To the Girl Behind the Woman

I didn’t expect Hi, Mom (2021), a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama directed by Jia Ling, to stay with me—but one scene haunted me long after the credits rolled. Jia XiaoLing, the protagonist, races through a street—chasing a goodbye she’s not ready to say as her surroundings fade into black-and-white, symbolizing memory slipping away. After her mother’s sudden death, Jia accidentally time-travels to the 1980s and meets her mother as a young woman. She believes that if she can help her mom live a better life, then maybe she’ll finally be enough. But what she doesn’t realize until the end is that she isn’t the only one who traveled through time. Her mother did, too—silently, lovingly—spending more time with the daughter she knew she would one day lose.

The tears didn’t come from the twist or the climax, but from something quieter: the way Jia looked at her mother and finally saw the girl behind the woman. That gaze stayed with me. I’ve always struggled to do that with my own mom. 

She nags me about everything—my posture, my screen time, my eating habits—but still slips Chinese medicine into my bag “just in case of cramps”, even when I tell her I don’t need it. Somewhere between all her worrying and my brushing her off, I forgot how to say thank you. I forgot how to really see her.

After the movie ended, I found myself scrolling through old photos I’d used during sophomore year for my Outliers project. In one, my mom wears bell-bottom jeans and a spaghetti strap top, posing with a confidence I hardly recognized. What did she dream about back then? What made her feel invincible? These questions don’t have obvious answers.

I’ve always found it easier to ask my aunt about my mom than to ask my mom herself. Once, I asked what she was like at my age. “Popular,” my aunt laughed. “Tons of love notes. Didn’t study much.” It surprised me. I’d always seen my mom through a lens of discipline and duty, like she was born already serious. But there was a whole version of her that existed before she became “Mom.”

Hi, Mom made me reflect on the words left unsaid—the questions we don’t ask, the thank yous we put off, the love we assume is understood. The film’s fantasy is about rewriting the past, but its real power lies in urging us to speak in the present.

I think about my own future sometimes—maybe one day I’ll be a mom, too. I wonder if my child will ever ask me who I was before I became theirs. Will they know I wrote essays late into the night, head heavy with caffeine, or watch video edits I was proud of? Will they know I was a licensed mermaid in chlorinated pools (yes, it’s real), that I kickboxed when I was stressed, volunteered at Singapore’s grassroots events, cried over variety shows where trafficked adults were reunited with their families after years of searching and waiting? Or will they only know the version of me that does the laundry, reminds them to eat their breakfast—or perhaps, the version that chooses myself over others, depending on how my future turns out? Hi, Mom made me ask these questions—not just about the kind of mother I might become, but about the stories we forget to tell until it’s too late. That’s the film’s quiet power: it lingers.

Watching Hi, Mom made me realize how parts of our stories get buried under the roles we play. As I say goodbye to high school and step into whatever comes next, I don’t want to leave those stories behind. Maybe one day, years from now, someone will ask about who I was at eighteen. And I hope they’ll see more than just the vague outline of an international high school student—I hope they’ll see the girl who laughed too loudly, was timid, worked hard, and tried her best.

Looking back, I realize I’m more similar to my mom than I ever thought. We’re both stubborn, overly sentimental, and we both feel things more deeply than we show. I used to think we were nothing alike, but maybe I just didn’t want to admit how much of her lives in me. I told myself I was less traditional, more open-minded, more feminist. But maybe that was just my way of keeping distance—because I didn’t want to be the kind of mom who’s never around for her child growing up, no matter the reason.

I held that grudge for a long time. But this farewell made me look harder. Maybe growing up is just slowly realizing your parents were people before they were parents—and that they deserve to hold onto their identities, too. And maybe part of saying goodbye to this version of myself means finally starting to understand hers.

As graduation approaches, I feel the slow burn of goodbye settle in my chest. This farewell isn’t just to school or routine—it’s to a version of myself that only exists in these hallways, in the laughter of friends I might not see again, in goofing around to annoy my mom while she’s in Singapore. It’s the kind of goodbye you don’t realize you’re saying until it’s already been said.

Hi, Mom taught me that the people we love don’t need us to be perfect—just present. Jia Ling spends the whole film trying to become a better daughter, only to learn she already was enough. Her mother’s pride wasn’t conditional. She was proud simply because Jia existed.

I used to think my mom had impossibly high standards for me—but maybe those standards came from a place of love, from wanting me to grow up with no regrets. And even if I didn’t meet them, it would still be okay. I’ve also come to understand something else: I shouldn’t expect her to do more than she already has. She did what she could, in the way she knew how. And in watching Hi, Mom, I found myself resonating not just with Jia Ling, but with her mother—from the quiet sacrifices to the love shown in small, ordinary ways.

I won’t get to travel back in time. But I can say the things I didn’t know how to before. That I’m scared to leave, but excited too. That I love her, even if I don’t always show it right. 

Farewells often focus on what we’re leaving behind. Hi, Mom reminded me to also remember what we carry with us—the people who shaped us, the silences we now choose to fill, and the stories that deserve to be told before it’s forgotten.

Sometimes, the hardest part of growing up is finding the courage to say what should have been said all along.