Twice a year I would make my way to the Christian cemetery in Pokfulam on the south side of Hong Kong Island. With water from a roadside tap, I would wipe clean the headstone of the family grave, taking special care to clean around the faded images of my grandparents and great-grandparents and the Chinese characters that spelled out their names. Food would be placed on a tray on top of the grave—the finest ripe oranges and bananas from the markets, and a roast piglet. A candle was then lit, and I would then take my turn, in seniority, and with the rest of my family, to bow three time as a mark of respect.

This connection with family and home is important to me. Standing before my ancestors, I connected to something much larger and deeper than myself. I feel reunited with my roots, and with those past lives without which I would not exist. It is as if, in the silence between the bows, my own life is downloaded into the great repository that is our family line, while in turn uploaded into me is a deeper understanding of who I am, and what it means to be part of a family, a people and a history. It connects me with what it means to be human—not as an individual, but as part of humanity. After the third bow, tears often well up in my eyes. It is in these moments that I feel most acutely what it means to belong, and in my case, also to be Chinese.

• Tags: Evan Fowler, Hong Kong, Issue 28