Isn’t it funny how where you are can change how you answer where you come from? How much more complicated this question is than it actually seems?
When learning a new language, these are some of the first words you learn how to say so that you can answer the requisite foreigner questions: Who are you? Where do you come from? And why are you learning this language?
Right now as a foreigner, I hold the American label much closer than I did while actually living in the U.S., where I might have understood the question in a more figurative and less nationalistic sense. But in Deutschland I get to explain my origins quite often.* Once folks hear the the foreign slant of my German, explaining where I am from is about citizenship, not about my personal journey.**
And right now that is perfectly alright with me, because being an American here in Germany helps to explain at least one part of my life’s journey.
* In German, though, it is closer to “I come out of…” than “I come from…”
** And then I get to have a nice conversation about President Obama (should you doubt Germany’s Obama obsession, please click here and here), which is much more pleasant than having to personally answer for the Iraq war, thank you very much.
I spent some time in Weibaden Germany.
Air Force brat.
My journeys would be hard to define if I had to do attributes of places and times…
Great thought provoking entry.
TJ
http://tjexpressionsblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-came-from.html
Interesting… and of course, the farther away from home, the less specific the answer needs to be, in certain ways.
i love how the whole world loves obama! i read another ex-pat blog where this girl is visiting taiwan and with her obvious american blonde hair and pale skin she would get random people yelling out “go obama!” to her! lol.
good luck with your journey!
Amazing, isn’t it. I traveled mostly in the era of the ugly American and would must rather be out and about now! Good post!
That’s an interesting perspective. And what I like about Sunday Scribblings and Portrait of Words, is that you get to choose how you wish to interpret the prompt.
I like what you’ve written. :)
I come out of… opens a whole new train of thought!!
Funny how people identify you by where your are from, an not by who you are, I (native Dane) used to live in Hamburg (by the way love the city), every time when I meet some new people and mention I was Danish, the started telling me about all the places the visited in the country and asked for my opinion about these areas.
Now I am living in Croatia, when I meet new people here, they ask is your wife Croatia? Apparently they can’t come up with other reason why somebody would leave a perfect country to move to Croatia.
So it seams that the image of your country initially defines how you, so you really picked good time to go abroad :)