Lost in transit

Kde Domov Muj?

When I moved to Japan in the late ‘80s, a certain part of that decision had to do with a serious case of post-graduate dissatisfaction with the U.S. I wanted to teach most of all, but underneath that was a real desire to be somewhere different, to shake myself up in general, and specifically to shake off that culture with which I was so disaffected.

Of course, part of living away from a place is learning to appreciate it anew. For me, I never really understood what there was to love about the country of my birth until I saw what there was to miss. The ability to walk down the street without being stared at, conversations drenched in cultural references, peanut butter.

I missed those things, and I went back to California, had a true Thomas Wolfe moment, and scurried off to the Czech Republic, where I instantly felt more “at home” than I had ever felt anywhere before. So I stayed here. My metaphorical hat has been hung for ten years now. I’m over my intense dislike of the U.S. now: it’s a good country, with a lot of really great parts. I just don’t want to live there anymore.

Probably one of the hardest things for me in living out of the United States is being expected to explain it. In Japan, the level and type of students I was teaching meant mainly explaining Americans as one would explain Martians, if one were a Martian, and most people’s exposure was celluloid based. Yes, most of us wear underpants. No, we don’t all carry guns. Actually, I’m average-sized: most movie stars are thinner than average. No, I haven’t met Michael Jackson.

The questions are harder here, and they’ve been harder lately. Partly this is because I’m dealing with a more foreign-aware public, partly this is because I’m older and no longer find questions that start “Why does the United States…” to have easy answers. Who am I to say what a country of nearly 300 million people thinks? I’m not sure anyone has a right to sentences that start “The American people…”; I am sure that I am unable start a sentence that way and be certain I’ve finished it truthfully.

However challenging these questions are for me, though, they are even more of a challenge for my son. He was born here, and has lived his whole seven years here (albeit with annual visits to the grandparents in California). However, we speak English together, and he carries a U.S. passport. Somehow, people take this to mean that he’s able to comfortably and knowledgably answer questions about the United States for them. “How do Americans celebrate Easter?” “How often do the teachers give grades in the United States?” “Sing the national anthem for us!” “Why does Bush like war?”

So… I don’t know what to do. Seven seems a little early to be getting coaching on one’s sense of national identity. And what is a “national identity” anyway? He’s a U.S. citizen because I am, and I don’t think it’s something he should be proud (or, conversely, ashamed) of, any more than he should be proud for having inherited my blue eyes. I don’t know how to help him prepare for questions I often find myself unable to answer, though, not to mention that a seven-year-old sounds a little funny saying, “The United States has a very diverse population, and questions such as yours cannot be answered without taking into consideration the history,….”. I’ve been prepping him for the questions I can anticipate (like the Easter one), and telling him to tell people, “You have to ask my mom,” for the harder ones. It feels like a weak solution, but it’s the best I’ve got at the moment.

I did give the national anthem a shot, though, but let’s face it: Nobody can get past the “rocket’s red glare” part. I taught him the first verse of “This Land is Your Land” instead. I wrote a note to his teacher explaining that it’s not the national anthem, but it’s something a kid can sing. She had requested it when they learned the Czech national anthem. Which is called “Kde domov muj?” [Where is my home?], by the way. He’ll probably be singing that by request when we next go stateside, and people start asking him how the Czech Republic feels about joining the EU.

Posted by anne at April 24, 2004 09:41 PM