Do you really feel like you "fit in" in your current country? What do you feel about your ancestral country? Have you ever imagined about a hypothetical life in your ancestral country?
Do you really feel like you "fit in" in your current country? What do you feel about your ancestral country? Have you ever imagined about a hypothetical life in your ancestral country?
By "fit in" I mean... do you feel like you are actually part of the society there, or do they treat you like a foreigner. Do you feel comfortable there?
I know my experience as a 1st gen (or some call it "1.5 gen" since I arrived during childhood) is probably different from a 2nd gen or a 3rd gen, or maybe even different from those 1st gens that were born in their ancestral country but emigrated before they had formed any memories of their ancestral country; but personally, I can't help but wonder what my life would've been like had my family not emigrated. Like... I'm talking about alternate timelines sort of stuff, I get obsessed about the thought of it... well... I mean I do get obsessed about just the concept of time travel all the time... xD Just me?
My answer, as to fitting in: Meh... sort of yes but sort of no... I'm probably just introverted, and I had to juggle between family-related trauma (emotional abuse and fighting with my older brother) and the alienation in the US during my first few years since I didn't speak English at the time... having to deal with both at the same time probably fucked up my self-esteem and just made me more introverted.
As for my ancestral country, which is also my birth country: Meh... society is too conservative for my liking, particulary when it come to government and authoritarianism. From memory, I didn't like the 8 years of my life I spend there before leaving.
Now? I probably would not fit in as of now even if I tried, since... Language Barrier... I wouldn't really understand the colloquial sayings and like how to word things properly, I'd struggle to hold a conversation... I mean I struggle having a deep conversation with my parents right now lol, I'd probably do worse if its a Mandarin speaker from outside of Guangdong Province (Cantonese is spoken at home, not Mandarin). I mean I can understand most of it, but I'd struggle. A white dude would get judged less, but ethnic Chinese, even if foreign born, would still get judged as if they are a local that didn't go to school. It would be even more alienating compared to an immigrant being alienated in a immigration county.
As for, the alt-timeline where I never left in the first place: I think about all the great TV Shows and Movies that I might've missed out on, had I remained in China... because domestic media gets very boring.... well, unless you just just have poor tastes like some people do (ahem like my parents ahem).
Hey,
I was thinking about this earlier, thank you for making this post.
I had a lot of the same questions in my mid-20s. I had graduated university, started working, made some money, so I could afford going back to Vietnam two times for around a month each time. It was great. Being in a place where everyone looks like you, speaks the language you speak at home, eats the food you eat at home. It's a very unique experience, only immigrants understand what it is.
I liked it so much I even considered living in Vietnam for a few years. I started looking at visas, jobs, etc. I had a few leads. Then COVID happened and stopped all of that. A few years passed.
Post-COVID, I was almost 30, and decided that being closer to my family and friends in Europe was more important than living in Vietnam. I still moved to a much bigger city to have a more multicultural environment, met my girlfriend there, we've been together for a few years now, we are happy together.
She's not Vietnamese, and that's fine. I came to terms with the idea of marrying a second generation Vietnamese when I decided to stay in Europe. It's a numbers game in the end, and the Vietnamese population is just not large enough in Europe for it to happen. Not really something I can change at my level, and I'm happy with that anyway. I still speak Vietnamese to my parents, I visit them every few months. They are aging, and they are also happier to have me in Europe rather that all the way over there in Vietnam.
Curious, so I was just thinking, like I feel more attached to my "native" languages Cantonese and Mandarin more than English, even though English is my primary language, like its my preferred language in every electronic device I use. If I wanna write a memoir, its gonna be in English, its where I am the most fluent in. But if I were to write a song/poem, its gonna be Cantonese, maybe with some Mandarin mixed in, to express my real emotions.
How do you feel about your ancestor's language? Which languages you feel like... more emotionally attached in?
Tough one. Vietnamese is definitely a unique language for me, it's the one I spoke at home growing up, with my parents, with my family. Not sure about writing a song or a poem however, for that it might not be the best, as my vocabulary can be a bit limited sometimes.
But yeah, in a family setting, it's definitely the one, and hearing Vietnamese randomly from time to time makes me happy instantly.