Hey all,
My friend has told me that in order to improve my blog I should focus more on myself as a whole rather than only my passions.
I reflected upon this and so decided that one blog entry on my life in general wouldn't hurt.
Well, where can I start? I was born in Italy and lived there till I was ten. Once I had finished elementary school, I moved to India. Yes, that was quite a shock. The reason for the shift is very basic and common: my family and I followed my dad and his job.
I believe many people do not fully understand the meaning of moving to another country. They often ask which school you go to, what language you learnt to speak etc etc., but it is REALLY much more than those things. It is about adapting, fitting in and the struggle of that progress.
So here I was, young and still beautifully ignorant about the world, in a strange land, with a different culture and a different language. It wasn't easy to learn English, to adjust, to understand people with a different mindset and to get used to the traffic and the cows on the road. (which I really like now).
For the first few months in India I was completely clueless - I hid behind my parent's shield ignoring the new world around me. When I was with them, I ate my food, I spoke my language and I felt somewhat at home. Soon came the bad phase - the one where I tremendously longed for my Italian life, the smell of the city I lived in, the food I ate, my friends, my customs, the places I used to go to and my school. I missed EVERYTHING. I cried at school because I often could not understand what anyone was trying to say to me and, even worse, I was incapable of expressing myself or communicating. This does not mean that I had no friends: a lot of girls in my class, in fact, approached me and got close to me on my first day in my new school. I was still frustrated and helpless.
But everything changes, life goes on and I truly understood the meaning of learning from all your worse times. This is because, even though I stayed up nights making my mom translate my school textbooks, I learnt English, I made friends, I understood my new friends' mentality and I adjusted to all the differences. Instead of looking down at the way society was structured in India and getting shocked by my friends' habits; I understood them and accepted them. I understood that when I went to my friend's place for a sleepover, the environment would be completely different; I understood that they had a cook and maids and that the maid slept in the house because that was the norm. That was what they were used to, just like I was used to having only a baby- sitter who cleaned the house and took care of me once in a while in Italy.
Moreover, when I go back to Italy for the holidays, I get to experience another atmosphere. I get to have a view of both the cultures, both the youths and both the mentalities. The way my Italian friends speak, is very different from the way my Indian friends speak (not just in terms of language, but in terms of expressing themselves generally); they way they interact with each other and with their parents is different; the way they think is different and the way they see things is different. But let me not get too much in the details of how different India is from Italy, rather let's get back to my response to all these above.
I often find myself stuck somewhere I cannot to name. When I go back to Italy, it is a bit hard to fit in, but eventually I feel COMPLETELY at home and don't want to leave; when i am in India I still sometime just want to scream because of the way I am so foreign towards a lot of things, however not too long ago I put on a dancing saree, a lot of jewels and performed a bharathnatyam dance. What's more, I found the dance form beautiful and expressive. My confusion, my adjustments and my glimpses at both the nationalities have made me a bigger person. I have grown the ability to analyse the reasons as to why something is different in Italy and I have learnt to adapt and accept.
Though it is acutely hard to be in the position I have just described, it has opened my mind and helped me to become a citizen of the world. It has given me an opportunity to discover things about myself, to have a balanced opinion about global issues and to be able to live anywhere I want in the future.
Of course, it took a while to understand how much moving to India has given me. It took a while to grow, to mature up and to comprehend what was happening around me. India has given me a lot of opportunities: going to an international school and being even more multi-cultural, being able to work with underprivileged kids, going to dance and drama classes, learning English and most importantly respecting everyone around me. I respect the people working in the slums next to my house while I wait for my school bus, I respect my school bus driver, I respect my teachers and I respect my friends and their parents. Obviously, I don't like the system and the society that has forced me into diving them as I just did above.
I have seen equality and inequality, I have seen white and black, I have seen respect and disrespect. I am who I am today because of what I've seen. It was shocking to suddenly think one day: 'I am one of those - one of those who are different, one of those who can speak another language and one of those who don't come from or live in the place they are. Those who are out of the norm.'
To conclude I would like to say something simple: as much as I have become attached to India (I even find myself confusing Indian and Italian hand gestures), there is nothing like home. There is nothing like hearing people around you talking your language and nothing like walking down streets you are emotionally familiar with.
I hope readers won't misunderstand this post. and I am so sure that in ten minutes I will be regretting not writing something.
To next Thursday!
