Lost Identity

Herald has awarded young novelists. I like one who made me think about my "polishness". His name is Nam Le. He was raised in Melbourne after fleeing Vietnam in a refugee boat. He writes: "We can't choose our parenting, ethnicity, where we are born or the circumstances of where we grow up, and yet when we are growing up it is often those things that we cling to most fiercely in trying to define who we are".

BUT...

There is some margin on which we can try to choose our identity. If to calculate what is my nationality according to time i spent on foreign territory so far I am in 1,7% American, 1,7% Swiss, 1,9% Australian, 3.4% Estonian and rest of me is Polish :) I try never to neglect none of my host-countries. They were/are my home. And I am full of gratitude they give me a shelter and job.


I agree with James Michener what is he saying about Polish in "Poland" - we are born with sword in one hand and with brick in other hand. Straight after war we had to rebuild the devastated country. And so on and so on over the ages. Maybe that is why I feel I can't smile as openly as local Australians :). Let me treat you with some beatifully melancholic song from the movie on one of many wars we had to face, described by Henryk Sienkiewcz in "With fire and sword", screened by Jerzy Hoffman:


Comments

  1. ChristinaMay 17, 2009 at 1:38 AM

    Such a niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice song, misia :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kathrzn BahnMay 17, 2009 at 3:19 PM

    Our history does shape us eh? Is it by telling our stories that we overcome the darkness?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Paweł WaryszakMay 18, 2009 at 12:11 AM

    Song i like very much too :) Misia.

    Yes, there is still a question how free from history are we? To tell the story we have to first find the story. History shaped my grandpa and my parents, I was under their influence for a long time : ) i agree, story telling is kind of therapy :)

    ReplyDelete

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