Are you lost? Or Found?

In the life of a missionary or missionary kid, you learn one thing. It actually is a small world after all. My parents have been missionaries for over 30 years. They met during college and decided that what they wanted to do with their life together was be an example for others, showing other people how God displays his grace and compassion. This was something they wanted to do with their lives and had the support of both sets of my Grandparents, who actually knew each other when they were in college. Once again proving that it really is a small world. I just found out recently, that my Grandmother and Grandfather H (we will call them H, to protect their identity ) had given my Mother their blessing to pursue being a missionary. Grandma H knew the sacrifices that not only my parents were making but that she would be making as well. But like a mother usually does, they put their child's interests before their own and was completely supportive. It takes a great person to do this. So that being said, my parents embarked on their journey to be missionaries in India and later in Japan. The reason I tell you all of this is because my parents recently came back from a missionaries convention to Cambodia. They were able to meet and re-meet new and old friends. The connections at this convention were amazing for my parents. I could tell from the excitement in my Mother's voice as she told all of whom she had met. They were introduced to a man from India who happened to be a baby in one of my mother's Bible classes when they lived in India. They met up with a daughter of friend who they went to college with as well as meeting a new person who knew my Mother's best friend who was also a missionary at a point in her life. But among all the people they met my Mother told me of a family who adopted a little girl from China. She grew up in the USA and her parents decided to move to China to be missionaries. Her daughter has started to learn the language and has an understanding of what people are saying now. Now my heart goes out to this little girl. She is having a difficult time adjusting to be a third culture kid. She lives in a country that is her native home but isn't actually part of the culture. She is American. To her, her home is America and her ways are American. But being Chinese on the outside by looks only she is ridiculed for not know her heritage and customs. To the point that people are actually commenting loud enough that she can hear the mean and rude things they say about her. And she understands them. I can relate to this. When my parents were in the processing of adopting me, they had many people tell them that they were doing the wrong thing. That they shouldn't be adopting a Indian baby much less a girl and they should want a nice white baby instead. I was abandoned by my birth mom and was considered an orphan. Now in India as most of you know, girls are not wanted. They want boys to carry on their name and inherit their belongings. So many people questioned why my parents would even want a baby from India when they could adopt a white one much less an India girl who no one knew where I had come from as well as being small and sick. I was 2 and 1/2 months premature and weighed either 2 or 3lbs.  Thankfully my parents didn't see what other's saw. They only saw with their hearts and not with their ears. But the discrimination from my own race didn't stop there. I have dealt with it all my life. Getting called mean things from others in elementary school or having a boy say he wouldn't sit next to me because I was dark. Or even having someone say ' I am glad I was born white and not dark '. Those are some of the things that have been said to me. Yes, they are hurtful but to me the most hurtful things are when your own race rejects you. I never told my parents when those things were being said. Why? Because how could they understand it? I knew my parents would have kind words to say and let me know that people are just ridiculous. But the main reason I never said anything, was because I was ashamed that those comments were said to me and I had somehow brought them on myself. Now as an adult I have to deal with the ugly looks that other Indian people give me. As I said before I married a wonderful man but he isn't Indian. Do I care. NOT AT ALL. The traditions of India do not apply to me. I am not Indian. Only my shell is. But the looks of hatred and the mean whispers affect my children. I don't mind if you give me a look of disgust but don't ever do that to my kids. They don't see me as Indian. They see me as their Mom and my husband as their Dad. They are color blind. I have never heard my kids say ' that person looks like you' because to them I don't look like anyone but their Mom. We at one point had only one Indian restaurant to eat at. But every time we went there the waiter (also owner) was rude. Basically ignoring us and letting other Indians who were there talk about us and joined in. It got to the point that we decided that they didn't deserve our business. Why would I pay for you to be rude to my family? Thankfully a new Indian restaurant has opened up and the owners are more than considerate. No ugly looks, no discrimination. Very polite and we don't even have to go all the way into town and fight traffic to eat there. It will be a lifelong battle. To say I don't care is true. I don't care. Because I know who I am and where I belong. Why would I want to be part of culture that has rejected me from birth? I will respect that to you your ways are right. But I will not change who I am to conform to what you think I should be. 

