tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post46889026668583193..comments2023-09-19T21:13:50.651+08:00Comments on [Insert suitably snappy title here...]: Where is home?Kathhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16731173186767835989noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-75831549422609358592011-07-30T16:47:06.584+08:002011-07-30T16:47:06.584+08:00So glad I decided to wander around your blog a lit...So glad I decided to wander around your blog a little more - you capture here a lot of the things I felt when I went back home to the States for the first time in 23 months. (Not that I've been counting.) In my case it may be a little different, again, because I'm living in a developing country and don't have an ex-pat community - I'm a couple hours from the nearest English speaker, which has always been the best stat I can think of to describe how isolated life can be where I am now. I loved my three weeks in the States and am excited to move back there a year from now, but there were so many things that were hard to explain - why I got dizzy every time I went in a grocery store, why I "shut down" when I tried to go clothes shopping, why I would try and get other people to help me order at a restaurant (just too many choices). No doubt there are people who think my life is pretty exciting, but it was strange for me to see some of my friends moving on with their lives in a way that I feel I'm not - being in serious relationships, having "real" jobs, etc. Plus, as much as I tried to stamp it down I kept having those weird linguistic hiccups, too. When my parents drove me home from the airport I wanted to see my father's iphone (and so much new technology - totally overwhelming) and was trying and failing to write an email on it. A couple days later my mom asked me why I had kept saying "opa!" while I was on his phone, which I hadn't even realized I was doing...it's a word that, at this point, just feels natural.Ellenhttp://fatbooks.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-42248816977634287362011-07-23T09:51:50.204+08:002011-07-23T09:51:50.204+08:00THE Steve - Thanks very much for the lovely commen...THE Steve - Thanks very much for the lovely comment, much appreciated! It's interesting where you end up feeling most connected to while you're away. Recently I've been feeling more connected to Cornwall than NZ which I haven't felt in a very long time. <br /><br />Jenna - Thanks for your thoughtful and interesting comment! It's great to hear about other people's experiences with this kind of thing. I think for me the worst of it is when people just can't understand it. <br /><br />黃愛玲 - Thanks for your feedback! I'm sitting here trying to figure out what it must be like not to think of anywhere as 'home'. I've tried to get my head around it before after chatting with some of the kids of expats here who have grown up in all sorts of countries and don't feel like they really belong to any<br />of them. From my standpoint that seems like it would be a really difficult thing but then for those like yourself who live it might not think so? Is it hard? Or is it just how life is?Kathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16731173186767835989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-16214260087357002622011-07-23T03:11:33.670+08:002011-07-23T03:11:33.670+08:00I moved around a lot while I was growing up, so I ...I moved around a lot while I was growing up, so I never felt like anywhere is home. I have totally lost count of how many times I had to get into the car and drive off. I went through foster homes when my dad couln't take care of me. I live with strangers; moving around not realizing why.<br /><br />This is beautifully written.Thank you for sharing. I can't say I relate because I have no connection whatsoever with any place at all.黃愛玲https://www.blogger.com/profile/08260672470697528539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-90580933200209172322011-07-22T17:52:46.039+08:002011-07-22T17:52:46.039+08:00Yes, yes and yes.
I might write about my own reve...Yes, yes and yes.<br /><br />I might write about my own reverse culture shock experiences at some point, to add to the canon of experiences about it online.<br /><br />I did experience true and total reverse culture shock twice. Once when I returned from India and I felt that my entire point of reasoning and understanding of life had been turned on its head. I came back to people interested in fun stories but not really interested in listening to me pick apart weird feelings of being home but feeling like I was looking at home through a thick glass window. I craved things I could not have in India - pizza, nights out at lounge bars, sleeveless shirts - and yet as I indulged in them I felt like a privileged Westerner turning her back on things she witnessed in another part of the world (among them poverty, sexism and a lack of choice). I wasn't ready yet to say "yes, I want this, I want to spend much of my life abroad learning langauges and experiencing other places, meeting people from different countries and doing crazy things" and yet the future that awaited me - a cube monkey in some office somewhere - was no longer remotely appealing - and to make matters worse, few people seemed to understand why.<br /><br />I have more to say about that but I'll save it for my own post.<br /><br />When I returned from China I spent 2 1/2 years back home, mostly working in one of those dreaded office jobs. I couldn't explain how China had changed me - I had not loved China the way I loved India and it induced in me a certain melancholy that I feel still resides in me today, and expresses itself through cynicism. I felt socially disconnected, invited to happy hours and young professional networking events and finding myself unable to make small talk with people I didn't get who didn't get me. All Americans, and yet I felt disconnected even as my heart was bursting with feelings of how...of how people would refer to their surroundings, their jobs, their lives in ways that laid bare how they saw themselves and their environment. I would be in that same work or social environment and feel completely differently, and I didn't know how to articulate that without sounding like a complete weirdo.<br /><br />The first time it hit hard, to the point where I ended up in student counseling. The second time I dealt with it on my own, but I don't think it ever fully went away until I made the decision to move to Taiwan.<br /><br />And oddly, I have settled into all three countries far better than I ever re-settled into the USA.Jenna Lynn Codyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04032277820150000198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-38014029052853625142011-07-22T17:17:10.956+08:002011-07-22T17:17:10.956+08:00Great post...caught me in a reflective mood and hi...Great post...caught me in a reflective mood and hit home. As a (close on) 20 year expat home is now where I am. I feel less and less connected to my birthplace (Australia) although I dearly love it and strangely more connected to my ancestral home (Scotland) though I have never lived there for any period of time...<br />This is a piece that deserves to be read, Kath, and read by many. those at home never understand that living away, no matter how ordinarily, changes you. And "home" changes while you are not there...I could write at length on this but since you have already said it so succinctly and beautifully I will simply leave it at "I agree"THE Stevehttp://www.thestevesgolfblog.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-39504676346756804472011-07-21T20:31:23.823+08:002011-07-21T20:31:23.823+08:00As the Crowe flies - I think he did, to be honest....As the Crowe flies - I think he did, to be honest. Or at least, you can't go home expecting everything to be the same - it'll be as different as moving to a new country again. Thanks for your comment, I'm glad you enjoyed reading it!Kathhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16731173186767835989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2015861203212804796.post-4486384049939452322011-07-21T19:47:15.098+08:002011-07-21T19:47:15.098+08:00This was a beautiful and thought-provoking post. ...This was a beautiful and thought-provoking post. Maybe Thomas Wolfe had it right after all.As the Crowe Flies and Readshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12110661562901480120noreply@blogger.com