Frisian | Javanese
In the Netherlands, I say that I am half Frisian/ half Javanese. In Indonesia, I’m ‘campur-campur’ (mixed). In the UK, where I live, I say that I have a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother. In the Netherlands, people will assume or suggest that I’m ‘Indo’. Which I am not. My Mother is from the country side in Middle Java, my Father is from the country side in Friesland, the North of the Netherlands. The biggest challenge has been around (not) belonging. As a child, adolescent, you want to belong, or even, a sense of belonging. To get to the insight that I don’t fully belong to either culture, and that it is actually completely fine, was a process and that took a bit of time. Like any challenge, it helps you grow, and I am thankful for it. I think being mixed-race, or multicultural, has been one of the biggest drivers for me to live abroad. I have studied and worked in Thailand, China, England and currently live in Edinburgh. Because I don’t have one home country, the world is my home. A positive experience is that growing up with two very different cultures is that, you learn to navigate both and the whole spectrum in between. This has given me cultural sensitivity, but mostly a fluidity I use on a daily basis. I could not have done my work as a manager as well without it and I would not have been able to connect with people the way I do now, without it. But also, it has given me the understanding that people are not defined by their nationality and I hardly have an eye for country borders. As I learnt that I did not fit a specific box, I quite quickly realised that an attempt to fit the mold was going to be fruitless. I also realised that the mold was a silly concept anyway. And that is a strength, a luxury. To be able to listen to yourself and what you want and do that, rather than feel a need to live up to society’s expectations. Above all, the positive definitely outweighs the negative for me. If I had the opportunity to be reborn, I would like to come back as myself. Why not? However, I’d like to come back in a world where we’d be judged on our characters. Not our gender, race, socio economic status.
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