My home is where…

By Anna Lazorina 

Blue armchairs, common area, Norton dorm, Northfield Mount Hermon. And one Sunday evening, we — teenagers from Korea, China, Germany, Ukraine and Russia — were doing the most common weekend activity at American boarding school: watching a movie and making popcorn. So similar and different at the same time. So lonely and sociable at the same time. So homesick and independent at that time. So free and tied to each other at the same time. 

Pow! Khh! Krr! “Seems the popcorn is ready, guys!” Sam said, taking the pocket of popcorn out of the microwave and coming from the dorm’s kitchen to the common room. The others were already there: Dasha was sitting on one of the blue armchairs. She held a TV remote in her hands, switching channels. Emily lazily sat on the other chair, and Mocha ( a faculty member’s dog) jumped on her lap. Hisu, coming from the shower, joined the girls and took a seat on the blue ottoman.

The previous day I had asked the girls to bring something that reminded them of home, and so that evening we were mainly talking about connections with our items  and our personal definitions of home.

I took a mug and came to the girls, “What’s up?”

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It was a tiny angel-toy her mom made for her. It’s the family tradition: her grandma had an angel, so did her mom, and now it was her turn. It said Mimi on it: her sweet nickname from home. This angel was a sign of always being protected by family, despite how far she is.

Emily

It’s hard to be an exchanger at a boarding school for one year, because there is always a rush. A rush to get a full experience and enjoy every bit of it. “I’ve known that I’d come to the USA for sophomore year since I was a child,” Emily said. “While my friends all went to England, which is a lot easier, we [Emily’s parents and her] thought that if I’m going for an exchange year, then it should be real. I feel like if you do a year abroad, I really want to be gone.” Emily didn’t go back home for long weekends and neither will she leave for spring break. It’s her only year, and she must get everything out of it. 

“I know that when I’ll come back home, there will be no major changes. Everything will be just the same way it was before. And, to be honest, it scares me.” Emily records videos to her friends from home, who also went for an exchange year, every day in the evening and it’s weird to imagine that soon the people watching those videos will be people from NMH. Emily has 3 homes now: her family in Germany, old friends in England and new friends at NMH. “My home is where loved people are. So, if my friends are sitting in the dining hall, that is my safe place.” 

Everyone makes new friends at school, but no one really talks about how quickly it can happen and how close you can become with people you’ve known only for a month. “I’m trying to convince dad to allow me to stay for another year… But he never will. I know it for sure.” She looked at the wall in front of the desk, covered with pictures from this year’s events: Gym Jam, the Halloween dance and TronBon.

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It was a little carpet she got in the market in Hong Kong, with an image of a creamy rabbit candy on it. It’s her favorite candy. Every day, when she comes back to her room, she’s transported home for a short second.

Sam

  “Sam, when I was at NMH…” the girl’s mother used to say often. She was trying to describe NMH and its beauty to her daughter.“I heard incredible stories about snow in New England,” Sam said and looked at the window. Ironically, there were no promised beautiful white landscape. Only puddles and mud. Back in Hong Kong, it was the stories about opportunities for skiing in New England that lit a fire in Sam’s eyes about moving to the USA. 

 Over a year, the meaning of NMH became much deeper to Sam. It's about experience.  Being a student in a Hong Kong day school, Sam always had to choose in between her interests: cello and skiing. And NMH gave her an opportunity not to choose, but to enjoy both. 

Like most of the international students, it was a tough process adjusting to a new environment. Sam immersed herself into school life, joining orchestra, different sport teams and clubs. A dark-red bag with a cello was standing in the corner of the room with a huge backpack, packed with equipment for skiing standing nearby. A poster of the skyscrapers of Hong Kong was hanging on the wall. “As an international student here, it made me more proud of where I come from and of my culture. I want to share Hong Kong’s culture with everyone.” 

