A Sense of Belonging in the World

One thing that has struck me since I’ve left Bangladesh is how much I felt like a foreigner while I was there. I know it’s something I should have expected, but it was, for me, the first time I spent a good deal of time in a place where someone with my physical characteristics (small, pale-skinned, Asian) was an object of interest to nearly everyone around me. I was born in Hong Kong and raised in a suburb of Toronto that is populated by immigrants - my skin colour and physical appearance have never been an issue for me; that is, I’ve never felt like I looked different from anyone else.

In Bangladesh, a good deal of my time in public was spent ignoring stares that were long enough to be considered rude in the Western world. My colleagues and I literally could not go anywhere without being noticed - I chalk this up to living north of the city centre, where expats were relatively few and far between. For me, it became absolutely ridiculous early on, when I happened to be waiting outside a classroom for my clinical group to finish changing. A group of students from another school happened to see me in the hallway, were ridiculously enthused about my foreign appearance, and insisted on taking photographs with me. For about 15 minutes, I smiled into flashing cameras and mobile phones and, get this, signed autographs for the students. I’ve never felt more ridiculous or more like I deserved this treatment less.

Whenever we traveled to a rural area, it only got worse. As soon as we went anywhere out of doors we were followed by a crowd of at least 50 people, from small children to community elders. I laughed it off at the time, but looking back now, it made me feel like such an outsider. Obviously, to people who have never before seen a pale-skinned Asian woman, I would be an object of absolute interest - but the keen interest in me due to my being foreign really impacted me in a way I wasn’t entirely prepared for.

And this wasn’t really something I fully noticed until I came back to Hong Kong. My first time back after immigrating to Canada was in 2009, and to be honest, I didn’t like it. This time, coming here to Hong Kong was like coming home. I’ve only been here for 6 days and I highly regret keeping this portion of my trip so incredibly short. I love it here. It’s like being at home, and although my grasp of the language is rough and rudimentary, it’s enough. I am quite sure I will always have ties here - the number of family members and close family friends I’ve managed to touch base with in the last week astounds me when I stop to think about it. But I think the biggest reason I love it now is because I finally feel like I belong somewhere, after a period of always feeling like a foreigner.

I feel like I’ve found a new piece of my self-identity, although that sounds vague and slightly pretentious. Experiencing Bangladesh has given me a new appreciation for my own heritage and my own culture, and this wonderful sense of belonging somewhere that I’ve never found before in the world.