My “plan not working” is working very well! It’s the best “not plan” I ever had. As it turns out, no-one from the UAE is “from” the UAE … I’ve actually found a country and a place where … everyone is as “not from” as I am …

Home at last 🙂

Fascinating. I hope your “plan not working” is only a minor inconvenience.

Ah, the “United Kingdom can of worms” is just the can of worms beneath the can of worms of the where I’m from can of worms. OK … here it is …

The difference between the United Kingdom of Britain is, of course, that the United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland. I’ve never been there … but I have three grandparents from there (not hat I ever knew them). The grandparents did, however, leave me with a very Irish last name – which further confuses my Welshness. The grandparents, as far as I can gather, were from the north, but it could have been the south, so that’s another country – the Republic of Ireland – where, oddly enough, I have actually been.

Indeed, I have actually claimed to be Irish, on occasion, when it suited my needs. These needs generally being getting into Irish parties; these parties of course being in America … where everyone cares more about you being Irish; presumably, because they’re no more Irish than I am.

By the way … my plan to be “a Brit to the British” and “an American to Americans” … didn’t work.

Wow. Thanks, Phill for the thorough perspective. I had a conversation recently about this general topic with an acquaintance recently and they scoffed that I even considered it. And admittedly, my story and arc is simpler than yours. However, the nature of mobility — and circumstances like yours — make it a growing, relevant question.

Your thoughts and planned responses are certainly well considered. However, as you spoke of Wales, England and Britain, I wondered why you’d never answered United Kingdom. I can imagine a host of reasons, but I thought I’d venture to ask.

Regardless, if you tire of answering, you could always fall back on indicating you’re a man of the world.

I was born in Wales … that’s just an awful place to start off with because half the world doesn’t know where it is or what it is. The other half of the world just consider it tantamount to “England,” which it isn’t, but as I only lived in wales for my first four years, and then moved to England, I think I should just go for “Britain”; but no-one from “Britain” who asks you where you’re from wants to hear that (always look at you funny), so you can see how hard it is, and I’ve only just begun.

Anyway, I now live in the United Arab Emirates, but for the previous 17 years I lived in the United States. My family (my “now” family that is) also live in the United States, but my last family now live in Japan – where, of course, I lived for five years prior to living in the US.

And prior to living in Japan, I lived in Turkey for three years. I have no family there in Turkey, but, oddly enough, it feels more like home to me than anywhere else I’ve lived (apart from the US), where I don’t live anymore – but my family does (right?).

I do NOT want to be telling any of this to anyone who just asks me where I’m from. I absolutely hate it when other people say things like “I’m from London AND New York.” It just feels like they’re inviting inquiry because they’re so “special.” I do not feel “special” at all, and in so many ways I feel rather embarrassed to be “from” … wherever it is I’m from.

My accent is, for the most part, English. But I’ve lived in the US for long enough for it to be “not quite English,” but certainly not American. This means that most people think I’m Australian … where I have never lived, and never been (although I’d like to). Of course, no-one who really knows an Australian accent thinks I’m Australian, yet Australian is by far the most common guess (a distant second is South African!) … again, never been there, but would like to.

Here in the UAE, I travel on my US passport … I brought my UK passport with me (you never know!), but I haven’t been there for years, and have no reason to ever go back. I’d like to think of myself as American, (why not?), but in my heart of hearts, I know I’m not. Sometimes I resign myself to just being “English,” which is the one thing I most certainly am not: not born there and none of my blood family were born there … and yet … in my heart of hearts, I think I am … that … English; but in my brain of brains, I’m just not.

From tomorrow, I’m going to adopt a new policy. If someone I think is British asks me where I’m from, I’m going to say England. If someone American (or anywhere else) asks me, I’m going to say American. (Actually, if someone Australian asks me, I’m going to say English too). After all these years, I have come to this decision based on a realization: Brits and Ausies care about this question in a different way to Americans (and everyone else). A Brit (and I think an Ausie) will think me pretentious if I say anything other than English. Americans, on the other hand, seem to be much more welcoming: it doesn’t matter to them if I wasn’t actually born there; all they care about is that I love the country, which I do. Anyone else from any other country probably just wants a frame of reference, and as the US is where I go “home” to, then that’s the frame of reference they will get. Yes, I know, what about all the other English speaking countries that I haven’t included here. I’m going “America” with them too – they should be sympathetic enough to the plight.

Thanks for including the link to Pico Iyer’s talk. I like to think that he used this post (a few years old now) as background for his talk.

I kid, I kid.

A good friend of ours (originally from the U.S., but living in Berlin) actually first sent me the Pico Iyer video a couple of months ago. Before that, we’d been discussing the nature of identity in today’s fluid lifestyle, nomadically encouraged, globalized world. So while movement is relatively easy (for an arguable few, of course), sorting out our ever-changing identities as we move is a little more challenging.

Thanks for your comment!

@Jennifer: I can identify with that personally, particularly the Pennsylvania part 🙂

I sometimes respond to the question by asking “what do you think?” or saying something like “I’m from Bavaria” (which of course I’m not) as a way to make the conversation a bit more engaging, because the asker will then share more about what they mean by the “where are you from” question.

Sometimes, depending on the context, my first response to the question is “Well, I’m not sure”. At this point in my life, I think that’s how I actually feel.

Related to this topic, a friend of mine recently recommended this TED talk to me, and I think many readers here would also enjoy it: http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home.html