Sam’s room looks extremely cozy. Fairy tale lights, LEDs and many plush toys reminded me of my home, but for Sam it’s just a pretty room and nothing more. “Hong Kong is definitely the only home for me, and I don’t think I’ll ever consider NMH one.” Sam’s home isn’t the place where most of her friends are and not the place where she spends most of her time. It’s neither a house in San Francisco her parents own, nor the Norton dorm at NMH where she currently “lives”. Sam’s own definition of home is where she was born.

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That red-blue hoodie was special to her. “Sometimes I don’t feel I belong anywhere,” she said, “but this hoodie’s shape and colors remind me that I’m a third-culture kid.”

Hisu

“My transition in Hong Kong was difficult: I spoke little to no English and little to no Chinese. It was just my family and I.” Once Hisu got used to new life in Hong Kong, they moved back to Korea, and those moves happened a couple of times. “Honestly, I feel that NMH is the only place where I feel belonging, because I never had this kind of relationship with Korea or Hong Kong.” 

Hisu’s childhood was unique but hard: the little girl and her family moved a lot. “I remember that my only goal in life all the time was making new friends.” 

“I was contemplating a lot about my identity because as a person from Korea ethnically, living in a foreign country, it's kind of [like] losing sense of who you are, because you can't really relate to locals anywhere.” Hisu uses the term “third culture kid”, when relating to herself. And it seems that you’d imagine Hisu’s transition here at NMH to be very smooth and easy. However, she struggled with connecting herself here with other Chinese and Korean students, because she “is neither of those.” 

Over time, real friends managed to prove to Hisu that what is most important is her personality and the energy she brings to people. One phrase from herclose friend completely changed Hisu’s view on sense of belonging, “I think it's really cool that you can identify yourself with both Korean culture and Hong Kong culture and you don't have to be able to completely identify with the locals. It’s just you what makes you you.” 

Hisu doesn’t have her own definition of home. “I think you can never really perfectly belong to a place. It’s more of a question of how you feel at a certain place. And in order to achieve it, you have to be in balance with yourself.” 

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It was a travel pillow, gray with two eyes on it, with whiskers and ears, making it look like a cat. For her it wasn’t just a pillow to sleep on, but one to look at it and remember her twin-sister, who gave it to her. So she won’t feel lonely and will always be safe.

Dasha

The war between Russia and Ukraine made Dasha’s life change 180 degrees. “One of the reasons I came here was a war, because my parents wanted me to be safe.”  Recently, Dasha’s sister, Anya, moved to the Western part of Ukraine to study in college, because it’s safer there. The girls’ father is fighting. He chose to join the Ukrainian army forces when the war started to defend their land. Mom is left alone at home. “She isn’t super romantic about it. Obviously, she misses us. But she understands it's safer for us.”

It was the Global Scholars Program that helped Dasha to get to the school and get a scholarship.  “I didn't know about this program at all before the war. The political situation in my country kind of pushed me towards this decision.” Even though it’s hard to be far away from her family, especially during such a period, and although Dasha is constantly on her phone, checking on her dad, it really gives her opportunities she had never dreamed of before. 

Here at NMH, Dasha feels like a link between the US and outside worlds. “Here in the US, some people aren’t even aware of what’s happening in the world.” And so, Dasha tries to bring a sense of reality by reposting videos from home about what is really happening and sharing trustable websites and news channels. She’s always welcome to answer any of the questions people have. 

Dasha has a really clear definition of her home: it’s where her family is. “I don’t feel like NMH will ever become my home, simply because my twin and parents aren’t here.”

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It was a peaceful Sunday evening. 7 pm. The movie finished as well as the popcorn. Mocha was running in the common room, trying to find some popcorn we accidentally dropped. In the next 15 minutes, other girls arrived, and slowly the common room  filled up with people. As usual, it was two groups. Group 1 was represented by Americans. Group 2 was  us and other international students, who came recently. We exchanged glances and laughed: nothing was changing. It could be your 4th year at high school and you might be as fluent in English as a native speaker, but something will stay the same forever — in spite of completely different backgrounds, we shared something in common: we were international students.