family version went to a wedding in tilt
over
from Venezuela wearing the guy from
Mexico and met my mother a Christian
Chinese from Shanghai and Here I am
juggling between Hebrew English Japanese
and Chinese celebrating Hanukkah
Christmas and Chinese New Year’s and yes
I’m a perfectly normal teenager in my
one question always challenges me where
are you from Japan China Israel when I
grow up I might want to live in another
country it’s going to be even harder to
answer I guess my mother comes from
China but she change her nationality to
Japanese she says wherever there’s
freedom is her home she gains her open
mind from oppressed experience in her
mother country I don’t have such painful
experience it can also lead to result
death I don’t feel the pain of others I
take everything for granted my parents
grew up in the same condition same
culture same way as their parents grew
up and the grandparents grew up and so
on having one collective memory as a
Chinese or Israeli as one nationality
they had this one clear collective
memory which their parents had and a
grant present and a great-grandparents
hat and so on now what is my collective
memory is it Japan the country which I
was born and grew up in or is it Israel
which is what my passport says or is it
China which I visit every summer maybe
none of them in this room there are lots
of kids that were born into similar
conditions with a third culture kids
until recently most people were born in
to the same culture grew up in the same
culture same language history and with
the same collective memory as their
but what is our identity and collective
memory for us third culture kids I think
it’s where you feel home the most safe
most love for me a third culture kids
home is not a country it’s something
it’s somewhere it’s someone that we feel
loved and protected force their culture
kids we feel like there’s something
missing it’s something right there in
front of us but we can’t quite get it
it might not just be our national
identity not knowing who you are is
really hard to assimilate for us and for
me going through teenagers it makes it
even harder to figure myself out but
it’s not always a bad thing to not know
who you are or where you’re from and the
apologists say that countries are
community of imagination an imagined of
community is a concept originated by
Benedict Anderson to analyze nationalism
Anderson presents a nation as a socially
constructed community imagined by the
people who recognize themselves as a
part of that group but boundaries
between countries used to be vague and
are so changing all the time
fishermen used to cross the ocean
catching fish without even realizing the
boundaries nation is a modern concept
until now most third culture kids are
born without clear roots and identities
but it does not mean we give up
searching for our identities and where
we belong when my when I see a news on
TV about Israel and Palestine I care a
lot and when my friends criticize
products made in China I cannot help but
feeling sad but because we are connected
to various cultures and customs and way
of thinking we have the advantage of not
judging which one is wrong or right
because we have connections in many
countries we have way of thinking and we
have the advantage of not judging which
one is better or worse which one is
right or wrong we probably won’t end up
dying for any particular culture or
religion or ideology because we have
connections many of them not just one
like I said before until now the idea of
where we were where we were our identity
was where we’re from I was based on
where we grew up and where we were born
and a passel collective memory but my
collective memory is different from my
parents and I don’t have one country
that represent me now that I don’t have
one country that represents me out of a
country to dedicate myself to I can’t
you have to fight for a country I have
to die for why is there a make America
great again
why was there a referendum for the
United Kingdom to leave the European
Union because the idea that you fight
for your country exists and the idea
that you are better than the others and
the idea that you’re more important than
the others exists what the third culture
kids like me think about that we don’t
really understand the US versus them
battles and Wars because we can
understand both sides of the conflict
and we can personally connect to them
well I’m still figuring out who I am I’m
gonna count myself as an earth person
I’m gonna describe myself as a musician
or an artist and even though if my
Japanese foreigner card says I’m an
alien
let’s change the way we introduce
someone the next time you meet someone
don’t ask them why are you from ask them
what are you who are you what makes you
an a unique and an interesting person
does your nationality really matter thank you