What is home?
Places are essential to our daily lives because there are many places around us. However, how we view each place differs. From my perspective, a place is a specific and enclosed space that has boundaries. It is our experiences associated with a place that give meaning to it. When we think about a place, the first thing that might come to our mind is home. Home is so important that it is almost like an essential component of our lives. We cannot live without it. Different people hold different ideas on the definition of home. In my opinion, home is a place where we get a sense of belonging. This sense of belonging is something that you can feel comfortable with. It is so strong that when you get hurt or get into trouble, it is the first thing that you think about. In the following passage, I will use my personal experience and some quotations to illustrate that home is a place where we get a sense of belonging.
Home plays an extremely important role in our lives. From the moment we are born, we grow up in the home, we learn in the home, and, most importantly, we live in the home. It is a place where we can get a very strong sense of belonging, and it is a place that we spend a large amount of time in. It influences our self-development from many respects. I agree with what Price wrote about this view. In the “Crafting Place” part of Price’s article “Place,” she states that “home is the most intimate place to us, as well as one of the first that we experience” (Price 127). Therefore, we can see that home is a very important place to all of us.
Even though home is important to all of us, different people hold different ideas on what can be called a home. Some people think that home is somewhere you are born. For example, if your nationality is Chinese, then your home is China, no matter how long you have lived outside of China and no matter where your family is. Some people consider home to be where you grow up. Other people hold the idea that home is where your family is, and it is only family that makes up a home. For me, I hold a different view that home is where we get a sense of belonging, and it is like a shelter for all of us. If we get hurt, home is always somewhere we first think of and go back to recover. Here, I strongly agree with the statement that Tuan states in his book Space and Place. In his article, Tuan states that people have intimate experiences in some places. Home is one of the places in which we have these kinds of experiences. In his view, places like home can protect people from getting hurt and make people more aware of their sense of belonging (Tuan 140). There are many definitions of home, but mine is that home is where we get a sense of belonging.
I think of Atlanta as my second home, not because I live here every day, not because I have any family members here, but because I have a sense of belonging to it after one year here. Because of my experience going abroad to study for college, I have always had some mixed feelings about home. Going abroad means you leave the place that you were born. It also means you leave the place where you grew up. Most importantly, you leave the place where all your family is. Before coming to Atlanta for college, I had never been to America, and I did not even have one family member in the whole country. It was totally a new place to me. Nevertheless, after studying and living in America for one year, surprisingly, I now have found out that I have a sense of belonging here. America, especially Atlanta, is now like a second home to me.
Let me just give you one of my personal experiences as an example to illustrate this sense of belonging. This summer, I went to Los Angeles to visit one of my friends at UCLA. One night I was walking in a quiet neighborhood that is a little far away from the city. My friend said that he had to go back to his car to get something and asked me to say there to wait for him. I don’t know the reason, but it just felt like it took a century for my friend to come back from his car. It is a very old neighborhood; some of the lights were broken. After twenty minutes of waiting, I suddenly got a little bit afraid, thinking that if I got into some trouble, it seemed that nobody was around to help me. Because I was afraid, I had to think of something to distract myself. Two things came to my mind: one was my home far away in China, the other was Druid Hills in Atlanta. I have a habit. When I am threatened or anxious, I wish I were in the places that I feel I belong. Both China and Atlanta are the places quite familiar to me, but the neighborhood in LA at that time is unfamiliar to me at all. Thinking about the familiar places would remind me of the comfort I get in them. I thought of Atlanta at that time, because I see it as my second home. I call it home, since I have a sense of belonging to it.
I was not born in Atlanta. I come from China, not America. Again, I don’t have any relatives here in America right now. However, I still get a sense of belonging to Atlanta, and that makes it a really important place to me. Talking about the sense of belonging, I totally agree with what Lahiri said on that. In her “Where Are You From? Notions of Identity & Place,” Lahiri talks about how she sees Rhode Island as her hometown even though she was not born there. All the experiences she had there made her so attached to Rhode Island (Lahiri 107). I think that it is the sense of belonging that makes me call a place home, not just a place I go to college. Home to me is like a shelter, I can go out of it sometimes, but when I get hurt or tired outside, the first place I would think of and want to go back to will still be the shelter from which I get warmth and a sense of belonging.
Here, I think that we can make a little bit of an extension about this topic. Because we know that home is within the range of place and it is one kind of place, when we talk about home, we can always associate home with place. From the above discussion about home, it is not hard for us to find out that home is a place with which we usually have an emotional connection. Just like home, we also attach emotions to different places. Actually, different people always see different places in various ways. That is not because of the place itself, but because we usually link our own emotions to the places. At this point, I totally agree with what Price said in her “Place.” In the article, she states that emotional components play a very important role in both place and space. She thinks that it is our experience with the place that gives the place its meaning, because from the experience, we attach our emotions to the place (Price 125). This statement I think is quite true for both home and place.
