Home and Away: A Sense of Belonging

ALYCE PHOU PYI SONE

I was nineteen when I stepped off the plane into Sydney from Singapore, and the contrast was stark. Sydney Airport felt almost quaint after the sprawling, sleek efficiency of Changi. The air was crisper, cooler, as if the city itself took deeper breaths. I remember the immediate and unfamiliar breeze as I stepped outside, a far cry from the humid air of Singapore. The sky seemed brighter, bluer, but the streets looked quieter, emptier. My last glance of Singapore had been all towering buildings, gleaming glass, and bustling crowds. Here, there was a spaciousness to everything, a calmness I wasn’t used to. I felt ready to take on the challenges of acclimating to new surroundings on my own, and ready for the inevitable awkwardness that comes with starting over in a new country.

          What I hadn’t anticipated, and what no one truly warns you about, is how you slowly become a stranger to every place you called home.

          I spent my first year in Macquarie University isolating myself, I was desperate to find my place and I was drowning in my sense of non-belonging. I accepted a job at Papparich, a Malaysian restaurant, because it was the closest thing I could find to the comforts of Singaporean culture, hoping to hold onto a little bit of home. It did not, however, lessen my loneliness. My days became a monotonous loop of classes, work and going back to my dorm. When I got home, I locked myself away until sunrise, spending hours on video chats with loved ones. I would drown out the outside world with music, using my earphones as a barrier to avoid conversation. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that I felt so unwelcome, I had never felt so out of place before.

           Desperation drove me to connect with Burmese people, an idea that initially felt strange. I moved to Singapore at two months old and never really connected to my Burmese roots. My parents migrated to Singapore before I was born, and though Burmese was a language we spoke at home alongside English, my Burmese identity had always felt like a background detail. I never thought I could connect with a Burmese community because I didn’t have the cultural understanding.

          The starting point was meeting Lily, a fellow Burmese student in Macquarie’s Burmese society and worked in Papparich with me. She introduced me to a lively group of Burmese people, and I felt like I belonged in for the first time in a long time. It was as if, I had at last discovered a location where I could be authentic and at home than I had in the previous year.

It was through Lily I met Nicole, and I moved in with her a few months later. Through Nicole’s friendship, I was able to fulfill the cliché objectives I had set for myself when I first came to Sydney: drinking all night, clubbing and seeing areas of the city I had never been to before. I felt like a true independent 20-year-old who took care of her responsibilities, routinely attended classes, and relished her free time while working part time. I finally let go of the awful loneliness that had followed me for so long and really embraced Sydney.

         Even though I had begun to feel settled in Sydney, a part of me still longed for Singapore, I was excited to see my loved ones again and feel the familiarity I had been missing, so when the semester break came, I reserved the first ticket home. I had been in Singapore at the wee age of 2 months old and so I was familiar with its distinctive lingo, comforting cuisine and its distinctive scents.

         But when I first arrived, everything seemed oddly unfamiliar. The heat was too much for me now, even though I had never noticed it before. The hotel that was being built had been finished and was not a beehive of activity, and my dad had switched to a new way of driving home. The familiar had changed into something unrecognisable, leaving me disoriented and longing for the place I had just left behind.

         My family changed in ways I couldn’t quite pin down, and my old friends talked about thing I no longer connected with. Or maybe I was the one who changed. My identity had been subtly reshaped in ways I hadn’t fully recognised until I returned home.

         I was excited to savour comforting flavours, so I sent my parents a list of dishes I missed. Ban mian and pan-fried dumplings, hot plate beancurd and of course, chilli crab. But everything kept being different – our regular restaurant had closed, so we had to go to a different. It wasn’t that the food wasn’t good, it was just that it wasn’t how I’d remembered it. It seemed different and boring. Not like the snack packs I discovered in Sydney. The dinner served as a sharp reminder of just how much I had changed and how Sydney had insidiously woven itself into fabric of my life.

          When we finally returned home, I declared loudly that I was exhausted, only receive puzzled looks from my family since it was only 10pm for them. I quickly corrected them, explaining that it was 1am in Sydney, prompting laughter and jokes about I had become so acclimated to Australian time that I was practically an Australian myself. Even though, their humour was light-hearted, it took all my effort not to let my frustration show. I wanted to yell that, despite the time difference and the changes I’d undergone, I was still Singaporean. I felt stupid but I needed to hear that my identity had not been altered and that I was still without a doubt, a Singaporean after missing and longing for home for eighteen months.

