But you were born in Japan...

For those of you who don't know, I was born in Japan and lived there until I was eighteen months old.

I also have a desire to travel to different countries. I want to visit Japan, for obvious reasons. France is another country I long to visit, so I can practice my French. If I don't make it to France, then Quebec would suit me fine. Then there's England, Scotland, Israel, and others.

But if I say anything in conversation about wanting to visit these countries, or even about wanting to travel in general, people who know I was born abroad will almost always say:

"But you were born in Japan!"

As if that exempts me from ever traveling outside of this country again, or even wanting to. In many cases, people somehow think I'm culturally superior to the average American because of it.

I talked about this with Stephan, and he gave me a possible reason for why people will remind me of my foreign birth when I express my desire to travel. His theory is that these people want me to feel that because I was born in Japan, I am equal to those who are well-traveled, therefore I really have no right to want to travel.

The reason I want to travel is because in some ways, I feel cheated because it seems like I did all of my world traveling before I could even form a complete sentence. I have absolutely no memory of living in Japan, and yet I'm supposed to be satisfied with the mere fact that I did.

I love that little contradiction.

I really hope this post doesn't sound whiny. That is not my intent. I just wanted to point out the contradiction I've been dealing with for a long, long time.