the cuckoo has to leave the nest someday.

I often wish I was more patriotic than I am. I wish I had that kind of desperate love for my country, the profound desire to live and die in service of my homeland. But I don't. I appreciate that Australia is a good place to live, but my connection is cool, detached, and easily breakable.

I've often attributed my cynicism to being a second-generation immigrant. As an immigrant, you see the opportunities and abundance of a new, wealthy nation. But juxtaposed with this is the problems of being born here, but not really belonging. The flaws have more significance to you, and are deeper and more troubling than they are to other people. I see a society enjoying a pleasant facade of peace and security, but ever so close to breaking point. I see little tiny cracks in the system that are hushed up, ready to become full blown faults ready to send the whole institution crumbling.

Optimistic, huh?

My mother comes from Singapore, and from her side I am descended from Cantonese peasants - people who were born as nobodies and died as nobodies. Their lives, loves, tragedies...none of it is known. My father comes from South Korea, and from that side I am descended from Korean nobility. My Korean ancestors are people who wrote history - ministers, generals, the wives and mothers of kings. It's a very strange mix.

My paternal family is very patriotic - most Koreans are. Everything is bigger, better, and Korean. The Koreans are very proud of their rich cultural heritage, their people and the challenges they have overcome - and so they should. My grandfather has spent his whole life upholding the family name and traditional Korean principles, marred somewhat by his youngest son's marriage to a Singaporean woman. My grandfather is a true pater patriae, and he gets much of his strength from that. At nearly eighty, he's hardly young, but he's full of energy as he dashes around, spending his retirement doing what he loves. I wish I had that kind of zeal. My dad is the first person from our line to leave Korea to create a life of his own.

My mother, however, comes from a family of wanderers. They left Canton for Singapore. My mother and her siblings have left Singapore for the world - America, Germany, England, Australia, Malaysia, China. Some came back, others left for good.

My mother is a wanderer. Singapore never clicked for her. It's her story, but she left and built her own life for herself. Built a career, got married, started a family. Starting from the bottom, working her way up.

I want to do that. I want to leave and start again. It has little to do with how good or bad Australia is. I am a wanderer, like my mother, like her ancestors. I want to be reborn. And maybe, I'll find a place where I can truly be a patriot.