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How Did We Find Ourselves Here?
Reflections on falling in love across cultures, and the early seeds of home and identity
I’ve been drawn to difference for as long as I can remember.
Some of my understanding of global identity stemmed from being raised outside of Aotearoa. My early years—coloured by curry puffs, boarding school, and visa runs with a toddler—shaped my view of the world long before I had the words for it. (I explored this more deeply in a 2011 post I found randomly: 'Why I'm So Interested in Global Citizenship.')
Born Pākehā in New Zealand with Celtic roots and a Scottish surname, I spent my childhood in Southeast Asia—in Singapore and Hong Kong—where the scent of incense, the sound of market bargaining, and the rhythm of monsoon rain became embedded in my sense of what was “normal.”
At two and a half years old, I left New Zealand. That same age, decades later, was when my own daughter first wandered through Thai markets with me. There's something about that tender age—wide-eyed and sensory—that seems to plant roots wherever your feet land.
Growing up, I was constantly asked: Where are you from? I never quite knew how to answer. Years later, I found myself asking others the same question—but not everyone welcomed it.
I remember one jazz jam in southern Spain, back in 2011, where I struck up a conversation with a saxophone player in his fifties. A true global citizen—British parents born in China, a Japanese grandmother, born in the States, schooled in the UK, now living in Spain.
I asked where he was from.
“That’s a boring question,” he shot back.
I was taken aback. “Well, it’s a fairly common one,” I replied, still genuinely curious.
“I don’t like obvious questions,” he said flatly.
It made me reflect: for those of us who live between cultures, is “Where are you from?” a question we avoid, or a question we can’t stop asking?
His final response has stuck with me ever since: “Home is where the hard-on is.”
As crass as it sounded, there seemed to be some truth—home as desire, as passion, as freedom. But for me, it was never that simple.
I came to a point where i was no longer content to float freely. I needed to land. I needed to ask: What happens after the romance of roaming? What anchors us? What do we offer our children when they ask, where do I belong?
Falling in love with Dani was, at first, part of that roaming rhythm—our love story began in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where differences didn’t feel like barriers but invitations. Different languages, different families, different senses of time and space. But bicultural love quickly becomes more than just a beautiful photo in a Reggae Bar. It’s the practical, ongoing negotiation of holidays, languages, food, values, and visas. It’s choosing which side of the world gets Christmas this year.
And, it’s the slower, deeper reckoning: Whose culture becomes dominant? Who adapts more? And how do we make space for the parts of us we don’t want to lose?
We never planned to live in Aotearoa for over a decade. It was going to be “a few years, max.” But roots crept in quietly—jobs, communities, the births of our children. And now, after twelve years, we find ourselves back in southern Spain, living in Dani’s homeland for six months. We’re here to give our kids a deeper experience of their Spanish heritage—but
I’m also watching closely: What do they take in? What do they push back against? What parts of themselves are being shaped, right now, by the taste of olive oil, the rhythms of flamenco, the sound of Spanish in the schoolyard?
I’ve learned that identity is more than culture or geography. It’s also performance. That jazz sax player? He’d made being the eternal foreigner part of his persona. His discomfort offstage was striking—because I recognised it. I’ve felt it. Many of us who live between worlds curate versions of ourselves that perform belonging rather than experience it.
But eventually, most of us want more than that. We want rest. We want home—in whatever complex, hybrid form that takes.
And that’s what this blog series is about.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, where I dive into the challenges and joys of raising bicultural tamariki, and how I navigate my role as a parent in an intercultural family.
Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments below—what cultural experiences have shaped your identity?"
A Note on the Series: Bicultural Love, Parenting & Home
This is Part 1 of a three-part blog series reflecting on my experience of intercultural relationship, parenting, and belonging—written from a Pākehā New Zealander’s perspective, currently living back in Spain after twelve years in Aotearoa.
Part 1: Drawn to Difference – The Beginnings of Bicultural Love
Part 2: Raising Bicultural Tamariki – Whose Culture is “Normal”?
Part 3: Where is Home? – Belonging, Return, and the Next Layer
