One Chinese Poem

少小離家老大回，

鄉音無改鬢毛摧；

兒童相見不相識，

笑問客從何處來？

So, I am going home, or, am I?

My Thanksgiving Dinner!

Thanksgiving, what a lovely holiday, gobble gobble gobble, for me, it is a holiday for over-consumption. I don't like holidays to be honest, because I have no family here. Sitting at the dinner table at my friend's Thanksgiving dinner, with the smoked turkey in front of me, after three glasses of red wine, my inner-consciousness started to retreat from my body. I started to think "Am I in Canada?" It is a weird feeling. It is as if I am here but I am not here.

The thing that sucks about this lifestyle

So, it's another one of those holidays spent away from family - Thanksgiving. I mean, it's not like my family ever made a huge deal out of the day, or I ever really cared so much about the food or anything, or even like I felt a "need" to celebrate the day as an "American" who grew up with some sort of tradition. Instead it just reminded me how much I miss my family and partner. Last year my partner and I officially began dating on this day. Happy anniversary, my love. I wish you weren't 8,000 miles away.... and Happy (late) Thanksgiving to my family on the east coast... wish you weren't 3,000 miles away. :-( (story of my life...)

Constant indecisiveness

Should I have sushi, a sandwich, rice and dahal, a burrito, tortilla patatas, or crepes for dinner? Should I go to the gym, run, do yoga, or bike? What bus number should I take to campus? Who should I call to chat? No, maybe I won't call anyone. What movie should I see? What book should I read? Coffeeshop X of coffeeshop Y? Turn right or left or neither? What should I do for the next 5 minutes before I waste that 5 thinking of what to do???

I have a constant indecisiveness about things. I plan, for sure, but I still have trouble with any final decision (it's not really ever 'final', is it?). Sometimes I prefer having roommates, friends, my adviser, and my partner make my decisions for me so I don't waste time deciding. It's really bad, particularly when I'm late or change an idea at the last minute and need to re-route the rest of what I'm doing. Sometimes it's good. When I can't decide between a chocolate cake and cookies, I make both and make many people happy. But I wish, sometimes, that this didn't spill into my professional life. Right now I'm (yet again) trying to decide between at least 2--and possibly 3--different routes to take over the next two years, in at least two entirely different places. I wonder which I will choose? For some people, life is about stability and the occasional "vacation" away from whatever path they're on. For me, the path seems like it diverges, cuts off, or that I'm following multiple paths leading in several different directions. I have no idea what I'll be doing a year from now, let alone 2,5, or 10 years. This used to be exciting, and I still think it might be OK to change activities or jobs, but now it's becoming somewhat annoying. I feel like I have severe ADD when it comes to my professional life. Wouldn't it be nice to feel like an expert in something, anything?

One thing about being rootless in multiple countries/cultures

I often speak in three languages: English, French, Chinese. This is not at all confusing to me, even if some people have no idea what I'm saying. In fact, I prefer it. I find that I can better express myself in one language versus another. Of course, more often than not, I find that it's the less eloquent prose I prefer to mix, like complaining in French (very easy), apologizing in Chinese (also remarkably easy), and exchanging basic information in English (because everyone seems to be able to u/s a little bit of English).

I also quickly adapt to the basic communication gestures in new places really fast, which is probably most noticeable in Chinese, but also even when I don't speak the verbal language in another country I try. Recent examples include my ability to fake speaking/understanding Japanese in Osaka while going out to Okinomoyaki alone (the same meat words in Chinese are on the menu), and shopping in Germany (although admittedly in Germany it's far easier for me to just blend in given my looks, but still... when I can respond with Genalt and Danke and the proper mm/headnod, people seem to think I understand).

Oh yes, and one of my favorite games to play with people all over the world is "guess which country I'm from!" Well actually, they usually ask and then I tell them to guess until they give up and I tell them well, I don't know either, but my passport says I'm a U.S. citizen.
More to come on this topic...

Why do I consider myself a rootless person?

By way of introducing people to my role on this blog and why I felt the need for it, I thought I would start with an introduction about myself and then talk about the kinds of issues I hope to write about in this space. I will be joined by several other people (for now, just one, but more to come) who can chime in with whatever thoughts they have. We are all people who self-identify as "rootless" people in some form or another.

