faraway

This year is the first time Zachary has lived and attended school in Canada. All his life, he has been somewhat confused as to his national identity. His mother is Indonesian and he lived in Jakarta for the first four years of his life. Then he has lived in Cambodia for the last two years. His father is Canadian but his heritage is Chinese: Hong Kong Chinese on his father side and Indonesian Chinese on his mother side. Since starting school Zachary has begun to learn about begin Canadian. When I pick him up in the afternoon, he jumps out of the bus without his gloves on in the middle of winter. I scold him to put his gloves on and he replies, “But Dad, I’m not cold. I’m a real Canadian!”

Zachary has become very interested in the Canadian National Anthem. He sings it to himself all the time and listens to the French version on YouTube. Of course, in the international school system which Zachary attended in Indonesia and Cambodia, there are no national anthems because the students come from many different nations. Here in Toronto, “O Canada” plays on the classroom loudspeaker every morning and the whole school stands at attention and sings together. To Zachary, who had never experienced this before, this was very strange and he had many questions about national anthems for me when he first started school. We explored the national anthems of other countries on YouTube: Indonesia, United States, France and Japan.

Here is Zachary singing the English Canadian National Anthem with pride.