Overseas and Home
Amidst the hurricane of searching for a place to stay in San Francisco and settling for my internship - through the handful of migraines of dealing with so much busy-work - I am happy for my brief upcoming vacation. Convenient timing enabled me to spend seven days in Taiwan. It has been eight years since I have left from my home to the United States.
Eight long years.
I was unable to complete my middle school education and left many of my friends to come study in the United States. When I first came here, despite the exciting novel experiences at high school, I felt a sense of disgruntlement and loneliness towards some unknown force by my inability to spend my last year with my classmates. In Taiwan, the same classmates spent three years together in middle school all day. We spent more time together with each other than with our families due to the long school hours. That kind of camaraderie and mutual friendship is impossible to find in the United States, and my initial experiences in high school were filled with so much isolation.
After eight years, even though I have been so acquainted to the American culture now - so much that my English has become significantly better than my Mandarin - I still see Taiwan as my home. Despite all the deterioration of my Mandarin skills and lack of closeness with the culture, Taiwan is still my home.
At the same time, I fear that unfamiliarity and foreignness when I return. That strangeness - whether cultural or language-based - will be inevitable, just in unknown doses. The unease of the wrist-slap that my home is no longer home.
In hopes, it will be a good time.
Eight long years.
I was unable to complete my middle school education and left many of my friends to come study in the United States. When I first came here, despite the exciting novel experiences at high school, I felt a sense of disgruntlement and loneliness towards some unknown force by my inability to spend my last year with my classmates. In Taiwan, the same classmates spent three years together in middle school all day. We spent more time together with each other than with our families due to the long school hours. That kind of camaraderie and mutual friendship is impossible to find in the United States, and my initial experiences in high school were filled with so much isolation.
After eight years, even though I have been so acquainted to the American culture now - so much that my English has become significantly better than my Mandarin - I still see Taiwan as my home. Despite all the deterioration of my Mandarin skills and lack of closeness with the culture, Taiwan is still my home.
At the same time, I fear that unfamiliarity and foreignness when I return. That strangeness - whether cultural or language-based - will be inevitable, just in unknown doses. The unease of the wrist-slap that my home is no longer home.
In hopes, it will be a good time.
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