        I dashed into my bedroom, where I was welcomed by the sight of my bed, wardrobe and blue walls. But it struck me as soon as I turned to look around that this place no longer seemed like mine. My mom called out to me from behind, telling me that since I had moved out of my previous room, my two cousins who used to share the room next door, had moved in.

         The news came like a slap in the face. Not because I didn’t want my cousin to have my room but the realisation that even the space I had longed for and considered my home was no longer truly mine was unsettling. It forced me to reevaluate what home meant to me, I had always been told that one’s home is either where their loved ones are, their heart or where they felt the happiest, However, as I stood there, I realized the profound truth that home is not just a place but also a notion that is always changing.

         I hoped I was wrong and that I would feel at home right away in my room. Why couldn't these familiar objects, like my dance notes strewn on the wall or my albums tucked under my bed, give me a sense of belonging?

         I felt more and more alienated from the city I had once called home. The city felt like a beloved book whose pages had faded and torn with time. The stories were familiar, but somehow the words no longer made sense to me. It was as though the city had moved on, and I was stuck trying to read the same chapter over and over.

         Despite their warm greeting, my family’s joy was insufficient to fill the need I felt. All around me, there was talks going on, laced with inside jokes and experiences from my trip. I found myself struggling to contribute, my responses feeling out of sync with the rhythm of their interactions. I felt terrible every time someone would switch the conversation to talk about the past because they could see me feeling absent from conversation. My cousin, now occupying my old room, were enthusiastic and settled in her new space. Their excitement was palpable, and though I tried to share in it, a nagging sense of displacement clung on to me, and I hated myself for not being able to be genuinely happy for them.

           I felt the weight of my detachment growing heavier the more I attempted to fabricate a sense of belonging. I started to withdraw and would go to my old room, which is now my cousins’ room. I responded to my family’s efforts to involve me in their everyday activities with lacklustre effort. Even though I was acutely aware of how my retreat contributed to the growing distance between myself and my loved ones, I took comfort in the quiet of my temporary retreat.

          I joined my mom one afternoon at her clothing shop she opened, sitting by myself in the corner and absentmindedly touch the pieces of cloth on her sewing machine. My mom sat still next to me before tapping my shoulder, “We are all so happy to have you back and see you again, but we’ve all noticed that something might be up. Is everything okay?”

          I felt her genuine concern, and it struck a chord. Immediately, I wanted to confide in her like a little child. I wanted to explain how the comfort of home seemed elusive, how the things I had yearned for felt so out of reach. But the words remained stuck in my throat, I was hesitant to admit how much I had changed for fear of coming across as ungrateful or even further isolating myself. I felt terrible because I tell her everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what has been on my mind these past few days. Instead, I forced a grin and told her I was just tired from travelling so much.

          It was hard, but I gradually began to accept and came to terms with the fact that my sense of dislocation was just part of a boarder journey. I began to understand the fact that had changed, not the city of Singapore. I had changed, and that’s why my sense of belonging had changed. The time I spent in Sydney had altered my perspective. My outlook had expanded because of my experiences here, and the person who had returned was different from the one who left.

          I adopted this new perspective on this situation – embracing the present rather than clinging on to the past; I reached out to my friends to make new memories rather than relive old ones; I engaged in conversations with my family despite the differences; and I appreciated everything what it is rather comparing to what I had known in the past.

          I accepted that I was a new person now and that home was not a static concept but rather an evolving one. It was liberating to realize that I didn’t have to limit myself into this box with a predefined notion of a home; instead, I could allow it to be a fluid concept, encompassing the places and people that had become a part of my life and the new people and places that would continue to enter my life.

         The journey back to Singapore will always be a learning point for me because it taught me that home is a combination of relationships and events that help define who we are, rather than a single location. And in embracing Sydney and Singapore, I found a newfound sense of belonging within myself.

          To my family, thank you for your patience and support during this time of change. To my friends, both old and new, your friendships have been a great source of joy. I am happy that I made the decision to move out to Sydney because I would have never learned and grown this much without these experiences.

          Home is more than simply a location; it is a mosaic of connections and experiences, and I am grateful to everyone who has shaped this journey.