Identity Crisis, Or Just Another Dream?

Waking up from a dream this morning, instead of springing out of bed and getting ready for my morning exercise, I just lay in bed, didn’t want to move. My mind couldn’t wake up from my dream. This world I woke up to suddenly felt very strange to me.

“This is not real!” I was muttering to the man lying next to me.

In my dream, I was in China. I was a friend of my ex-boyfriend, his wife and his family. I paid a visit to his place as I wanted to know how they got on with their baby. I found out that both he and his wife had gone to work but his mother was there. She told me that one of his childhood friend (also my childhood friend) offered to take the baby to daycare and pick her up every day as my ex and his wife led a very busy life. She said that she went to their place during the day to help tidying up the house. She also asked me how my parents were in a very kind way… Later in my dream I was with my parents in my hometown. I met some other childhood friends on the street as I greeted them with a casual ‘hi’ as they cycled past by.

What confused me was: Could this dream be a reality while this man lying next to me, this house in Greenlane and my job in Public Trust were a big illusion? I asked myself. I asked out loud so hubby could hear me. In my dream, I lived in a extended family environment where everyone knew everyone and everyone looked after everyone. There were no barriers and people were naturally connected. The life in my dream felt more real, natural and perfect. In fact, this very life in my dream could have easily been available to me, had I not married a Kiwi husband and moved to New Zealand with him. The life portrayed in my dream was the alternative life I could have had had I not met my Kiwi husband by accident.

“We can always go back and live in China.” Hubby said, understandingly. He gathered I must be home sick.

Was I home sick? I asked myself. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it was more than just being home sick. Maybe it was not home sick at all. Maybe it was just a sudden crisis of feeling the loss of self-identity as I woke up to find that I had no real sense of belonging here. Where’s my root? I asked myself. My root was certainly not in Auckland, neither was it in Wellington or Napier where I lived. I had no childhood friends here as I did not receive my primary or secondary education on this land. By the time I got to know everyone, I was already stamped as a "Chinese married to a Kiwi”. My entire life here, my identity and my self-worth... all seemed to revolve around my marriage hence the reason why I am living here.

With this thought I felt a sudden shivering in my mind. What if I have to live a life of my own one day? Would I still feel the same entrenchment to this land? I remembered what my Asian girlfriend had to say recently when her Kiwi husband told her that their marriage was over. She said to him that her only purpose of living in New Zealand was because of him. Would I say the same thing if I was put in the same situation?

Any Chinese immigrant would know what “banana” means. Banana – yellow outside and white inside, describes how it feels for a yellow-skinned person living in a white society. You speak their language, eat their food, mow the lawns at weekend, abide by their law and live a life like most white people do, yet deep down you know your root is not here and no matter how many years you have lived on this land you know you are never part of ‘them’ in a true sense. On the other hand, when these ‘bananas’ go back to their home land to live, they no longer find their sense of familiarity and belonging either – so much of them and so much within them have changed that, instead of finding 'home' on either side they find themselves permanently in a state of ‘in-between’, floating.

Where am I? Who am I? Where is my home? Where do I belong?