Least favourite questions

By Nay San

March 24^th, 2018

(This story was originally performed at the Scissors Paper Pen's Mid-Winter Open Mic night in Canberra)

"Where are you from?" is probably my second-least favourite question to be asked. Or, third or fourth, perhaps—I'm actually not quite sure anymore. The reason I'm not sure about this question's ranking has to do with a couple of numbers and a little bit of maths.

The numbers? Well...

By the age of 21, I had lived across 8 countries. As of now—telling you this story here in Canberra tonight—I've lived in 13 different places. By the end of 2018, these numbers will have gone up again.

Since the average time I spend in any one place is about 1.5 years, you can understand why this "where are you from?" question isn't exactly straightforward for me to answer. Regardless, these days I've grown comfortable saying—straightforwardly—that I'm from Brisbane.

Why so..?

Well, that's got to do with a little bit of maths....

A winter's day atop 120 Boundary St, Brisbane

I moved to Brisbane just before I turned 18 to start university and, like many of us right out of high school, I didn't really know what I wanted to do at uni. So, like many of us, I started out by majoring in the subject that I did quite well in during high school. For me, that was maths.

But even after just two semesters, it was becoming clear to me that my maths skills were not quite up to scratch. I mean, I mostly coped just fine with the coursework, but I was now amongst people who would become actual, real-life mathematicians.

Despite these reservations, I thought I should try out a couple more maths courses before changing degrees, and so I did. But before I knew it, three years had passed and I had (somehow) obtained a BSc in Mathematics.

Looking back at it these days, I’m quite certain what got me through 3 years of a subject I was just okay at was the community that existed within the maths department at the time, and a particular shared space we had access to—creatively named—the Maths Space.

The Maths Space was a common room for students on the bottom floor of the maths building. It was shaped rather like a middle finger, with a long, narrow entrance at the door before the room expanded.

As a common room goes, it had your standard items: a mini-fridge, a microwave, a pin board with various notices (usually those offering or asking for maths tutoring), and also two blackboards on parallel rails (this last one is probably less standard).

But on the whole, the room became a place where people would choose to spend a good chunk of time on campus when outside of classes. The blackboards were sometimes used to do maths, but sometimes we also solved the day's crossword together. We could and did discuss whatever assignments that were due, and that one question that no one could quite figure out, but it also became a place where we (frequently) decided to give up on said question, and head to the pub. And twice a year, at the end-of-semester Wine & Cheese nights, the Maths Space was our pub.

At a semi-annual Mathematics Wine & Cheese night

I only realised it many years later, but what my maths years taught me was the importance of communities, fostered through shared spaces and regular, collective effort by the people within them.

With that realisation, it became plain for me to see that I had readily felt a sense of home in any given place that I lived, amongst the various communities I became a part of.

Turns out, a sense of home had never really depended on how simple an answer I could give to the question "Where are you from?"

If I did need a simple answer, I'm perfectly comfortable saying "Brisbane" (because maths), but also equally, "Sydney" or "Canberra".

Rooftop hangs on Boundary Street (Brisbane, 2013)

Praying for a mild hangover (Canberra, 2018)

A summer gig by the Goats of Spring (Canberra, 2018)

So all in all, I don't think "Where are you from?" is actually my second-least favourite question these days. Armed with my simple answer of "Brisbane", I certainly don't feel anywhere near as uncomfortable as used to.

That said, my least favourite question has never changed, and probably never will. If you were wondering, my least favourite question is "But where are you really from?"