Where do you call home? [Archive]

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AngryABCGirl

08-12-2003, 10:25 PM

Collection of articles from Time Asia, I haven't read all of them yet, but they look interesting:

http://www.time.com/time/asia/2003/journey/story.html

The Journey Home
As Asians set down new roots around the world, home is no longer a fixed destination, explains Pico Iyer. It is as much a favorite dish, a memory or an idea as it is an old house. In this special issue, TIME invites some of the Asian diaspora's top writers to embark on physical and mental voyages of return

JOHN STANMEYER/VII FOR TIME
Homeward Bound: For many Asians, home is an intangible thing

Where do you come from?" "what do you call home?" The simplest questions these days bring ever more complex answers—when they bring answers at all. Which is another way of saying that the fundamental, defining questions of any life have been spun around and sometimes exploded in the modern, mongrel world.

I, for example, am 100% Indian by blood and heritage. Most of my relatives live in India, my family name places me very specifically in terms of caste and region and religion, and everything about my face shouts out, unanswerably, "India!" Yet I've never lived in India or worked there. I speak not a word of any of the country's 1,652 dialects. And when I return to what is, on paper at least, my ancestral home—Bombay—I feel more a stranger there, often, than do many of my friends from San Francisco or North London. Ask me to take a journey home, and my first question is: do you mean Oxford, England (where I was born), or California (where I keep my things and pay my taxes)? Or do you mean Japan (my adopted home, where I spend seven or eight months of every year)?

The one place that does not come to mind is India.

For the Asian diaspora, home, like everything in the modern floating world, has gone global and fragmented, portable and underground. What once might have resembled a well-creased snapshot now looks more like an MTV video. To better understand what home means in the midst of constant flux, what exile truly is, and what it involves to live in many places all at once, Time invited leading Asian writers to stage some version of the classic journey home in the pages that follow. Some found themselves in places they hardly recognized. Others went to lands where the only roots they could see were as indecipherable as the roots of a language they could not speak. Still others chose not to leave their Western homes at all and instead fashioned their sense of belonging at their desks.

When Ma Jian returned to his beloved home street in Beijing, he realized that the only home that lasts, and will be safe from time and history, is invisible, inside himself. Gish Jen, an American by choice, takes apart the very meaning of "Chineseness," while Chang-rae Lee seems to dissolve the very category of "Korea" in his return to a family far away. Wendy Law-Yone suggests, thinking of her native Burma in her exile home in London, that home may be the place you long to flee (and exile may be a haven, a glad escape). And Pankaj Mishra, staying put, writes wistfully of how the quiet home he has found is changing around him daily.

yoMAMA

08-12-2003, 10:34 PM

For me, home will always be Beijing, China.

I have a lot of emotional attachments to that city. :)

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 09:06 AM

home is Hong Kong, of course.

:dance:

excellent article though.

Tao

08-13-2003, 03:45 PM

For me, home will always be Beijing, China.

I have a lot of emotional attachments to that city. :) ah yes...me too. nothing beats going back home to where my gramps and grandma are. God i miss them :cry:

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 03:52 PM

wow, do we have a contingent of tongue-curling Beijingers on YW?

and where has Tess been?

yoMAMA

08-13-2003, 07:37 PM

Dude, Beijing rules, although my number 2 area is

Honolulu, Hawaii,

and number three

Minneapolis, Minnesota

:P

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 08:43 PM

i want to visit BJ to check out the underground rock scene.

MellowDrama

08-13-2003, 08:50 PM

It's tourist hell and it's a fucking jungle climate in the summer, but Orlando, FL will always be my home [feel free to laugh! :lol: ], born and raised there.

