foreign at home

my acute reverse culture shock [49]:

I am typing this essay from a cozy coffeeshop in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Imagine a cup of warm latte on my left side, light is warm and dim, my best friend typing away across the table. My thoughts are all over the place.

Coming home from America this time feels nothing like the eight times before. When I was in college, I would fly home every six months. Home would always feel like home and I would almost always cling to the anticipation of coming back as my main motivation to work harder. America never felt like a place I want to stay. I had few close friends, the food tasted awful (dorm life with bland salad and oily bacon), every winter was the worst seven months of my life. I hated what I was studying and fretted getting my first job post grad that would make me spiral even further.

I would have left America forever hadn’t it been for an internship in the Fall of 2021. I somehow got an interview from a random online application, was offered a summer internship and a full time job (which I did not take but the story is for another time.) That series of events led me to a complete different life trajectory. As a planner, I could not envision my current reality, which was completely unpredictable even just two years ago.

Last year I moved out of Minnesota and found a home in Texas, to my surprise and relief of my parents, who have heard me screaming, crying for the past four and a half years in the Midwest. The change is more apparent when I reflect upon myself chatting with old friends from college, observing how more content and comfortable I have become vs. when I was still in school.

After a year in Austin, I flew back recently. Unlike prior times where I felt right at home as soon as the plane touched down on Viet Nam’s soil, I had anxiety days before that happened. From the fear of living under the same roof with my parents to having to abide by the traditions or arbitrary cultural norms, I was ambivalent about being back. Right before I left, I came across a timely essay from the Inhale, Scream publication:

I’m terrified I’m going to disagree with everyone about everything. I’m terrified that I’m no longer a palatable person for the city I grew up in, and the same things I once accepted as normal will annoy me. I’m afraid to run into people who used to know me but will now find me unrecognizable and hardened and frigid. I’m terrified I’ll cry once a day, that my stomach will not agree with the food, that the weather and pollution and traffic will put me in a shitty mood, that when extended family ask me deeply personal and intrusive questions, I will want to run around the room barking like an unfriendly dog.

In the same space, even though I never really minded personal questions and off-hand comments before, I am extra sensitive this time around. I have little patience with people’s opinions about my appearance or the way I speak. I used to be a very docile and agreeable kid, at least outwardly. I was stubborn but avoided confrontations because I thought it was not worth it, trying to persuade adults who have had ingrained beliefs for decades without questioning their validity. There is no use in voicing the matter I thought. For some reason, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut this time. I don’t shy away from pointing out good characteristics people exemplify and on the opposite end, misogynistic behaviors. There must have been people who find my attitude strange or unpleasant. Fortunately, I have learned to move past that.

Just a year ago, I couldn’t imagine myself staying in America, now I look forward to coming back to pursue things that I love and a dream in the works. I diagnosed myself with reverse culture shock, the acute kind that is. My values and point of view as I immerse myself in a new community shift, straddled between two worlds. My family and many good friends are still in my home town but I also find a new position for myself in the “other place”, where I spend most of my time these days.

Borrowing Neha’s words if I had never left:

Would I have never known what it means to find yourself in a foreign country, absolutely alone, at rock bottom, and then crawl your way out on your hands and knees? Would I have tapped into the relentless ambition I have now, or the rage I wake up with every day that I use as fuel?

It’s a strange feeling being in between worlds, a state of being that every foreigner has experienced. NIKI writes about it the best:

Guess, I'm forever caught between two worlds
Right foot rock, left foot hard place, head and heart at war
I do my best between addresses
Wish I were on either side of the foreign wall
Oh, always part of me missing, but no one sees a difference

I don’t know if I could ever pick a place to anchor as my “home”. As I spend my fifth year across the world from where I grew up, I came to accept that home is not a physical place but rather a feeling people make you feel. They can be a partner, friends, family (biological or not), coworkers, neighbors, mentors, teachers, mentees. Home stems from a feeling of familiarity and safety. You know you find a home when it feels comfortable to show up as your whole self. I have found home within many of my relationships and that is good enough for me in the time being.

Tell me, what is home to you?

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