Where are you from?

'Where are you from?' is probably the most dreaded question ever to be asked to a TCK. A question that comes so easily to others doesn't come so easily to us. A sense of dooming dread washes over us as if we were being marched to our death. At least that is the way it feels to me. 'I don't know', is the answer you want to give them, 'does it really matter, I am right here right now in this moment' is another one. I find myself just asking the person where they are from because I know that their answer is probably going to be much less complicated than mine. And I have even gone so far as to ask them multiple questions about their childhood home and the city or state they live in now just to avoid answering the question that was asked to me. Was I being rude? Not really, I wanted to know about where they grew up and the horse that lived down the street in the pasture by the stream. If I had answered their question I would probably take 20 minutes just to answer what normally would be a 1 min answer. There is never an easy way to answer such a question. I just go with what I feel on the inside which is Japanese. If I said India, which is what I look like on the outside and what is the most judged by everyone, then they would ask me question about a culture I really don't know much of. I only lived there till I was 2 and my upbringing wasn't surrounded by Indian culture. I get judged by other Indian people because I am Indian but I married a person outside of my race. My husband is white and our children are mixed with varying degrees of tan colors between them. In Indian culture it is not completely accepted to marry outside your race but I am not really from India. I was just born there. I went back to India when I was 20 but felt like a complete tourist and relied on my parents knowledge and understanding of how to conduct myself while I was there. No one paid any attention to me. I was mistaken for my parents translator while I was there because I was Indian and my parents are white. It was truly a culture shock to my system and after our vacation in India my parents and I went back home to Japan. I suffered from severe reverse culture shock. I was home. Safe in the environment I felt comfortable in. I was surrounded by a language I understood and an understanding of things where what they were supposed to be. And to make matters worse I then left home and went back to the US a week later. It took months to get over the shock of going to India and then back to America having to deal with two utter different culture shocks. I went from this

To this

And then back home

I learned to appreciate home. It didn't matter what people thought of me. The outward me. I knew where I had come from and the support and love that got me home. I know that it doesn't matter how I explain my TCK life to someone who will only nod and say I understand, when actually they won't. I know that my heart belongs to Japan. That my life was changed living there. And I appreciate the life I lived there. So now when asked I ask them 'Do you want the long version or short version?' The long version is the pictures you see. The short version is Japan and leave it at that. If they choose to judge me because I don't look Japanese. Then that is up to them. I know where I am from. I can tell you how I got there. But it is difficult for a non TCK to truly understand the power of those words. "Where are you from"?

Gather around the dinner table

No matter what country you live in, no matter where you live, there is one thing we all have in common. We eat. We gather around with friends or family in our homes or a social gathering and we eat. To be truthful, I am a picky eater. I wasn't so much as a child but as an adult I am. Since I am allergic to bell peppers, the one vegetable my Mother absolutely loves it does make choosing what to eat a little difficult. But regardless I love all types of cuisine. If you are a someone who is adventurous with their food and are willing to give anything a try I tip my hat to you. The majority of people are not that way. I grew up eating all different kinds of cuisine. Of course starting out in India I ate Indian food. In the states I ate American food and of course moving to Japan we ate Japanese food. But I actually can't remember a lot of my childhood in California about what we ate. I know my Mother was very strict and made sure we always ate healthy and we almost never got dessert. I remember the day we left to go to Japan. My Dad had gone ahead of us to start his job and secure housing and get the details of living there worked out. My parents are Brent and Sandy Rogers. They were missionaries in India and now in Japan. They always knew that being a missionary was something that they wanted to do with their lives. And trust me it is a full time commitment. Most people don't really understand that to be a missionary takes a lot of sacrifice and being able to let go of what you want to do. But that is for another day.

