Out of Place

I have decided to start reading Edward Said.

“…with an unexceptionally Arab family name like Said connected to an improbably British first name (my mother very much admired the Prince of Wales in 1935, the year of my birth), I was an uncomfortably anomalous student all through my early years: a Palestinian going to school in Egypt, with an English first name, an American passport and no certain identity at all. To make matters worse, Arabic, my native language, and English, my school language, were inextricably mixed: I have never known which was my first language, and have felt fully at home in neither, al-though I dream in both. Every time I speak an English sentence, I find myself echoing it in Arabic, and vice versa.” http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n09/edward-said/between-worlds

I tried his famous book and theses: “Orientalism” in college, could not properly stomach it, and gave up to pursue more entertaining English literary such as Shakespeare plays and Edith Wharton stories.

But I love that passage about Arabic and English and being Palestinian and American and living in Egypt. I sometimes feel the same way... balancing Mandarin and English, drifting between the two, and never quite feeling at home in either.

p.s. Out of Place is the name of his memoir. I like the title. Maybe this will be my first pursuit.