I've always found the concept of 'Home' or 'Home Country' very interesting and at the same time confusing. "Where do you come from?" is a very common and simple question to be asked by people, whether you're living in your own country or in another country. This identity is embedded with us mostly by birth, which we can't choose as we can't choose who will be our parents. But as we grow up we eventually learn to live without our parents, most start their own families. Similarly, we're living in a world where more young people are moving abroad for education or job, it's becoming more common to meet people with mixed identities, i.e. half American, half German. When we leave our home country at a young age and build our own identity, own world at a separate place, in a different country, how much does it really matter where we're coming from? Or what percentage of us remains the same as what we had when we left home?
It's been 7.5 years that I've left home. I remember the day when I moved to Japan in April 2009. I was sad to leave my family, loving siblings there for sure, but I wanted to see more of the world, was excited to learn a new language, connect with the people who don't have the same background as me and many more. In my first year I became friends with 13 people from 12 different countries in my language school dorm and we're still good friends. Not that I never had homesickness, I did. But I started to create my own definition of home. After 5 years of living in Japan and finishing my college, I had so many memories and so many people I was connected with that I could easily call it my home away from home. As years went by friends graduated, most moved to different places for higher education or job, and each time I went back home I'd realize I had fewer strings attached.
Same thing happened when I moved to USA from Japan. It was a huge step for me to leave my secure comfort zone, what I called home. But I was lucky to meet some amazing people and be loved and cared by friends from my very first day, and it never felt different. It's been 2.5 years here, don't know if I can call it home yet but I love the people in my life who are always there to comfort me and give me the feeling of being at home. In my entire time of living abroad, this is the first time that I'm sharing house with a roommate, who has been a friend from the very first day of grad school and now colleague. She's probably one of the most caring people on earth if not the most, and I can't describe how lucky I'm to have her in my life. When Madison told me she feels less anxious when I'm around, and actually got a lot of work done that she was nervous about, I knew that I can call this place home. We both long to come back here after tiring days at work and probably spend the most fun time with each other cooking, watching favorite movies/TV shows, or just talking about life.
Home is where the hugs are. pic.twitter.com/Gw5JDUrTf8— Disney (@Disney) August 15, 2016
When people ask me whether I miss my home, I can only say that I miss my family. That's the only string attached to that place. I loved the city where I was born and brought up - Chittagong, beautiful port town with beach and mountains. I remember crying and being depressed for months after we moved to the crowded capital at the age of 12. That was probably the first time I realized what depression is, and the fact that I'm more of a quiet person, crowded places don't suit me. Unfortunately I never fell in love with Dhaka as much as I loved my campus in Tsukuba, and don't feel excited to revisit that city itself. It might sound harsh to many, but I developed the concept of my own home, where I fell calm and enjoy the little things of life.
I came across Pico Iyer's TED talk "Where is Home?" as I started writing this post. He put it beautifully - "I've always felt that the beauty of being surrounded by the foreign is that it slaps you awake. You can't take anything for granted. Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love, because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked "on." Suddenly you're alert to the secret patterns of the world. The real voyage of discovery, as Marcel Proust famously said, consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes. And of course, once you have new eyes, even the old sights, even your home become something different."
I came across Pico Iyer's TED talk "Where is Home?" as I started writing this post. He put it beautifully - "I've always felt that the beauty of being surrounded by the foreign is that it slaps you awake. You can't take anything for granted. Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love, because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked "on." Suddenly you're alert to the secret patterns of the world. The real voyage of discovery, as Marcel Proust famously said, consists not in seeing new sights, but in looking with new eyes. And of course, once you have new eyes, even the old sights, even your home become something different."
As long as I can travel, see new places, I'd always be excited about finding a new place that I might be able to call my home, and I'm a lucky to have several home away from home already :)