Giorgia Valenti
My friend has told me that in order to improve my blog I should focus more on myself as a whole rather than only my passions.
I reflected upon this and so decided that one blog entry on my life in general wouldn't hurt.
Well, where can I start? I was born in Italy and lived there till I was ten. Once I had finished elementary school, I moved to India. Yes, that was quite a shock. The reason for the shift is very basic and common: my family and I followed my dad and his job.
I believe many people do not fully understand the meaning of moving to another country. They often ask which school you go to, what language you learnt to speak etc etc., but it is REALLY much more than those things. It is about adapting, fitting in and the struggle of that progress.
So here I was, young and still beautifully ignorant about the world, in a strange land, with a different culture and a different language. It wasn't easy to learn English, to adjust, to understand people with a different mindset and to get used to the traffic and the cows on the road. (which I really like now).
For the first few months in India I was completely clueless - I hid behind my parent's shield ignoring the new world around me. When I was with them, I ate my food, I spoke my language and I felt somewhat at home. Soon came the bad phase - the one where I tremendously longed for my Italian life, the smell of the city I lived in, the food I ate, my friends, my customs, the places I used to go to and my school. I missed EVERYTHING. I cried at school because I often could not understand what anyone was trying to say to me and, even worse, I was incapable of expressing myself or communicating. This does not mean that I had no friends: a lot of girls in my class, in fact, approached me and got close to me on my first day in my new school. I was still frustrated and helpless.
But everything changes, life goes on and I truly understood the meaning of learning from all your worse times. This is because, even though I stayed up nights making my mom translate my school textbooks, I learnt English, I made friends, I understood my new friends' mentality and I adjusted to all the differences. Instead of looking down at the way society was structured in India and getting shocked by my friends' habits; I understood them and accepted them. I understood that when I went to my friend's place for a sleepover, the environment would be completely different; I understood that they had a cook and maids and that the maid slept in the house because that was the norm. That was what they were used to, just like I was used to having only a baby- sitter who cleaned the house and took care of me once in a while in Italy.
Moreover, when I go back to Italy for the holidays, I get to experience another atmosphere. I get to have a view of both the cultures, both the youths and both the mentalities. The way my Italian friends speak, is very different from the way my Indian friends speak (not just in terms of language, but in terms of expressing themselves generally); they way they interact with each other and with their parents is different; the way they think is different and the way they see things is different. But let me not get too much in the details of how different India is from Italy, rather let's get back to my response to all these above.
I often find myself stuck somewhere I cannot to name. When I go back to Italy, it is a bit hard to fit in, but eventually I feel COMPLETELY at home and don't want to leave; when i am in India I still sometime just want to scream because of the way I am so foreign towards a lot of things, however not too long ago I put on a dancing saree, a lot of jewels and performed a bharathnatyam dance. What's more, I found the dance form beautiful and expressive. My confusion, my adjustments and my glimpses at both the nationalities have made me a bigger person. I have grown the ability to analyse the reasons as to why something is different in Italy and I have learnt to adapt and accept.
Though it is acutely hard to be in the position I have just described, it has opened my mind and helped me to become a citizen of the world. It has given me an opportunity to discover things about myself, to have a balanced opinion about global issues and to be able to live anywhere I want in the future.
Of course, it took a while to understand how much moving to India has given me. It took a while to grow, to mature up and to comprehend what was happening around me. India has given me a lot of opportunities: going to an international school and being even more multi-cultural, being able to work with underprivileged kids, going to dance and drama classes, learning English and most importantly respecting everyone around me. I respect the people working in the slums next to my house while I wait for my school bus, I respect my school bus driver, I respect my teachers and I respect my friends and their parents. Obviously, I don't like the system and the society that has forced me into diving them as I just did above.
I have seen equality and inequality, I have seen white and black, I have seen respect and disrespect. I am who I am today because of what I've seen. It was shocking to suddenly think one day: 'I am one of those - one of those who are different, one of those who can speak another language and one of those who don't come from or live in the place they are. Those who are out of the norm.'
To conclude I would like to say something simple: as much as I have become attached to India (I even find myself confusing Indian and Italian hand gestures), there is nothing like home. There is nothing like hearing people around you talking your language and nothing like walking down streets you are emotionally familiar with.
I hope readers won't misunderstand this post. and I am so sure that in ten minutes I will be regretting not writing something.
To next Thursday!
Giorgia Valenti
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