This morning my daughter
woke up telling me: “I had a dream... I dreamed that I was in Italy
with my Chinese class and I told to my friend: this is my real
home.”
I have
looked at her, thoughtful. She is almost 6 years old, she is living
in China since two years. But, for her, “real home” is still
Italy.
What makes a
place your place? Grandparents and relatives? The first
memories of your life? The house which your parents have built with
sweat and blood (okay, maybe not blood but the word makes the idea),
or what?
And how
about my son, who was 2 ½ years old when we come to China? His first
friends, he has made here. He learned speaking here (and, actually,
he speaks better English than Italian). Is he also going to consider
Italy his “real home”?
This is what
they call “Third Culture Kids”. I read about it, but to find
myself facing the issue, is different!
In a book I
read some very important words: children needs strong roots, in order
to grow a large foliage that rises to the sky.
In expat
life, everything is changing and inconstant. Friends and teachers are
coming and going and sometimes I wonder how can my children bear this
situation and be always happy and smiling... but they also feel that
our “real” life is elsewhere. Maybe we won't go back for a long
time (and, actually, our real life is now in China!), but in their
heart our home is an idealized and mythological place where nothing
changes: Grandma will always welcome you with her fragrant home-made
cookies, Uncle and Auntie will take you in their vegetable patch,
showing you seedlings and buds, friends will tell you about the small
school they are attending.
One of the
best friend of my daughter will go back soon to France for good. She
asked me: when will we go back for good in Italy? And I felt like a
stab in the hearth.
A foreigner
could live decades in China, and still continue to be foreigner. You
look as foreigner, no way to blend into the background! Everybody can
guess you are not from here!
But, in any
case, expat life changes you, and you start feeling like if you life
is now double: two countries, two houses, different friends,
atmosphere, foods. And you start wondering which world do you belong.
And this is
true for children, also. My daughter uses to say “Our planet”
instead of “our country”, and “this planet” instead of
China... funny, isn't it? Incredible how deeply they can think,
inside that little blond head!
They know
they are Italian. And it's my duty to let them know about their
country history and culture. And it's my duty also let them love the
country which is giving to us hospitality.
