Reflecting on personalities here and there

One thing I struggle with when traveling is the loss of my identity. I also experienced this when I was 14 and my parents moved our family from California to Switzerland. I didn't speak French, but I was put into a French public school (we lived near the border) and one of my strongest memories is of the frustration of standing around at recess trying to make new friends and not finding the words that would demonstrate my personality, my wittiness.

I just read an author observe a Laotian family's distance from "modernity's slick coolness" and their lack of "irony, cynicism, sarcasm, and presumptuousness".

This reminded me of the earnestness with which many people across Asia told us about their lives and asked about ours, and how in that situation you do not tell your life story with