Remy Shea is a sixth-form student at my international school in Beijing. When I ask her where she is from, she says: “I'm Canadian-Chinese but, at the same time, I'm neither.”
Most students at my school aren't from one particular place. Sure, our passports（护照） might say we're British or Malaysian, but it's more complicated than that. Where you're “from” is less about birthplace and more about cultural identity; as a student your cultural identity ends up being difficult to identify.
If you ask me where I'm from, I'll tell you I'm English. Press me, and I'll say that I'm also half Hong Konger. Ask which part of England I'm from, and I'll be forced to explain that I spent most of my childhood and part of my adolescence flying around Asia. Though I was born in a city in the UK, I honestly couldn't point it out on a map or tell you anything about the place.
Students like me are uniquely rootless; we don’t belong anywhere and we can't describe ourselves as any one thing. Some find that they make their home wherever their family is. Some just accept the loneliness that comes with the lack of concrete ties to any single place.
Exir Kamalabadi, a year 13 student at my school, sums it up perfectly: “I'll never be Chinese, no matter what I do.” Replace “Chinese” with any other country, and you can understand the conflict within many “third culture kids”, as we’ve been titled by the media. For me, I’ll never be Hong Konger, no matter what I do. And, despite my mainly English-influenced upbringing（养育）, I will never feel fully at home there either.
I feel like a foreigner everywhere I go, an emotion shared by other students at international schools like mine. Mixed-race students who travel a lot while growing up can lack a cultural identity and also have to struggle with the fact that they don't have a history – or not one that's easily explained. For me, a cultural identity is something I have to develop and maintain, not something that falls into place naturally. I've heard my accent becoming progressively more American over the last five years. This is upsetting because my slight British accent was the last real reminder of where I was born. Without it, how am I supposed to tell people I'm from the UK?
I've had to make an effort to preserve my ordinary, regionally unclear “English’’ accent because without it, I don't have any proof that I was from the UK at all. My passport might as well have been Hong Konger.
This lack of definition means that I’ve ended up in a dark shadow of different cultures, with bits and pieces from everywhere I've lived and everyone I’ve met. I count with my fingers the way they do in Hong Kong and I grew up eating roti in Singaporean food courts and goose fat noodles at my grandmother’s house in Hong Kong. My accent is influenced with my friends’ American pronunciation, but I still spell color with a ‘u’. Though it comes with its downsides, it's helped to shape me as a person and has broadened my perspectives.
67. Which of the following statements is true?
A. international students feel lonely because of lack of friends.
B. Kids like the author think they are cut off from history ties.
C. Any Mixed-race students can’t find their cultural identity.
D. The author’s American accent is to blame for his situation.
68. It can be inferred from the article that_______.
A. the author has English nationality
B. the author is studying in a city in the UK.
C. the author possesses Hong Kong passport
D. the author spent his childhood in Beijing
69. What’s the best tip to international school students like the author? They should _______.
A. spend as much time as possible with their families
B. communicate with local people in native language
C. overcome cultural differences and language difficulty
D. keep in close touch with their originally cultural roots
70. The author wrote this article in order to_______.
A. introduce his growing pain to the readers
B. pour out his loneliness without companions
C. express his greatest confusion of being rootless
D. offer something of international students in Beijing