Who am I?

This is probably the question that I've been wondering all these years. But it bothers me much more by the time I went overseas.

It was not so serious when I was in Australia. When I had to introduce myself, I simply said "I'm from Hong Kong." But it gets more complicated now when I'm coming here to Singapore for exchange from Australia as an international student from Hong Kong.

When I introduce myself here, I always have problems.

If I say "I'm from Hong Kong." People think I'm a exchange student from one of the universities in Hong Kong. If I say "I'm from Australia", then they think I am an emigrant.

So I've to tell people a "story" everytime I introduce myself. Actually it's ok, I just have to say a few more words to explain and just have to get used to the gaze and weird comments since most of them think I've made the stupidest decision in the world. haha.. (I don't think so though, if I have to choose again, I will also come to SG)

Sometimes I wanted to say "I'm a Chinese" but no one will agree with me, not the people in Australia, and not the people in Singapore. I understand that people take "Chinese" as the mainlanders, but we never have a word for the people in HK, we can't use Hong Kongers, we can't use Hong Kong people. So if I'm not a Chinese, who am I?

This problem only occurs when I speak in English, since in Chinese, we simply add "people" after the name of the place/country to describe the people there. So literately "Japan people" (日本人 ri ben ren)= Japanese, "China people" (中國人 zhong guo ren) = Chinese. By the way, this is one of the reasons why Chinese-speaking people have difficulties in learning some languages like English, Chinese is an isolating language (almost every words consists of a morpheme) while English is a polysynthetic language (words tend to have several morpheme).

Back to the topic... who am I? I never know how to answer this. Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997. Before 1997, many of us always struggled when we were asked to fill in forms with a fill called "Nationality". Since we didn't know what we were. People filled in so many different answers in that particular field: Hong Kong (which is NEVER a country), Britain, England, British, Chinese, China, Guangdong, Shanghai (place of their origins).. etc.. I think people in other countries/places will never understand this kind of confusion!!

Now, China has already taken over HK for 10 years. We are still struggling with that "Nationality" field. Of course it's much better than 10 years ago, people nowadays would just fill in either Hong Kong (again, NOT a country..), China, Hong Kong China, or HKSAR.

Till now, I've just talked about the confusion on my "nationality".. there are so many other things that I DON'T KNOW about myself. E.g. traditions, culture... etc. Should I take Chinese traditions as my own traditions? Should I take Chinese culture as my own culture? Or should I separate Hong Kong as an individual place?

I'm even more confused after the Intercultural Communication lecture this evening. The lecturer asked us to do a little exercise during the class. I strongly recommend you try to do it too as it will definitely makes you think about yourself and understand yourself more.

1. Think of a title (a few words) of your culture. (i.e. If you are asked to introduce yourself, what would you say if you are not allowed to say your name?) (To my understanding, "your culture" can be the culture you think you belong to, or just yourself)

Example from my lecturer: South Africa
(Since she is from South Africa, and that's what she wants people know)

2. Think of 3 different words to describe your culture.

Example from my lecturer: Sunday, music, lunch (not sure about if the last one is the one she said)
Why these 3 words? She told us about something happens every Sunday in her family back in South Africa which is related to music and lunch. A very unique story/behaviour that you seldom heard of from other people/culture.

So how did you go?
Me? I didn't even write my title!!
I was so lost.

Later tonight the lecturer sent an email to all international students in the class and asked if we are willing to help for a demonstration or something in the coming lecture. She asked us to tell her "your country and your culture" and she will try to select people from different culture.

ok.. my country.. China?.. HK??.. my culture... do I have one???
so.. I replied her will my "story" and told her that I know nothing about my culture and myself..

Later on I got her reply, she said I'm one of those people who have been exposed to many different culture that I'm used to different cultural settings. And this is "an interesting phenomenon that we see occurring in the world today where people do not have very specific characteristics that they feel they can identify with"

This is very true to me.. and I guess this can be used to "describe" myself...

But this is not the end of my struggles though..
even when I think of the culture of Hong Kong, the Chinese culture, the Indian culture.. etc.. I also have many doubts.. mainly related to the diffusion by American culture.

Will talk about this later.