Dad in a Foreign Land

I’m sitting on the ground floor of the Hotel Ganesh Himal in Kathmandu. There are three computers open for public use here, though I’m working on my laptop through the wi-fi network that doesn’t reach our room on the fourth floor. My son is with a group of three other boys playing some simple games on one of the computers. The other boys are Nepali, Brazilian, and Chinese. (At the time of writing all three of them just ran outside into the garden area to play.)

While mostly focusing on my work, some bits of their conversations drew my attention. After telling each other their names, my son was asked where he was from. He seemed a bit perplexed by the question, and stammered out that he was from America and Japan. Then he reconsidered, and said, “but I’m from Wisconsin.” (He’s only visited my hometown in Wisconsin twice though.) But upon saying this he seemed to realize that this wasn’t quite right, and said, I’m from two places, Hanamaki and Tokyo. I couldn’t help laughing and saying, “You can just say that you were born in Tokyo.” He replied, “Ok, I’ll say that next time!” I immediately regretted feeding him a ready response. Much better to let him puzzle out his answers based on his experience. I’ll have to keep my urge to “help” in check.