Where is your home?

August 4th, 2013By Category: Uncategorized

home

How do you define home? By your marital status? social status? birth place? Or your sense of belonging? I guess most of you may feel Japan is your ‘home’, although not 100% but to some degree perhaps.

Because you have been living in here for a while, a couple of years, 5-10 years or even more. This place is now somewhat attached to you. You like it because all the things in here were built by you. It has your memory, all the little bits and pieces of furnitures, books, pictures, dishes, mugs, chopsticks, clothes, shoes. Most of all, it’s when you go back to your home country, that you notice that your room no longer belongs to you, your things have been packed away and kept it in the store room. Your home no longer feels like your home anymore. Yet you are still very pleased to see your old friends and family there, but you miss your own bed, your home in Japan because it’s all “YOURS”.

Back to home town, you need to “borrow” so many things. You needed to borrow your brother’s car. your sister’s mobile, Uncle’s jacket, Aunt’s towel, your cousin’s blankets and etc. You are so glad to be home but on the other hand you feel so inconvenient, you cannot drink all the beer just like the same in Japan, because your mom may not like that. You cannot stay up the whole night to watch your favourite movie, because sister doesn’t like that. You cannot put your jacket and jeans on the chair, just like the way you are in Japan, because your brother in law does not like it. You cannot sleep thru the night because your baby nephew was crying all night long, yet you have to keep your mouth shut.

Therefore, from the moment you purchased the ticket to go back to your home town, feeling excited, until 2-3 weeks you feel like you really wanted to leave and go back to Japan and back to your home. The psychological desire changes so dramatically from exciting mood to feeling happy then feeling frustrated, and lastly tired and looking forward to leaving your home town and back Japan (home). And this cycle repeats once a year. But each time you’ll get smarter, and much more prepared, because as we get older and older we learned through experience, and we hate to make the same mistakes over and over again. At least that’s how I feel. I changed from 1 month to 3 wks, from borrowing towels to bringing my own, from borrowing other’s mobile to using my own ( I bought an extra mobile phone for traveling only). From accepting other’s kindness to returning extra and paying more dinners and so on.

So, where is your “home” in Japan? or your home town? How do you define “home” ? By your current residential status? By your status of mind or by your birth place? Are you intending to leave Japan because your finally found your “home’? 11 years ago I came to this place and stayed for about a year and but I never thought I would be here again 11 years later today. I enjoyed living in Japan, also I love the convenience in Hong kong and the mixed culture in Sydney however, I am still searching my ‘home’.

For those who are traveling back to your home town, wishing you a fantastic trip and please share your experience with me, I would love to learn from your perspective about “HOME”.

Author of this article

Maggie Yau

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