My parents want to stay for Summer in Syria :(
I was born in Syria but left when I was around 2 years old because my family fled the country. I’ve been living in Germany for almost 11 years now, and my memories of Syria are very blurry. My parents are thinking about visiting Syria again, especially Aleppo, and honestly I don’t know how to feel about it.
I’m 14 years old and I have a huge family in Syria, but I barely know any of them. My Arabic is not very good either. I can express myself a little when speaking, but I make a lot of mistakes, and reading/writing Arabic is very difficult for me.
The biggest problem is that I can barely identify with Syrian culture anymore. I grew up in Germany almost my whole life, so I sometimes feel like I’m “too German” for Syrians, but at the same time not fully German either. My father tells me that Syria and especially Aleppo are completely different from Germany, and that honestly makes me nervous.
I think a lot of teenagers in the diaspora struggle with things like:
- feeling disconnected from their original culture,
- language barriers with relatives,
- being treated like a foreigner in their own country,
- pressure from family expectations,
- culture shock,
- fear of not fitting in,
- not knowing the social rules,
- and feeling caught between two identities.
Has anyone here experienced going back to Syria after growing up abroad? Especially as a teenager? What was it like emotionally and culturally?