Tao

08-13-2003, 09:05 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Aug 13 2003, 06:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> wow, do we have a contingent of tongue-curling Beijingers on YW?

and where has Tess been? [/b][/quote]
my family don't curl our tongue....and besides, it's the correct way of pronounciation anyways :P

AliBabaIncorporated

08-13-2003, 09:05 PM

Home is Malaysia, not China, Taiwan, HK, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or whatnot. Merdeka was our Merdeka. Malaysian Chinese and Malaysian Indians figured this one out a long time ago. And as usual, a bunch of American writers just got it, and now they think it's an amazing original insight about a new kind of lifestyle, attributable only to "modern transnationalism" and "the globalizing economy." :rolleyes:

yoMAMA

08-13-2003, 09:37 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tao @ Aug 13 2003, 08:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Aug 13 2003, 06:52 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> wow, do we have a contingent of tongue-curling Beijingers on YW?

and where has Tess been? [/b][/quote]
my family don't curl our tongue....and besides, it's the correct way of pronounciation anyways :P [/b][/quote]
I do roll my tounges, my I guess cauz I'm a hardcore Beijinger!

Actually, I'm not that hardcore.

:P

yoMAMA

08-13-2003, 09:38 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Aug 13 2003, 07:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i want to visit BJ to check out the underground rock scene. [/b][/quote]
I heard the UG rock scene in beijing is pretty solid,

but I'll go back for the hot girls! :P

Ogumo

08-13-2003, 09:51 PM

For me home is japan and always will be japan. Nothing will change this.

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 10:45 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (MellowDrama @ Aug 13 2003, 11:50 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> It's tourist hell and it's a fucking jungle climate in the summer, but Orlando, FL will always be my home [feel free to laugh!  :lol: ], born and raised there. [/b][/quote]
hey i lived in Orlando for a year, moved away, and then lived there again for a few months just before i came to DC. my parents live in Orlando. where in Orlando are you? my parents live in Apopka.

Xishi

08-13-2003, 10:51 PM

Dao!!!

Beijinger reporting to SWK..!!! ^_~

Oh my...this "YoMama" individual...is like a male version of me...

Biz school...Finance major...hardcore Beijing accent... :blink:

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 10:59 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (yoMAMA @ Aug 14 2003, 12:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I heard the UG rock scene in beijing is pretty solid,

but I'll go back for the hot girls! :P [/b][/quote]
i didn't know that BJ girls were especially hot.
i just heard that Hangzhou is where the best-looking girls are, and Shanghai is where the gold-diggers are.

SunWuKong

08-13-2003, 11:05 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Xishi @ Aug 14 2003, 01:51 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Dao!!!

Beijinger reporting to SWK..!!! ^_~

Oh my...this "YoMama" individual...is like a male version of me...

Biz school...Finance major...hardcore Beijing accent... :blink: [/b][/quote]
hey babe. there you are. :dance:

teaz0r

08-14-2003, 01:38 AM

rad mai rak pip. pip mai bahng.

home is whereever i' live. or whichever
country that i have the most money in the
bank.... or most shoes. shoes=happiness.
presently, bangkok.

Deadpool

08-14-2003, 03:28 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (teaz0r @ Aug 14 2003, 12:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> rad mai rak pip. pip mai bahng.

home is whereever i' live. or whichever
country that i have the most money in the
bank.... or most shoes. shoes=happiness.
presently, bangkok. [/b][/quote]
I fear you.
You are like.....Imelda Marcos...

yoMAMA

08-14-2003, 07:43 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Xishi @ Aug 13 2003, 09:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> Dao!!!

Beijinger reporting to SWK..!!! ^_~

Oh my...this "YoMama" individual...is like a male version of me...

Biz school...Finance major...hardcore Beijing accent... :blink: [/b][/quote]
Maybe we are long lost testtube twins, ala Twins by Arnold and Denny Devito?

: :huh:

Ah, maybe not.

You should come to the Midwest YW get together!

