(no subject)

[reipan]

This one's about my national identity.

I'm not really sure that I have one. Yeah, yeah, I know, but bear with me, okay?

Bits of me have a national identity. I mean, there's sort of the bit of me who has a British dad and has lived in London all her life, and knows things like which black tea is best for the morning and which is best for the afternoon, and is well-versed in things like queue-jumping and moving quickly in crowds. And then there's the bit of me who has a Sicilian mother and grew up speaking two languages and likes walking along the beach at midnight and tans in the sun and likes to cook. And eat.

The trouble is that both of those bits have to get along somehow. They've also got to harmonise with the third bit of me, who isn't either of those things and spends most of its time in a place populated by people who don't actually exist. Plus the bit of me I discovered in my early teens, who has a deep attraction to Japanese culture. (Precisely what this attraction is composed of is a story for another day. Don't ask me now.)

According to my mother, I'm British through and through. She's wrong, but not in the way you'd expect her to be. I'm going to say the unthinkable for anyone who's lived in London all her life - I like it here. I don't, as some of my other half-from-somewhere-else friends claim, spend all my time looking out of the window and dreaming of Italy. London is familiar. I know my way around. Most of the closest members of my family are here, and I have friends who I love. I know how to be a British person. I'm just not one. Finally, I'm just not quite British enough to be British.

Neither am I Italian enough to be a foreigner, though. I love Sicily; I like things like decent food and being able to take walks at 5AM without fear of being sodomised with a broom handle and thrown into the Thames. But when I'm there, I miss England. More specifically, I miss everyone who's in England. The only time I felt I had somebody to talk in Sicily was when I brought some British friends there with me. I'd wilt if I had to live there.

So, I'm not British enough to be British, and I'm not Italian enough to be foreign. And I spend most of my time trying to integrate myself into a culture unlike either of those. I'm fairly obviously never going to be Japanese, though, no matter how much I love it.

Which makes me what, exactly?

I had a conversation with the boyfriend of one of my friends a few months back, about national identity. He's a proud Canadian. I'd put "N/A" on forms that asked for my ethnicity if I could. It was one of the strangest conversations I'd ever had; not because either of us said anything so very out of the ordinary, but because I came out of that conversation with the feeling that he hadn't understood a word that I was saying. We just couldn't comprehend each other's thought processes on the topic of our national identities. Bloody weird.

Now, you might ask, Rei, what's brought this on? Well, I've been asked to decide on a date on which to leave for Japan.

This means that I'm probably actually going to have to go.

This is Very Scary.

In a few months' time I will go from being a stranger in my own country to being a stranger in someone else's country. The difference is...a lot bigger than I was expecting.

I suppose that's all I have to say for now.

Comments

[broseceilingcat.livejournal.com]

I can sympathize. Believe me, I can sympathize - any time you need to talk.

We still totally need to party before that happens.

<3<3<3<3

[lonelyinrussia.livejournal.com]

Duh, you're a god, how much national identity can you expect to have? Work out which nation you're most ashamed of (britain or italy, sadly, you're no part american (or ARE you?)), and if you'd still defend it against a foreigner's nasty words, that's definitely the one you are ^_^ Oh ho England England England. DIEBITCH! (England, not you.)

All in all, you're a bit of a mongrel, aren't you? *ruffles your hair* Here boy.