The day we left I knew we were leaving America but I wasn't sad or upset about it. I was excited to go. I was of course sad to leave my friends but I didn't think much of what I would be losing or if I was even losing anything. It was more of an adventure that I couldn't wait to start. I was really looking forward to seeing my Dad again. I can remember being on the plane back when they used to serve peanuts and the food was actually pretty good. It was a long boring 14 hour flight and my Mother was stressed and tired. Who wouldn't be after dealing with a 8 and 10 year old. Yes, I have an older brother but I can't speak for his thoughts on the matter. After going through customs and making sure our dog was squared away in quarantine, we were on our way home to see my Dad. Yes, we brought our big dog with us. She was part of our family and we couldn't leave her behind. After 3 train rides to our final destination, Kojima in Okayama prefecture, my Dad was waiting for us. It was of course dark out and difficult to see the new surroundings. My Mother was tired, actually exhausted. She of course cried...who wouldn't after dealing with all of that mess and two kids? Because of the time difference we got home around 7pm. And the first thing after my Dad offered us a glass of water was " Are you hungry"? Of course we were. The plane meal had long worn off and so off we went. My Dad took me with him to go get our first experience of food in Japan. I rode on his handle bars b/c I was petite and small when I was a kid. I still am...only got to be 5ft tall. Anyway, our first experience was this hamburger place called Moss Burger. And to this day I crave it. When I call and talk to my Mother on the phone..I tell her I am craving a Moss Burger hamburger and end of flinging a craving on her. It holds a special place in my family's heart. It is not a typical American hamburger but it is what my Dad thought was a healthy close alternative to what we thought were hamburgers. I think we all thought he was going to secretly grab some baby octopus from the fridge and feed it to us that first night. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I happen to love them after all this time.

Let Us Get Acquainted

After many years of struggling and trying to figure out where I belong and of course after talking to my Mother the other night...I decided that I would start a blog. I am by nature a private and very reserved person. But that being said I decided that if I could find help or help someone else with the struggles of Finding Home why not give it a shot, right? What do you mean by Finding Home? Most people know where they are from. The state or country they were born in, the hospital or even for those born at home, the room. But there are others who can't figure out which country we belong to. Those people are considered to be Third Culture Kids. TCK are people who have parents from one country but grew up in a completely different country from the one their parents were raised in. Therefore, having the mannerisms and identification to that particular country and their culture and way of life. And when the time comes that we leave the country we grew up in and identify with, we struggle with living in any other country. It can be confusing, I know. I will give you an example and I took this confusion to the another level. I am Indian. Asian Indian. I lived in India till I was 2 when we moved to California. Then when I was 8 my family moved to Japan. Which is the country I consider Home.

When I was 13 we moved back to the US living there for 4 years before my parents and I moved back to Japan. Which I stayed for a year before moving back to the US when I was 19 where I have lived since then. Confused yet? Me too! Truthfully I was never comfortable and still am not comfortable in the US but this is where I have chosen to live. I have a family here. A wonderful and very understanding husband and three beautiful children. I am thankful for my life that I have been blessed with. For the opportunities to live outside of the normal (whatever normal is) upbringing. As for my wonderful parents? The still live in Japan and will continue to do so until God tells them not to. 

Oh and did I mention the reason for all the moving around is because my parents are missionaries? I live in a confused world in my brain. I suffer greatly from missing my home, my culture, my understanding of how the world should be. I feel lonely and isolated at times. Mostly due to the fact that I actually can't relate to people who have lived in one place their whole life. I can't imagine what is would be like to only have moved one time in your life. To actually be able to go back to the house you grew up in from birth to graduation. To take your children to the house that was once occupied by yourself. Do I wish that I had that? Not really. I am proud that my parents decided that my childhood be filled with adventure for me. I can't imagine having it any other way. But like those around me who struggle with different aspects in their life...this is what I struggle with. But I know I am not alone in this struggle. There are a lot of others out there that may be struggling with finding their home. With finding a way to keep the ever tipping balance between two cultures. How does one actually keep the two straight and is it even possible to even do so?