Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.
It’s my pleasure to write here at MiaMei. I am really thankful for the opportunity to write on my her blog.
I have my own blog – Soccer Roundup, which talks about soccer matches around Europe. I like to cover some of the classical soccer matches which took place years ago and I also try to provide video highlights of the games.
Today’s topic of talk is about my experiences being a bi-cultural Indian and American and the way of living and thinking. I found this article particularly inspiring and am glad to be given a chance to present my experience here.
I was 21 upon completing my Bachelor’s degree in India. I flew to USA having not been outside home all my life and I knew it was going to be the experience of a lifetime. To be frank, I had no idea about how to live independently as I was always in the shadow of my parents and family.
When I first landed in USA, I thought oh gosh, this country is so beautiful with such nice people. But I had to adjust a lot as sometimes during initial stages people did not understand what I was talking about. I was very nervous at first to speak with people and the second thing people did not understand me and told me that I talked too fast and needed to slow down.
Indians normally tend to speak real fast and people here who are not accustomed to it found it real hard to understand.
Then I needed to find an apartment, friends, prepare food, take care of myself and literally I was managing everything on my own. It was not so easy at first and sometimes I felt like I missed my country and family and those were the times when you had friends to talk with and share your feelings which made the situation bright.
During the second year, I made lot of friends from different countries and tried to learn about them and their cultures and I was astonished even though we were all from different countries that our ideas were often the same.
People are people and they are beautiful no matter which country they belong to.
I made very good friends and still try to be in touch with them.
I miss those days but the experiences I have gathered over the years has been outstanding and during the second year, I was awarded a Teaching Assistant position in which I was given a chance to teach American students for an entire year which did so much for my confidence.
Imagine, people told me my English was not understandable and now I have been given a chance to teach American students for an entire year. Wow! that was so much fun and a great experience.
This is a great country and I am really grateful that I chose to come here and be multi-lingual and know multi-cultures and all these experiences made me grow stronger and better.I hope this article has been informative and please check on my blog at http://aadesh.info for Soccer News and analysis.
Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.