So us finance majors can talked about how to takeover the world while make Zazillions$$$$$$$$ :D :lol: :P

j/k!

yoMAMA

08-14-2003, 07:45 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SunWuKung @ Aug 13 2003, 09:59 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (yoMAMA @ Aug 14 2003, 12:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> I heard the UG rock scene in beijing is pretty solid,

but I'll go back for the hot girls!  :P [/b][/quote]
i didn't know that BJ girls were especially hot.
i just heard that Hangzhou is where the best-looking girls are, and Shanghai is where the gold-diggers are. [/b][/quote]
Yeah, I have heard about that too, although never been there, I'd love to live there though.

Anyways, from my experience, Beijing girls are the hottest!

(my rather limited exposure, :P

seanp

08-14-2003, 07:59 AM

saigon dep lam saigon oi saigon oi! (saigon is very beautiful! Saigon is very beautiful!)

There are too many memories in Saigon for me

It's my home :blink:

SunWuKong

08-14-2003, 08:06 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (teaz0r @ Aug 14 2003, 04:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> rad mai rak pip. pip mai bahng. [/b][/quote]
mai jing! rad rak pip.

Ogumo

08-14-2003, 08:10 AM

jhuk kah rak.

lethal

08-14-2003, 09:00 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (seanp @ Aug 14 2003, 10:59 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> saigon dep lam saigon oi saigon oi! (saigon is very beautiful! Saigon is very beautiful!)

There are too many memories in Saigon for me

It's my home :blink: [/b][/quote]
Whereabouts are your from?

My grandparents live near the "Salt Market" cho muoi. I lived there for well...like 2 years total now :P

ChinaLama

08-16-2003, 05:26 AM

once again, white people have to make a big deal out of "Asians don't always live in Asia! :o " gee Europeans don't always live in Europe and Africans don't always live in Africa, but how come no one's making a big deal out of that? Could it be because it's NOT a big deal?

I call Flushing my home. I don't have these complicated conflicts about whether I'm really Shanghainese or Missourian or Manhattanite or Queensian or Philadelphian or Chicagoan or if I'm really a wannabe Californian. I don't see why the people with identity conflicts should get all the attention over us more stable people.

SunWuKong

08-16-2003, 08:59 AM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ChinaLama @ Aug 16 2003, 08:26 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> once again, white people have to make a big deal out of "Asians don't always live in Asia! :o " gee Europeans don't always live in Europe and Africans don't always live in Africa, but how come no one's making a big deal out of that? Could it be because it's NOT a big deal?

I call Flushing my home. I don't have these complicated conflicts about whether I'm really Shanghainese or Missourian or Manhattanite or Queensian or Philadelphian or Chicagoan or if I'm really a wannabe Californian. I don't see why the people with identity conflicts should get all the attention over us more stable people. [/b][/quote]
because there's nothing interesting to write about stable people. :)

deez nuts

08-16-2003, 10:36 AM

wherever momma is.

seanp

08-16-2003, 01:46 PM

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (lethalweapon @ Aug 14 2003, 08:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> </div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (seanp @ Aug 14 2003, 10:59 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> saigon dep lam saigon oi saigon oi! (saigon is very beautiful! Saigon is very beautiful!)

There are too many memories in Saigon for me

It's my home :blink: [/b][/quote]
Whereabouts are your from?

My grandparents live near the "Salt Market" cho muoi. I lived there for well...like 2 years total now :P [/b][/quote]
Cho Hoa Hung (Hoa Hung Market)...near Ga Saigon (Saigon Train station). I visited the place last year.

Mr.Lum

08-18-2003, 02:51 PM

Hamden CT! Go GreenDragons! other than that ive never lived anywhere else....i think if i hada pick someplace overseas id be my grandparents nation of Fiji and their village Lambasa.

SunWuKong

08-23-2003, 01:30 AM

does anybody sometimes get confused about where your home really is? for me, it keeps changing. currently it's HK.

achtungbaby

08-26-2003, 01:17 AM

Dao!!!

Beijinger reporting to SWK..!!! ^_~

Oh my...this "YoMama" individual...is like a male version of me...

Biz school...Finance major...hardcore Beijing accent... :blink:

You two should merge:)