2026 Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Essay Contest Winners
High School: 1st Runner-Up – Holland Young, Sequoia High School
Three Years Away – Childhood in a Foreign Country
My story of growing up as an American child in Malaysia likely isn’t similar to most children in the 21st century. However, I felt so seen after watching Little Amélie or the Character of Rain. It quickly became one of my favorite films beyond its stunning illustrations and easily lovable characters, but also how I felt so personally connected to it. Little Amélie taught me valuable lessons on the importance of childhood foundations and experiences living abroad.
The character I resonated with most was the protagonist, Amélie, a curious 3-year-old Belgian girl growing up in Japan. She described her first 2 and a half years of life as a “tube,” or just mindless static. Like my first 18 months of living in a foreign country, life felt meaningless. Everything changed for Amélie when she tasted Belgian white chocolate for the first time and realized who she was: a little girl with meaningful connections between two lives, whose life was waiting to reach its full potential.
Like Amélie, I experienced transnationalism through occasional visits to family in America and through adopting Malaysian food and an accent. Initially, however, my stubborn “tweenage” self refused to fully embrace the culture because my family had always planned to leave after 3 years. I spent the first two years counting down the days until moving back. But everything changed a week before my 9th birthday, when the entire world went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. This experience was my “chocolate moment,” but significantly more bitter than Amélie’s.
Although it was a terrible experience for the whole world, it forced me to face the reality of leaving. It may have been my last time ever talking to my friends, being in school, or even walking down the street to buy a $2 hokkien mee. Thinking about everything I would soon be isolated from made me realize how much I would miss it. After spending 2 years waiting for my time to leave, it finally came when I wasn’t yet ready. When Amélie first learns she has to move back to Belgium, she retaliates, saying, “No, I’m Japanese.” After a talk with her nanny, Nishio-San, she concludes that “when what is given must be taken away, the only option is to remember.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the same closure as Amélie. We moved away in June of 2021 without being able to say goodbye. It took me quite a while to accept, and the melancholy still lingers. However, leaving taught me to cherish the happy moments and the lessons I learned. Because I couldn’t say goodbye to most of the places fostering my childhood memories, I had to embrace what Little Amélie or the Character of Rain taught me. But it was never really about the physical place Amélie and I lost, instead the mental space we will keep for our childhood. And that’s what I now choose to do. Remember the sweet moments and the bitter ones; the mistakes I made to learn from them; the love I received and refuse to let go of. By remembering, I’m no longer in a “static” tube, but living my experiences in full color. Just like Amélie, I learned from my “chocolate” that there’s so much in the world to explore and learn from as long as you take the time to reflect. I invite you to do the same. Remember your experiences, because at the end of the day, your memories will become your true home.