Dear readers,
Good morning. A language topic in an expat forum inspired me to write the following lines.
Please allow me share my story, maybe even interesting for linguists:
I am born in a country, lets call it Moon, as the second son of two expats who left their home country, lets call it Sun, for good. Actually they just got to know each other after they already settled in Moon and I was born with the Sun citizenship. My family got the Moon citizenship when I was in the age of 3 and we had to quit our Sun citizenship.
Each year for the summer holidays, we visited our relatives in Sun, and in childhood my brother and me even have been able to socialize with other kids who just spoke Sun language. Still this was not convincing enough for my brother an me, to adapt the language spoken by our parents. We socialized in the Moon society and with the years our capability of expressing ourselves in the Sun language was getting weaker. Moreover, what I also learned from similar case families, me and my brother denied requests of our parents in Sun language and we only followed our parents requests, after they repeated them in Moon language. Somehow our parents did not try to change this. They continued talking to each other in Sun language but when it came to interaction with me and my brother, they also learned Moon language.
Meanwhile I started to learn a new language in school, lets call it Earth language, starting from the age of 10. This was given by the education system and mandatory. I am still using Earth language each and every day.
This was the situation of my childhood, my teenager times and when I started to work. Today I learned the place where you spend those years, you will call home.
In the age of 30, I had the idea to extend my growing work experience with a international job. It was planned to be at last 1 but maximum 2 years. I found a job very fast in Sun country, where I did not need to know the local Sun language, but I could use the Moon language, as all colleagues were in need to speak Moon. That was a customer request and mandatory for the job.
As I have seen Sun country each summer holidays and I have heard the Sun language at home passively. I had knowledge of the language that was not activated. The last time I have been in Sun country before I moved there, I met my grandma who still was alive that time and I only could say the sentence in native Sun: “Hi Granny, I cannot talk any Sun” and we smiled and hugged each other.
So I moved to Sun country, leaving my brother and my parents in Moon country, and started to work and socialize there. In the beginning I could integrate very well with colleagues who spoke Sun but also Moon, and so I started to learn more words in Sun. With other local Sun people I used the Earth language, as there also started to be a knowledge of Earth in the Sun country.
For the first 5 years I did not realize how time passed. One day I said to my boss at work: Do you remember the interview? I wanted to stay for one or two years, and now it is 5 years. He smiled. He was also living in Moon country for half of his life and returned not much longer ago, than me, but he socialized in his childhood in both countries. It was a great time and it was like that for the next 5 years.
Through one of my colleagues, I got friends with a small community, who had a similar but different childhood. They got socialized in a country, lets call it Air. In Air country, there have been many more native Sun people, so they had a Sun community already in their childhood, even an Air/Sun school education. Unluckily the Air society was often bullying the Sun people in their country, so those friends did not feel well in their home and they left Air country in order to find a more peaceful life in Sun country. For me I was integrated in Moon country with different people. Most interesting for me was a sentence by a Moon friend of mine, with whom I am still in contact until today and we talk regularly on the phone: “I do not understand you, for me you are 100% Moon.”
After 10 years in Sun country I spoke the language in an interesting way: From my dialect nearly no-one was able to tell where I am from, they even guessed that I am from the country side of Sun country or even from Air country. I was living in the capitol of Sun. Some who have relatives like our family in Moon country could understand and guess, that my home is Moon. In official situations, for example in the city hall or at the public transport company, I was often shouted at in an unfriendly way. They started to state and they still state until today, I would not respect them, why do I use these words in an official conversation?
After those 10 years being settled in Sun, I did only do 6 hours of learning Sun in a private one-to-one session with a teacher who teaches Sun, Moon, Earth and who is from Air country. We found one mistake that I have never been aware of: I could not distinguish between the formal way of saying you to an individual and the formal way saying you to an organization. In Moon there is only one formal word that is the same for individuals and organizations, in Earth there is literally no real formal way, that’s why Earth always raised my sympathy as it sounded more personal and friendly to me.
