colin and i landed on south african soil at about 8 am on monday, 29 october. being south african citizens immigration was easy and we got a friendly welkom terug (welcome back) from the immigration officer. i hadnt heard or spoken afrikaans in 3 years and panicked because i couldnt think of how to reply. i automatically wanted to say 'thank you' in chinese (xie xie) and couldnt for the life of me remember how to say 'thank you' in afrikaans. luckily colin was ahead of me and said dankie. oh yes! that's what to say, "dankie" i murmured. still feeling like a stranger in my own country i was wheeled through baggage claim, customs and suddenly there was my mom's face. i was so relieved to see that face. i was safe now. everything would be sorted out now. i would be looked after.
i had a lightning quick meeting with colin's parents and before i knew it i was packed into mom's car and driving down the highway to my old house. i was feeling sick but full of nervous energy and confusion so i babbled the whole way home. looking out the window, everything was the same, but different. nothing much had changed, but i had changed, i had forgotten what cape town looked like, what it felt like. i knew it should feel like home, but somehow i felt like an alien looking at someone elses memories and trying to make them mine. this unnerving feeling continued as i entered my mom's house.
Fairies
a lot of remodelling has been done in the last 3 years and there is new furniture in different places. new rooms in different places. i didnt even know how to make myself a cup of tea and i was especially upset that the old living room was empty and that the TV and DVD player is in my sister's bedroom. i had no couch to lie on and watch TV anymore. no living room to sit in for a 'change of scenery', just my bedroom. i felt very displaced. my old bedroom looks the same, with the same fairies i had painted on the walls in 1998, when i was about 19 years old. far from being soothing and welcoming this old familiarity confused and upset me. this was my room, but from another life. it wasnt my room anymore. it didnt reflect my personality at all and instead of feeling pleasant nostalgia i just wanted to rip all the posters off the wall and repaint the room immediately (i still do). i wanted to cry, "this isnt me! where am i?!" besides all these physical changes in the house there were also social changes. my sister's boyfriend, whom i had never met, was living in the house. he knew how to make himself a cup of tea. he knew the family dog, whom i had also never met. he belonged in the house, in the family more than i did. i felt like an intruder. i didnt know what was going on in any body's lives, i didnt get the inside jokes, i didnt know the rhythm of the household. i was just this strange, ungainly presence. i wasnt a south african anymore, i had no common ground, no idea how to start a conversation with anybody. it wasnt that my mom, my sister and her boyfriend didnt welcome me into the house, but just that i didnt fit the house. i was paranoid and lonely, and i still am sometimes. i find myself crying and not knowing why. i just feel lost, empty, uprooted. of course i was, and still am, suffering from extreme reverse culture shock. going to taiwan was easy because i expected everything to be weird and not to understand anything. but after 3 years there i had got the gist of the place. i was independent there. i was housebound, but could call a taxi if i needed to go somewhere. i cant do that in cape town.
the shock is worse coming back home because it's almost like going through a time warp. you are back in the same place you were before you left, but in an alternate universe where certain things have changed slightly. i feel like i have regressed. i am back in high school. stuck at home, no job, no car, going nowhere, waiting for friends to come and visit me. this is the feeling that makes me cry a lot.
my mom took a week off work to try and help me settle in and i was (and still am) terrible to deal with, the first 3 nights i was sick and had convulsions. my sister and her boyfriend got a crash course in sue's 'idiosyncracies' at 5 am on tuesday, october 30 when i ended up lying in the passage outside my mom's door convulsing. to their credit, they have all dealt with the horrible sight of my spasms well so far. and have tried to be understanding of my freak outs and crying fits. my sister even sat with me on thursday, 1 november when i suddenly decided that i had to pack all my things away and reorganise my bedroom in the middle of the night. i was just desperately trying to find my place in this new world and still am a lot of the time. i feel like my mind and my emotions have not caught up to where my body is yet.
but there are a lot of positives to being back home. i have a garden and a swimming pool and it's summer! easy access to all the food i love that was so difficult to get in taiwan and some food that i havent had in 3 years. i am being taken care of and dont have to worry about things like bills and shopping lists. i get to spend time with my family, especially my grandparents, and i am loving their eccentric, fun-loving company. colin and i also get to have a much-needed break from each other. although he has been visiting me at least once a week and we are often in contact over skype, we arent fighting anymore. sometimes i feel like the bond between us is more tenuous now because we are not living together and other times i feel it is stronger. see what i mean by confusion!
so, i am still trying to place myself in this new world that i find myself in and i still feel like an outsider a lot of the time, but that feeling is diminishing. i still struggle with loneliness, impatience and depression, but i am slowly finding new ways of dealing with these problems at home. i find my house very empty and the social situation in it very unfriendly (eg: my sister and her boyfriend spend most of their time in their room with the door closed), but i am learning to deal with this. one of the things that has been helping me is visits from a few good friends. of course there are many of my friends who i have not yet seen, but the few that have come and spent an afternoon chatting with me have made all the difference.
the situation i now find myself in is confusing, complex and incredibly emotionally-charged. i am happy to be home and away from taiwan, but also depressed at the same time. for now i am just muddling my way through as best i can and desperately trying to focus on the positive.
