I was recently watching the Lindsay Lohan movie, "Mean Girls" on TV, and a line really caught my attention.
For anyone that hasn't seen the movie, Lindsay plays the role of a girl who grew up in Africa and has moved to America with her parents and started a new school - something familiar for anyone that moves with a family from one city, or one country, to another.
The line that caught me was when we learn that Lindsay's character is a math whiz, and someone asks her why she has chosen to join the math club. She replies, "I like math because it's the same in every country."
Whenever we travel to an unfamiliar place, we always crave the familiar - I thought this line beautifully illustrated the way it can be so comforting to find yourself in a completely foreign environment, and yet have something familiar upon which to rely which eases your transition experience.
The other part of this movie that I thought pertained to the experience of relocating, is the desire to fit in. I think this is especially meaningful for kids and teenagers going to a new school - you want to be accepted, so you naturally try to fit in and be like everyone else. In the process, you realize that you may look or dress very differently than everyone around you.
If you're lucky, you'll find a couple of friends who accept you as you are. In the movie, "Mean Girls", however, Lindsay's character is exposed to an entire type of schooling that is foreign to her, and high school rivalries, competition, and behavior she doesn't understand. In order for her to fit in, she has to shed the person that she is - such as pretending to be stupid to get a boy's attention, dressing and speaking like the popular girls to be part of their clique. She literally becomes a different person, and then realizes, after hurting those around her, that she prefers being herself.
When you move to a new place - it's always a good idea to have something with you that creates the sense of the familiar, as well as to seek out something - a restaurant, a park, etc - that allows you to feel comfort on days when you otherwise feel "lost". And, though fitting in with people around you is important in a new culture, it doesn't mean you have to become a different person. It does mean you have to notice what behaviors make people uncomfortable, and may mean being a bit reserved for a while, but there is a subtle difference between this and being someone else.