The misunderstandings did not get less, but more. Nearly every day when I needed to deal with new people they seemed to put me in a pattern that is the same as someone who raised and socialized in Sun country with Sun culture. My name is even a common 100% Sun name. First name as Last name.
After 13 years I was close to leave the Sun country to discover other places like Saturn, Jupiter or Venus, which I still keep as an option. But after 50 years of staying in Moon country my parents settled back to their roots to Sun country. Unluckily in the same year my beloved brother died in Moon country, he was buried also in Sun country in the same grave as my Granny, who always lived in Sun.
Soon I might celebrate 17 years of Sun country residency and my situation is the following: In order to avoid a conflict in any situation with new Sun people, I must introduce myself as a foreigner, and if I get the possibility and respect of people to talk either Earth or Moon, then there is never any conflict. If they know my background and I start to talk Sun, then they always say the same: “Your Sun is very good”. Still I emphatically feel that after starting the topic of the conversation, they feel hurt, even if I have no intention to hurt them. I just like to be friendly and polite and of course respect them. The structure and tone of how I used to form Sun sentence is influenced by my Moon culture. Remember, my friend states I am 100% Moon. And then I carry a 100% Sun name and talk like a person from the countryside of Sun.
As I could better socialize with people with similar backgrounds, I often try to encourage expat friends, to be happy to not understand the local language in Sun. It could be very rude, which I never heard in my family in Moon country or when we visited Sun for holidays. Actually the reason why I use the expressins Earth, Sun, Moon and Air, are important as in any place you will get into a similar situation. People who have expectations will put you in that drawer, before you can explain them this long and complex topic. And as you know in a capitol there is often no patience. In countries like Sun, only 10% of different cultures live and cultural intelligence is still evolving.
And I also want to state that there are great things why to live in Sun country, as there have been in Moon, but I never considered yet to return to a life in Moon. It is about how you look at the things. It is good to have no expectations. I learned a lot about Non Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.
If you ask a question to any Earth, Sun, Moon or Air person, best to be open for any answer.
Just listen if the person will say something or not, try to think how you feel with the answer, or how you feel if there is no answer.
Explain them what YOU understood, what did their reaction tell YOU.
Explain them how YOU feel with this reaction, maybe you could say: I did not see a reaction and I feel irritated.
After that you can tell them what YOU think they could do, for you, for themselves or for others.
And then just state why this would be good for YOU, how would YOU feel if they would do this or that, or say this or that.
I work at a new job for 6 weeks, probation period 50% :)
The company is a Sun daughter of an international Moon company with 100.000 colleagues in the universe :)
Overall 90% Sun people and many other different cultures, they practice cultural intelligence and diversity on a very high level.
I am in a team with 7 colleagues:
The boss is Sun and studied in Moon, her Earth is very good, she speaks also very good Moon.
The mini boss is Sun and lived 2 years in Fire, his Earth is very good, he speaks also Moon, did not try yet.
The team leader is Sun and lived 1 years in an Earth country, his Earth is very good, he speaks also little Moon, did not try yet.
My colleague I will work with closer is Sun and only traveled once in his life abroad with work, his knowledge of Earth could be stronger, instead he is highly skilled to express himself in Sun, I learn a lot of new words from him when we talk Sun. He says instead of improving his Earth he would like to reactivate his Moon :)
One colleague is Sun and I do not know the background, her Earth is quite good but she is more quiet.
Another colleague is Venus and she speaks of course very good Earth as she lives already for 8 years in Sun. She did not yet learn to speak Sun, she still thinks that it would be good.
For me it was a criteria, that the team could be more diverse but in the end I said I try to adapt to the situation with so much Sun Power :)
I do not feel home yet but I am getting there.
Anyway I need to go to work. Wish you a happy week and I hope I could inspire you a little bit with my story, it was good for myself to think and write about this.
