From time to time, specially when I am at this place I proudly call my hometown, I would think about the meaning of home. For the likes of me, the word 'home' could be the starting point of an interesting and long-winded discussion, and would then proceed to other mundane topics like the meaning of life (I prescribe to Monty Python's interpretation in case you are wondering, so that question has been answered for me). For us, home is not easily defined nor identifiable. We are the people who are at home anywhere in the world, and yet, precisely because of that, we are tied to none.
When I say the likes of me, what I mean are those fellow ex-boarders who left home at the age of 13 to go live with their peers from all around the country. I am not saying all ex-boarders are as screwed up as we are. No, some ex-boarders turned out exactly like our Orwellian government intended us to be (come to think of it, maybe WE are the results they intended and not vice versa, hmm, trust my old paranoia to kick in). Good or bad, I am not one to judge.
Having left home at such a young age and having spent our formative years with people from the same age group, we learned to be emotionally independent (although of course the first few days at the hostel were spent glued to the public phones bawling our eyes out begging our parents to come pick us up), and we learned the intricacies of friendship. Living together with about 200 other girls was no joke. Had I paid more attention to the politics, I could probably be a shrewd politician today (there goes my career in politics eh Idlan? lain konteks sama maksud ni, boleh kot apply? hehe). Friends became substitute for family, for they stuck with you through your years of teenage angst, and being teenagers themselves, accept your emotional rants as normal. Well maybe not 'normal', but they accept it as part of who you are. Without question.
And thus, we became emotionally independent from our families. Not to say that we cut ties from our families. Being Asians, being Malays, and being Muslims, and of course, being products of boarding schools in the sense that there's always that desire to excel in life (and not be failures in any way possible although glitches are considered normal), we dutifully make that journey back to our parent's home from time to time. We try our best to be filial children and accommodate to our parents wishes (maybe this doesn't really apply to me come to think of it). Most of us ex-boarders never fail to make our parents proud of us, although at times in worryingly unconventional ways.
Being emotionally independent has its uses. If you haven't seen your mom on a daily basis for the past 5 years, what's another 6 at a Uni away from home? And then what's another god-knows-how-long in another different city for you to pursue your career? And the ultimate is of course when you get on that plane to fly halfway around the world and have no idea when you'll come home for good. Or if you ever will.
We then went to Uni and make another batch of friends from around the country. At this point, having at least one friend from your hometown is considered a bonus. I don't know, maybe
As a result, most of us do not really have friends from our own hometown. We make that dutiful journey home to spend time with our family, and apart from that, if your hometown doesn't happen to be happenin' KL y'all, there's not much action as rest assured that most of your friends, exes, foes, lovers, haters, from boarding school AND from Uni, would be roosting there. Through my conversations with friends, I find that most of us experienced the same thing when we visit our parents. There would be days when the only time we stepped out of the house was just to hang the laundry or take out the garbage. Our moms wanted us to be home, and hey, they got their wishes. Our life at our hometown would really revolve around the family, we go out to visit uncles and aunties, to chauffeur our parents or grandparents around, we tag along when our parents do their groceries shopping, and we go to eat out with our families though we have no idea which place is good.
Our hometowns thus become that place where we spent our childhood and where our families reside now. We recognize certain landmarks which evoke certain childhood memories, but that's about it. Our hometowns now serve as museums to us, and coming from a place which city centre is chock full of museums of any kind, I certainly appreciate the irony. There is nothing there for us save for our families. And although we can always make that journey home for good and settle there, most of us need the bright lights and fast pace of big cities to function. And for people like me, we always want to keep our hometown different from where we reside, just for that novelty of being able to escape to the bosom of your family when you are troubled (or in serious trouble). Also, after so long of keeping your families at an arm's distance, most of us can't really deal with living in so close a proximity to them.
Not to say that we do not love our families, we do. Of course we do. We do in our weird little ways.
And thus that explains why you can't really give directions around your own hometown (I gave directions to a friend and out of caution I called my mom to check, and of course, I was giving my friend the wrong direction), or tell people where are the best places to eat and drink. When you are home, you eat at home and rarely have any interest to eat out unless of course, you are going for seafood at Umbai. Now, THAT is a place I know how to go to (although I need to check the direction with my mom first, you know, just in case).
Having been away from our families since we were 13, we also find it easy to relocate. We rarely tie ourselves down to a particular place. That place where we spent 5 years at and then dispersed was just boarding school, that place where we spent 6 years at and then dispersed was just uni, that place where we spent 1 year working was just a transit while we ponder our next move. In fact, every place served as mere transits because we knew we would leave. I am amused at friends who ended up living and working in the same town where they went to school or uni. Kajang as I remember was a small town close enough to KL and barely able to satisfy our needs. Bangi was just that suburb which was slightly better than Shah Alam, at least it didn't have as many confusing roundabouts, I don't know now though. Skudai was a different animal altogether, the people there scared me initially, though during the time when I was almost done with my studies, Starbucks opened their first branch there, and therefore, Skudai had arrived. JB was made up of peculiar people, though of course my JB friends are different. In terms of the daily on-goings, all these places numbed my senses. JB has its quirkiness which made it kind of fun when you were there after a while but not enough to make me stay. Therefore, the amusement I feel when friends decided to settle in those places. And then of course, the extremes are those who grew up, went to school, went to uni, got married and settled down in the same bloody town. These people I sometimes playfully and openly mock, although they are probably scratching their heads looking at my nomadic life and wondering what the hell is it am I looking for shuffling from one place to another?
Where is home then? Is it where our parents live though we barely feel any actual tie to the place itself? Is it where we went to school although we spent every semester shuffling from one dormitory to another, and our perception of that place was confined to the compound of the school? Is it where we went to Uni though we knew since day one we wouldn't want to stay? Is it where our friends we accumulate from school and uni live and work? Is it where we live now though we don't know how long we'll be there? Or is it that place we have yet to live at?
I left home when I was 13. I am now 26 years old. I have been away from my family for 13 years. 13 years is not a short while. A lot had and could happen in 13 years.
I always feel comfortable wherever I go, because adaptation is one of the useful skills the likes of me learned as a boarder. Though it is liberating to know that we are so mobile that given the chance we could easily uproot ourselves and explore a new place, it is also somewhat unsettling to feel at the same time that we are rootless.
So where is home then? Perhaps it is not a place, but rather an ideal we bring with us no matter where we go. Perhaps home is that comforting knowledge that no matter where we are in the world, we still have our families and friends who love and care about us whom we can always visit. Perhaps it is knowing that although we can't call a particular spot our home, the whole country and what it is made up of then, is home. Perhaps to feel at home is to make peace with ourselves and the reason why we struggle is the reason why we feel unsettled.
They say home is where the heart is. I agree. And we, the likes of me, we take our hearts with us wherever we go (the likes of me are also terrible at maintaining relationships come to think of it, and thus we always wrench our hearts back from those who have managed to steal them), and so our homes are with us, always.
Picture credit to the talented
Din Dang.
