What does a young man who grew up in Japan look like?

Our eldest son mentioned to me that he's had some interesting reactions to people in Australia finding out where he grew up. Mostly people don't guess that he grew up outside Australia. For one person, however, it went the other way—she'd been told about him and that he was "from Japan", perhaps even "a missionary kid from Japan", but was surprised to find that he was Australian. I'm not sure what she expected, or for that matter, what anyone expects.

Sometimes when we're in Australia it feels like we're a zoo exhibit. "Come and look at this rare species: the missionary family from Japan." My kids have never said that, but I wonder. People wonder what kind of weird we'll be, they invite their kids over to meet the missionary kids. I've had people wonder why I don't have an accent (to which I point out that I do . . . if I'm speaking Japanese words known to Australians, like "kimono", "karate", or "Kyoto").

I found this at a homeware store yesterday.
We've always said, when we're travelling,
that "home is where your toothbrush is".
But home is especially where
those you love are. This, of course,
is messy when your loved ones are
scattered about.

"From Japan" is a funny label that we get slapped with. Because, just like "home", where we are "from" is complex. Our youngest was introduced as "from Japan" when he first went to kindergarten in Australia. No other parents talked to us for months until he finally got an invite to a party and we had opportunity to explain what "from Japan" meant in our case. They thought that their four-year-olds were telling weird stories and they didn't know what to do with our obviously non-Asian faces.

But it has been interesting to watch our eldest son try to figure out what home means. Up until he left home to go to university last February, it was pretty simple. Home was where we were, though that got stretched a little whenever we were in Australia on home assignment. 

Last year, when we were in Australia for six months, he didn't spend as much time with us as we'd anticipated. The house we were living in didn't represent home to him, but later in the year he realised that "home" was really more about the people he felt most at home with rather than the place. And that even though the context was unfamiliar, he felt more at home with us than anywhere else.

Then he visited us in Japan a few weeks ago. Back in the house and context where he'd lived from 2010 to 2018. That really felt like home. Back in his old bed, old routines. Though there were some key things missing, like most of his friends from those years.

So yes, it's messy. Our lives are messy, if you view them through certain monocultural lenses. But we're actually pretty comfortable with our oddities. Perhaps in Japan it is just normal to be odd, as an expat. It's in Australia that we feel more uncomfortable, especially as we have to go around talking about the oddities of what our lives look like.