“So where do you think home is?”

A Reflection by Lisa Gia Nhu Gu

I was born in Vietnam, but my dad is from China. Therefore, my family decided to raise me in China until I turned 6. Then, I moved back to Vietnam with my family, and we live in a neighbourhood where almost everybody speaks Cantonese. Then, on another random day, I decided to move to New Zealand all by myself for my teenage years. After graduating high school, I decided to come back to continue my education at the University of Auckland.”

That whole paragraph is my script when somebody asks me where I am from.

And of course, it is often followed by the next question, “So where do you think home is?”

I have been asked this question by so many people every time I introduce myself. I am sure that for someone who has a cross-cultural identity, it is extremely hard to answer this question. When I was younger, I often got paranoid about this because I was lost and did not know how to reply. I used to be embarrassed because I was not quite sure of my own identity, and I started to feel like I did not belong to any of the cultural identities that I hold from my family.  

For the past two years, I spent a lot of time travelling with my family, my friends, and even people whom I met on solo trips. Last July, I went to England for the first time and made some new friends along the way. Just before last year’s Christmas, my family and I went down to the South Island for two weeks, where I got to see amazing views and bungee jump for the first time. At the beginning of 2026, my friend and I went to Thailand and Vietnam for a small graduation trip. It was my first time travelling overseas with friends, and I got to show my friend all the amazing things about Vietnam. Finally, I got to tour my friends around China for two weeks and see many amazing things I had never seen before, as well as spending some quality time with my grandma during the recent winter break. 

After all this travel, I am slowly starting to find an answer to that question - “So where do you think home is?”

I used to think that I had to choose one place. Vietnam, China, or New Zealand. I thought that if I could not choose one, maybe it meant that I did not truly belong anywhere. But after everything I have experienced, I have realised that I do not need to choose.

I started to realise that home is not really about where I am from. It is about where I feel like I belong. To me, home is a feeling. It is the feeling of being surrounded by people who love me and whom I love deeply. It is being with my family and not having to explain myself. It is being able to laugh, cry, be silly, or sit in silence without feeling like I need to be someone else.

I think that is what I was missing when I was younger. I was way too focused on finding the right answer to “where am I from?” that I forgot I did not need a single answer. 

I may never feel completely connected to just one place, and I think I am okay with that now.

Because when I close my eyes and think about home, I do not see a country. I only see the people I love.