A Journey of Self Discovery
West Island School , Minglani , Rhea - 12
I dentity . Identity is a very important part of you , it defines who you are and it differentiates you from others . Without identity , people would not be able to distinguish us . Identity could be your personality , where you are from or your family background . But , what if you move far away from your home land , looking for an adventure , would you still have your old identity , or would you have created a new identity ?
I am a Singaporean Indian but interestingly my parents moved to Korea , even before I was born , looking for adventure and career advancement . We lived there for two years . I loved the freshly falling snow and the inquisitive adults and children who came to take pictures with me , it was as if they had never seen an Indian child before . A problem that my parents and I encountered was communicating in the language of that country . Since we did not know Korean , we could not talk to people , make friends or even ask for directions . Now that I look back , our stay in that country without knowing the language reminded me of a recent article I read in The Guardian , written by a girl called Xiaolu Guo , about her moving West from China to England .
When Xiaolu was leaving China , her parents thought that Great Britain was going to be “ Greater than the United States ”. However after she moved to England she found it very lonely , with no friends or family to turn to . She could not even speak proper English , let alone communicate with the people around her . She realized that the West wasn ’ t so grand , prosperous and glamourous as she imagined it to be . Initially she hated the place because lanes were dirty and smelled foul , the walls were covered with graffiti and there were stray dogs roaming around the streets . But after living there for a long time and persevering there instead of going home , she found that Britain was much better than China because there were many positive factors such as freedom of speech and expression , right of privacy and holding your personal political views . She worked hard to learn the language and integrate into the society and eventually she became a British citizen .
Xiaolu ’ s journey was similar to that of monk Xuanzang , who lived hundreds of years ago , and who went from China to India in search of knowledge from original Buddhist texts . He got robbed on his way from China to India , this must have resulted in him becoming very poor so he had to eat , live and experience life with the poor there . Everything there must have seemed very difficult as he didn ’ t know the language , also the ancient monastery and university he wanted to go to were far away from where he entered India . He must have thought that this was not the rich and beautiful India he had read about , but at the end , he got what he wanted . He worked very hard to learn a very difficult Indian language called Sanskrit and tried his best to make friends . He persevered and did not deviate from his goal of reaching the university and reading the holy scriptures of the Buddha and in the end he succeeded just like Xiaolu did .
Just as Xiaolu had a goal of going to a free country , and the monk ’ s goal was to achieve higher knowledge , similarly , my parents ’ goal was to succeed in their corporate career and provide a safe and healthy upbringing for my sister and me . That ’ s why they persevered and did not return to India , although life in Korea was not very easy . Eventually they succeeded in migrating to Singapore , when I was three . I enjoyed living in Singapore , after all it was home . I made new friends from all over the world . I loved how diverse that country was , with over eight different religions , Singapore was sure to be the most accepting country in the world . It was good to walk down the streets and find people with the same race as me , unlike Korea where we stood out as foreigners , with teenage girls requesting to be photographed with the large eyed child and old ladies following us in the grocery store gushing about the cute baby ( that was me !).
After three and a half years of living in Singapore , we moved to Hong Kong , again for the career advancement of my parents . We moved during the winter and I found Hong Kong really cold . It was the total opposite of Singaporean weather . Later I adapted to the cold and it was nice to experience all the four seasons . Soon , I could speak with a smattering of Mandarin , and Spanish as well . It was my mother tongue Hindi which eluded me . Several years later , I still stood in Hong Kong , confused . I was confused about my identity , where I was from and where I belonged . The adventure and career advancement goals had long since been fulfilled , and we led a very prosperous and settled life in Hong Kong , but in the process I had lost my cultural identity somewhere . “ Who am I ?” I often asked myself .