[21/30] Stranger

If you’d told me that immigrating to a new country meant never having a true “home,” I’m not sure I would’ve said yes. Yet I don’t regret it.

There are many benefits to studying abroad and staying there. Better education, independence and a wider experience from living somewhere new. But there’s also this feeling of not fully belonging anywhere.

I’m Malaysian, but am now too “Australian” to live back home. And yet, I’m still too Malaysian to be fully Australian. I’m always half in, half out.

When I say “home,” I don’t just mean family. I mean a place where I fully understand the culture. In Australia, I missed the high-school years that seem to be the glue for so many friendships here. In Malaysia, I missed the college years that form the core of most social circles. So I end up a stranger in both places.

It's probably why I see many Malaysians in Australia hang around each other a lot. Well it happens for any immigrant regardless of country. At first, I thought they just clung to what’s familiar, rejecting the “foreign” culture, but now I understand it as a place of belonging. Because the ones that truly understand how we feel are other immigrants in the same country.

It’s been about a decade since I came to Sydney, and I still get pangs of longing sometimes. But I’ve started to accept that not fully belonging to one country might be okay. That it’s alright to have friends scattered across the world, even if distance makes them feel less close.

Maybe, just maybe, being a stranger in two worlds is its own kind of home.