
ever 
I 

men-

tioned 
my 
hometown 
— to co-work-
ers, locals and Lyft 
drivers — three of the 
most common responses 
were remarks about how 
the state was cold, provin-
cial and supposedly on the 
decline. My use of the term 
“pop” also drew curious 

looks.

“Detroit — everyone’s 

trying to leave there,” one 
Lyft driver quipped dur-
ing an otherwise pleasant 
drive.

While I perfectly under-

stood these perceptions — 
after all, I had held many 
of these sentiments at one 
point or another — such a 
characterization didn’t do 
justice to my childhood 
home or the people I had 
grown up with.

Sure, 
Michigan 
was 

tucked in the “provincial” 
Midwest, but there was 
also an indescribable Mid-
western charm that I now 
realized I had taken for 
granted my entire life.

Carpool parents treated 

me as a part of their own 
family; I bit into an orchard-
picked Red Delicious in the 
crisp October air and got 
lost in the miles of winding 
wooded trails across the 
state. All of this had become 
part of me, and I couldn’t 

simply forsake it once I 

graduated.

When I was recently 

talking to my moth-

er 
about 
possible 

places to retire, I 

casually 
raised 

the possibility of 
getting a house 
in Ann Arbor 
along 
the 

Huron River, 
or 
perhaps 

even a lake 
house 
in 

Traverse 

City.
“Why 
on 

Earth would I do 

that, Brian?” she 

replied.

I 
chuckled 
softly 
to 

myself. How could I expect 
her to understand? After all, 
she hadn’t grown up here.

by Brian Kuang, Deputy Statement Editor

Sure, Michigan 
was tucked in 
the “provincial” 
Midwest, but 
there was also 
an incredible 
Midwestern 
charm that I 
now realized I 
had taked for 
granted my 
entire life. 

