Q.  Where are you from?

A.  I think every third-culture or multi-culture kid struggles with answering this question.  Sometimes I say I’m from Hong Kong, other times from Canada, and occasionally California.  You see, I was born in California on independence day.  A year later, my family moved to Macau, which is a small island by Hong Kong.  Two years later, we went to Canada.  That’s where I spent my grade school years, and that’s also where I picked up my English.  I think Canada had the biggest role in shaping me into who I am today.  I lived in Toronto for five years, and then I moved to a small town in Alberta called Medicine Hat for two.  After that, I was off to Hong Kong where I spent eight years adjusting to a new culture.  I attended an international school based on the Canadian curriculum because my Chinese was too poor.  There was no way I could adjust to the local school system in time.  Then just recently, I came to Calvin.  So now I’m back from where I started!  That’s a really long answer for a simple question.  Now you know why third/multi-cultural kids grin whenever you ask :-)