How being an Expat has Effected Me
I have lived in three countries in my life and traveled to many more. My dominant culture without a doubt has been a Western American culture and I had no other culture that seriously effected me. I maybe had a less than 5% Vietnamese culture within me and the rest was just American. But my dad being an Expat Engineer was sent over seas a four years ago and we had to go with him. The country we moved to was Oman. At first I was very terrified of the idea of moving to a country as deep in the middle east as Oman. The was in Iraq was at it’s peak to the middle east was seen and still seen as a very dangerous and terrorist filled area.
But after I had moved and experienced the middle east first hand. It wasn’t so bad and I was able to learn a wide variety about Arab and Muslim culture. Living in Oman made me feel less American and just more of just a global citizen. I would say that living in the middle east has made me 50% American and the rest is just an empty slate. Though Oman soon came to an end and once again my family was sent to another country and the country being Vietnam.
Living in Vietnam has been a really good experience to get back to my heritage and atleast improve some what on the language. My father has told me many stories of his child hood living in Vietnam and that has shaped me a little bit more. So now when some one asks me where I am from, I am not sure what to say. American is what my citizenship is and is also the country that I have lived in for 3/4 of my life. But Vietnamese is my culture, heritage and my appearance on the outside. Though in the end, Western culture seems to dominate my life and has been battling back the Vietnamese culture. If I were to move back to the US I would probably forget about some of the things that I have learned in Vietnam, for example about my culture.
I still believe that I am mostly a Westerner, but now with more of my image now with Vietnamese in it. But the greatest portion of my identity is a mystery because I feel like I am mostly just a citizen of the Earth.