Identify With Your Heritage

I met a lady today who had visited 40 countries.

She was Canadian, with an Australian passport who lives and works in Auckland. And oh... she has a Japanese name. (more on this later)

In the world of today that we live in, especially for young people, national borders and restrictions are starting to mean less and less. There are so many opportunities for cross-cultural experiences, work and play.

There is almost nothing that you know that is not immediately known to, or available to be known by almost everyone else in the world. (thank you world wide web) This amazing shrinking of the planet earth comes with never-before-imagined opportunities.

Grow up in a technological advanced Asian nation; school in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon cultural centre that is noted for its Opera House, rustling outback and Hugh Jackman; Do an internship with one of the biggest investment houses in (one of) the financial capitals of the world that Spiderman calls home; go travelling in Latin America with your brown-skinned boyfriend who has roots in the cradle of civilization and the land of leprechauns and River Dance.

At this point, it doesn't really matter where you live, you are so thoroughly immersed as a global citizen that each city/town/nation you arrive in, opens it arms and welcomes you with a warm embrace.

And yet...

It is not for nothing that adopted children go to great lengths to find their birth parents. There is a nagging feeling of incompleteness. A sense of unfinished business that gnaws at your balance and clouds your prospect for the future. You need to know where you have come if you are to make anything of the road you intend to travel. Otherwise life's journey becomes a never-ending question.

So although national borders MIGHT be losing their relevance, national cultures are not. I have lived in 5 different countries and consider myself a citizen of a world but I remain and will always be a Nigerian national. I have been asked from time to time what part of Nigeria I come from and I always answer...

"...the Yoruba. The name, language and people of the South-West of Nigeria. Stretching across Nigeria, Togo and Benin Republic, this 40-million strong race are a people of passion, power and history. A race of Warrior-Poets and Soldier-Kings, the Yoruba are renowned for their daring feats of courage, acts of compassion, and love of their culture..."

Ok, so maybe not as eloquently as the above.

But it is HOW I should respond anytime I am asked. I realized after moving to Aotearoa that the urge to find other Yoruba people and speak the language, crack a few jokes in typically loud and ostentatious manner became over-whelming after a few months. Thank Goodness for the small but vibrant community here in Auckland.

So go on... take pride in your heritage. Know where you are from and it really does become easier for you to shake off the restricting aspects of that heritage and make you more adept at incorporating new and beneficial aspects to your own personal heritage.