‘Where Are You from?’ – Soon to Be an Outdated Question?

Go to New York, London, Paris, or Stockholm and you will see the incredible blend of cultures, or the cultural mashup, that increasingly exists in these major cities in the world – and is growing elsewhere too. A typical person one would meet in such a melting pot could be a half Korean half German young woman, who is living in Paris and dating a half Thai half Canadian young guy from Edinburgh, whom she later marries before moving to New York. This somewhat amusing example was brought up by travel writer Pico Iyer in his TED talk, who himself has three or four ‘origins’ and thus tries to define ‘home’ in a globally mobile world.

Indeed, when meeting new people we keep asking or keep being asked ‘where are you from?’ – and as easy as the answer was some decades ago, today many people would find it difficult to respond clearly. ‘Well, I am Indian’, would Pico reply, ‘but I have never spoken a word in Indian, nor did I live a day of my life there’. And that is were things are getting complicated…

Yet, we keep asking, partly as a way to initiate a conversation and partly for the reasons of gathering more information about the person. In regards to the latter, I believe that hearing from a new acquaintance ‘I am French’ (or any other nationality) instantly makes him/her much less of a stranger. Be it our stereotypes, cultural knowledge or personal experience, we are able to assume what this French person might like or dislike, how to behave towards him or her, and generally what to expect. So far, our hunches based on ‘where are you from’ might have even been quite accurate and beneficial for us.

However, anticipating the continuous and growing blend of cultures, I wonder whether one’s origin would provide any valuable information at all anymore?

As Pico argues in his TED talk, this new nation of foreigners might have much more commonalities with other foreigners than with people of their ‘original’ culture. Coming back to his example, the half Korean half German girl most probably feels more ‘at home’ with her half Thai half Canadian boyfriend than any purely Korean or purely German person. This does make sense, because when mixing differences you are getting a mashup that is very similar to any other mashup made of other differences. In other words, people with globally mobile lifestyles and mixed origins should understand each other and link with each other naturally much better than people with more clearly defined nationalities and national identities, and hence more certain feelings about where one’s home is.

Why all these thoughts? Well, maybe in some not too distant future there would be much less need for cross-cultural education of globally mobile employees? After all, it seems that people become much less defined by distinct nationalities, but rather start sharing the same nation of foreigners?