Image made on Canva Pro by Ameya Nagarajan for Global Voices

“Where Are You REALLY From?” is a new podcast series from Global Voices that emerged from a panel at the December 2024 Global Voices summit in Nepal, where members of the Global Voices community shared their experiences of dealing with other people’s perceptions about their diverse and complex origin stories. In each episode, we invite our guests to reflect on the assumptions that lie behind the question, “But where are you really from?” and how they respond.

The podcast is hosted by Akwe Amosu, who works in the human rights sector after an earlier career in journalism and is also a coach and a poet. She is a co-chair of the Global Voices board.

The transcript of this episode has been edited for clarity.

Akwe Amosu (AA): Hello and welcome to “Where Are You Really From?,” a podcast that investigates identities. I’m Akwe Amosu and today I’m speaking to Lokman Tsui. Welcome, Lokman.

Lokman Tsui (LT): Thank you for having me.

AA: So why do people ask you that question, Lokman?

LT: I think it can be quite complicated to get a sense of where I’m from. I was born and raised in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. My parents are from Hong Kong, but then for graduate school, I went to the United States and I spent six, seven years there. Then I moved back to Hong Kong, where my parents are originally from, and I worked there for many years until a lot of bad stuff happened in Hong Kong and I ended up back in Holland.

When in Holland, when people ask me where you’re from, I’m like from here, from Hong Kong, you know, it depends on how you define where you’re from and what home is. So that’s one question I don’t even know how to answer myself. Most of the time, it really depends on who the other person is, I think, and also I think there are many reasons why people ask that question sometimes.

AA: So maybe before we go there, let’s just see what does it bring up in you? Like what kind of feelings do you have when you get asked the question?

LT: Most of the time it’s annoyance I think if I’m honest. There are rare occasions where I feel like, okay, this is a person that’s really interested and wants to know more about me. To be fair, I think most people really want to understand something they don’t understand, and they want to know more about you, but what annoys me, I think, most of the time is that they try to sort of reduce you or simplify you. And I don’t know how to answer that question in one word, two words, three words, right? And then, in my experience generally, if I don’t give them the answer they expect, they just get more confused, and then again, they get annoyed, and then I get annoyed, and then… And so it’s complicated. For them it’s a very easy question, but there’s no easy answer.

AA: That’s interesting that for them it’s an easy question. What’s the difference between their view? Why do they think it’s an easy question and you don’t find it so? What makes you uncomfortable?

LT: Because they want to know one answer. It’s like a multiple-choice question where you can only have one. We can have one answer, and in my case, it’s like, you know, A, B, C, D apply right? And there’s not just one, and so when they just want one answer, when you don’t give them just one answer. They get annoyed, I think.

Lokman Tsui. Photo used with permission.

AA: So, what do you usually start with? If there are a number of different questions, how do you usually dive in?

LT: I read the situation most of the time. And so it depends on where I am, what language I’m speaking, who I’m speaking to, and I’m trying to guess what they want to know. And usually, what the answer is that gets me off the easiest, basically, where I give them something they’re happy with, and then I don’t have to answer that question anymore. But sometimes it can get a little bit confusing.

There was this one time I was in Spain with my girlfriend, and we [were at] a tapas restaurant. But the person serving us was Chinese-looking. And then this person asked us, “Where are you from?” And I’m like, okay. So if you say from Holland, it makes sense because Dutch people go to Spain for tourism. And it actually doesn’t make sense if you say from Hong Kong, because it was like a beach place, and if you want to go to a beach and you’re from Hong Kong, you go to Thailand or Southeast Asia and not to Spain. But I’m looking at this guy and I’m thinking, you know, he basically wants to know because he sees me looking Chinese. And so he just wants to know, like, can I speak Chinese? Are you one of us?

And so then I said —

AA: Did you answer in Dutch?

LT: No, this is in… I even forgot what language this was in. But it had to be either English or Chinese. But I said, I’m from Hong Kong.

AA: What I can hear is that it’s complicated for you to define a place, a single place of origin, a simple answer. But what would you like to be able to say about your identity if it didn’t require this geographic frame? What would be your preferred question?

LT: I would tell them I have lived in a couple of places. I grew up in Amsterdam, but I’ve lived part of my life on the East Coast in the United States, and I spent many years in Hong Kong. But I consider my birth home to be my biological home to be the Netherlands, because that’s where I was born. But my chosen home in many ways used to be Hong Kong for many years until I could no longer be there. So now I’m back in the Netherlands — but I’d much rather be in Hong Kong if the situation was better there.

But also, some people try to figure out your loyalty, you know, it’s not just identity. So that sometimes, it gets really complicated, also with sort of Chinese-ness, you know, because the Chinese have weird ideas about ethnicity and blood, and loyalty, and so on. And so, sometimes people ask me, “Do you feel you’re Chinese?” And then they answer the question for me most of the time, because I don’t even get to have a say in that. They would be like, “Oh, you know, to me, you’re Chinese, you know, you have Chinese blood.” And I’m like, “Okay, if you say so.”

So there are different things people are trying to figure out, you know, like, I speak languages with an accent, and so they’re trying to figure out what’s going on here, but then they also try to figure out your loyalties, you know, in many ways. There’s just different kinds of things I think going on.

AA: And is there anything else you want to say about this question?

LT:  Let’s please stop asking this question question. We can start by asking, “Where are you based?” You know, that’s usually how I do it. I don’t ask people, “Where are you from?” I’m asking, “Where are you based right now?” And then, I usually just sort of, if I really want to get to know someone better than I ask them, “Hey, tell me your story,” you know, “Tell me more about yourself,” and then leave it open-ended as opposed to trying to put people in a frame that might be very uncomfortable for some.

AA: Thank you, Lokman.

LT: You’re welcome.

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