By “fit in” I mean… do you feel like you are actually part of the society there, or do they treat you like a foreigner. Do you feel comfortable there?

I know my experience as a 1st gen (or some call it “1.5 gen” since I arrived during childhood) is probably different from a 2nd gen or a 3rd gen, or maybe even different from those 1st gens that were born in their ancestral country but emigrated before they had formed any memories of their ancestral country; but personally, I can’t help but wonder what my life would’ve been like had my family not emigrated. Like… I’m talking about alternate timelines sort of stuff, I get obsessed about the thought of it… well… I mean I do get obsessed about just the concept of time travel all the time… xD Just me?

My answer, as to fitting in: Meh… sort of yes but sort of no… I’m probably just introverted, and I had to juggle between family-related trauma (emotional abuse and fighting with my older brother) and the alienation in the US during my first few years since I didn’t speak English at the time… having to deal with both at the same time probably fucked up my self-esteem and just made me more introverted.

As for my ancestral country, which is also my birth country: Meh… society is too conservative for my liking, particulary when it come to government and authoritarianism. From memory, I didn’t like the 8 years of my life I spend there before leaving.

Now? I probably would not fit in as of now even if I tried, since… Language Barrier… I wouldn’t really understand the colloquial sayings and like how to word things properly, I’d struggle to hold a conversation… I mean I struggle having a deep conversation with my parents right now lol, I’d probably do worse if its a Mandarin speaker from outside of Guangdong Province (Cantonese is spoken at home, not Mandarin). I mean I can understand most of it, but I’d struggle. A white dude would get judged less, but ethnic Chinese, even if foreign born, would still get judged as if they are a local that didn’t go to school. It would be even more alienating compared to an immigrant being alienated in a immigration county.

As for, the alt-timeline where I never left in the first place: I think about all the great TV Shows and Movies that I might’ve missed out on, had I remained in China… because domestic media gets very boring… well, unless you just just have poor tastes like some people do (ahem like my parents ahem).