Pandora's box

When I was young, I remember my mom used to keep really cool things in her purse, probably mainly to keep my brothers and entertained. One day, when I was about 8 we were sitting in church as a family and I decided to empty out her purse and find out what things she had in there. However, once I got the contents out, I had a horrible time trying to get them all back in again. Try as I might, they would not, could not fit! So, I had to, red-faced, ask my mother to help me put all the objects back into the purse.

Many days, I feel this is a good analogy to describe how it feels to live overseas. It is like taking something out of the box and finding it just doesn’t fit when you try to put it in again. The problem is, it is not just that you are taken out of the box you are in but then forced into another one, not the one you came out of, and you don’t quite fit in that one either!

Let me use an example. The other day I was with two good friends and after we walked out of the restaurant I “called shotgun” which means you just say “shotgun” out loud. For more information on calling shotgun, click here. Basically, I then had to explain the entire idea of calling shotgun to then, something the average American would immediately understand.

But this works that other way. Now when I go home, I want to use words like kiasu or chin-chai with my friends but the average American has no clue what these words mean. Click here for kiasu and here for chin-chai definitions.

I feel ultimately that I have a better understanding about the world and about my own culture’s impact upon my life but the problem is that it always feels like I am hiding a bit of myself. I guess that is why it is a bit like Pandora’s Box, which when opened unleashed all manner of mayhem but hope remained. Hope, I feel, is what all these boxes have given me.