So, I use the term "rootless" kind of loosely for a couple of reasons. I have recently been reading up a lot on "Third Culture Kids" and "Cross-culture kids" with whom I also often identify. This is basically defined as those of us who hate the question "Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Where do you want to live?" and other similarly (sometimes frustrating or difficult to answer) questions, mostly because we have grown up... well, everywhere. The reasons for this moving around might be radically different (e.g. my dad's job versus someone else's parents who sent them to boarding school overseas, or an immigrant's family), but in the end, our experiences and lives end up looking diversely similar. Many of us have basic things in common, like the feeling of grief or nostalgia for places and friendships of the past, and very often the need to constantly move or live in several places at once, because home is never any actual place for me.

What I realized very quickly in my reading on this subject, however, is the difference that the internet and increased global communication (at virtually no cost) has done to change the lives of people like us, people without roots who move around. Indeed, in my case, I keep in touch with so many people primarily through applications like facebook, gmail chat, and Skype. Facebook isn't just for new friends or people I once knew a long time ago--it's full of my friends who (according to facebook stats) currently live in 29 countries. When I was a kid and communication was expensive, I only wrote or heard from people via telephone once every few months, if at all. How can a 10 year old call her best friend, located 8000 miles away, at 50 cents a minute with a 6 hour time difference? Basically, those relationships were lost. Now, however, I can call and even see (!) close friends every day on Skype video at NO cost. The people most comfortable with using Skype video with me and who don't find it one bit weird and loved ones to be sure--but also my other rootless people and third culture kid friends. In fact, I spend entire evenings just chatting to people through internet applications because they are literally spread out all over the world. But also, no matter where I go and who I'm with, I end up doing this. (I doubt other people spend quite as much time on non-business-related uses of Skype video.)

So, instead of a more formal introduction, I will just give everyone my basic background and places I've lived ('cause everyone is always curious and asks about that), and just add that I hope to add more to this shared space in the future depending on what I feel like writing about at the time -- maybe an elaboration on Skype video, why I love/hate big cities (love: lots of diverse people, hate: lack of nature). or the awesome feeling of meeting someone else who is also just as rootless, and getting along with him or her immediately. In fact, that's what happened to me and one of the other "rootless" contributors on this blog.

My background:
I was born in Fairfax, Virginia (outside Washington, DC). I moved out of my supposed "home" culture where I was 8 to Neuilly, France (right outside Paris) and attended international school for a couple of years (24 students in my class/grade from literally all around the world). I returned to Fairfax when I was 13 and experienced the biggest and most depressing culture shock of my life (425 students in my class/grade, many Fairfax-born kids who never left, and lots of Asian immigrants-but very few people like me). I had no friends for my first year back, and I didn't make a close friend until two years after returning. I had little contact with friends before leaving Fairfax, and little contact with friends in Paris after I returned to Fairfax. In college, I moved to Blacksburg, Virginia (Va Tech) for four years. I went on a study abroad to Tokyo, Guangzhou, and Hong Kong one summer. I visited Paris with my parents after I graduated, but after nearly 9 years since leaving I, of course, no longer had close friends there. I tried working in the DC area, and that worked for about 2 years before I got restless again. I decided to go back to grad school, but I wanted to go somewhere else and try something completely new, and that required some preparation that would take me another year. In the meantime, I lived in China (Beijing and Dalian) for two summers and took Chinese classes. I quit my job for grad school almost exactly four years after leaving Va Tech. I can't seem to stop moving. After a year in grad school, I moved to Taipei, Taiwan for Chinese, then I moved back to California for grad school, but I can't seem to stay anywhere consecutively for too long. Every summer I spend overseas, often in Western Europe (Beijing; Dalian; Toulouse x 2; Lausanne; Berlin). I have stuff of mine in three different places (Santa Cruz, Fairfax, Berlin). I don't know where I want to "finally settle". (I have found who I want to settle with, which just happened in the last year. We can't decide where.) For all of these reasons, I consider myself a global nomad (though no longer necessarily want to be!), a rootless person, and/or a third culture kid.