Identity

I've never thought about my identity before. I thought it was clear that i am not American or Malaysian. I lived in the country where i was born and i also spoke the same language as others, ate the same food. But only my ethnic background which is often questioned at the first encounter. Once a lady thought that i was an expat when i had lunch with my Australian friend in Jakarta. I was thought as Moroccan.

However, the question of who i am has been spinning around in my head since i've been living in Australia for 5 years. Here, people will ask what is your nationality if you do have different accent (funnily enough, some people recognise my Aussie accent in my english even though i tried to hide it by saying bollocks all the time, but yeah woteva mate!). If your accent and skin colour are not too distinctive compared to Anglo-Saxon Australian then people like to know whether you have Greek, Italian, and Croatian heritage.

In multicultural society like Australia, identity is very complex. What is called Australian is hard to define although a power walk and track-suit lover Howard suggests 'mateship' as a typical characteristic of Australian identity. Australian born but have middle-eastern background who were involved in the Cronulla riot will insist that they are Australian despite defamation against their ethnic backgrounds. If they don't drink Victoria Bitter but love to sunbathing on the beach, have an existential relationship with their thongs, have a Vegemite for breakfast, would Alan Jones and John Howard call them Australians? I doubt it! I also doubt it if he lived during 19th century, Cecil Rhodes would think of him as part of superior race, unless you were from respectable class in Britain.

Difference is perhaps the key why the issue of identity comes to the fore. By noticing and then maintaining the difference between 'US' and others, it is enough to create the wall amongst human race even though they live under the same roof.

I felt a bit lost when i go back to Jakarta. My friends thought that i was different. I was more like any other expats that they've met or seen. My gesture? Not sure. Maybe the way i am thinking? Or my life style? I could not answer them all because i am afraid of being seen different and i therefore dread to be myself. But i honestly think that i sometimes feel the loss when i go back to Jakarta. After few weeks, i began to realise that the space that i used to be familiar with seemed to be foreign to me. I got up in the morning and expected to have a walk along the shopping strip at Newtown and have a sip of latte and a plate of Turkish bread with vegetables and melted cheese. But these are found in another land which is approximately 6000 miles away. The loss is more than food and coffee. It is more about my existence. It is about the question of being.

Existence has a close tie with identity and space. You would not feel awkward in the morning once the foreign space has been filled up with your routine. Having blended into local culture may perhaps help in diffusing the cultural differences.