In conclusion, I hold the belief that home is where we get a sense of belonging. It is not where we are born or what our nationality is. It is also not where our family is. Metaphorically, home is a shelter for us. It is a place on which we put a lot of our own emotions. Home is one of the places, so it is safe to say that it is our experience with the place that gives the place its meaning. It is not the place itself that makes it different. It is the sense of belonging or the emotional connections that makes the place special.
Works Cited
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Where Are You From? Notions of Identity &
Place.” Rhode Island. 101-113. Print.
Price, Patricia L. Place. 119-129. Print.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and
Place. 3-18. Print.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and
Place. 136-148. Print.
Home plays an extremely important role in our lives. From the moment we are born, we grow up in the home, we learn in the home, and, most importantly, we live in the home. It is a place where we can get a very strong sense of belonging, and it is a place that we spend a large amount of time in. It influences our self-development from many respects. I agree with what Price wrote about this view. In the “Crafting Place” part of Price’s article “Place,” she states that “home is the most intimate place to us, as well as one of the first that we experience” (Price 127). Therefore, we can see that home is a very important place to all of us.
Even though home is important to all of us, different people hold different ideas on what can be called a home. Some people think that home is somewhere you are born. For example, if your nationality is Chinese, then your home is China, no matter how long you have lived outside of China and no matter where your family is. Some people consider home to be where you grow up. Other people hold the idea that home is where your family is, and it is only family that makes up a home. For me, I hold a different view that home is where we get a sense of belonging, and it is like a shelter for all of us. If we get hurt, home is always somewhere we first think of and go back to recover. Here, I strongly agree with the statement that Tuan states in his book Space and Place. In his article, Tuan states that people have intimate experiences in some places. Home is one of the places in which we have these kinds of experiences. In his view, places like home can protect people from getting hurt and make people more aware of their sense of belonging (Tuan 140). There are many definitions of home, but mine is that home is where we get a sense of belonging.
I think of Atlanta as my second home, not because I live here every day, not because I have any family members here, but because I have a sense of belonging to it after one year here. Because of my experience going abroad to study for college, I have always had some mixed feelings about home. Going abroad means you leave the place that you were born. It also means you leave the place where you grew up. Most importantly, you leave the place where all your family is. Before coming to Atlanta for college, I had never been to America, and I did not even have one family member in the whole country. It was totally a new place to me. Nevertheless, after studying and living in America for one year, surprisingly, I now have found out that I have a sense of belonging here. America, especially Atlanta, is now like a second home to me.
Let me just give you one of my personal experiences as an example to illustrate this sense of belonging. This summer, I went to Los Angeles to visit one of my friends at UCLA. One night I was walking in a quiet neighborhood that is a little far away from the city. My friend said that he had to go back to his car to get something and asked me to say there to wait for him. I don’t know the reason, but it just felt like it took a century for my friend to come back from his car. It is a very old neighborhood; some of the lights were broken. After twenty minutes of waiting, I suddenly got a little bit afraid, thinking that if I got into some trouble, it seemed that nobody was around to help me. Because I was afraid, I had to think of something to distract myself. Two things came to my mind: one was my home far away in China, the other was Druid Hills in Atlanta. I have a habit. When I am threatened or anxious, I wish I were in the places that I feel I belong. Both China and Atlanta are the places quite familiar to me, but the neighborhood in LA at that time is unfamiliar to me at all. Thinking about the familiar places would remind me of the comfort I get in them. I thought of Atlanta at that time, because I see it as my second home. I call it home, since I have a sense of belonging to it.
I was not born in Atlanta. I come from China, not America. Again, I don’t have any relatives here in America right now. However, I still get a sense of belonging to Atlanta, and that makes it a really important place to me. Talking about the sense of belonging, I totally agree with what Lahiri said on that. In her “Where Are You From? Notions of Identity & Place,” Lahiri talks about how she sees Rhode Island as her hometown even though she was not born there. All the experiences she had there made her so attached to Rhode Island (Lahiri 107). I think that it is the sense of belonging that makes me call a place home, not just a place I go to college. Home to me is like a shelter, I can go out of it sometimes, but when I get hurt or tired outside, the first place I would think of and want to go back to will still be the shelter from which I get warmth and a sense of belonging.
Here, I think that we can make a little bit of an extension about this topic. Because we know that home is within the range of place and it is one kind of place, when we talk about home, we can always associate home with place. From the above discussion about home, it is not hard for us to find out that home is a place with which we usually have an emotional connection. Just like home, we also attach emotions to different places. Actually, different people always see different places in various ways. That is not because of the place itself, but because we usually link our own emotions to the places. At this point, I totally agree with what Price said in her “Place.” In the article, she states that emotional components play a very important role in both place and space. She thinks that it is our experience with the place that gives the place its meaning, because from the experience, we attach our emotions to the place (Price 125). This statement I think is quite true for both home and place.
In conclusion, I hold the belief that home is where we get a sense of belonging. It is not where we are born or what our nationality is. It is also not where our family is. Metaphorically, home is a shelter for us. It is a place on which we put a lot of our own emotions. Home is one of the places, so it is safe to say that it is our experience with the place that gives the place its meaning. It is not the place itself that makes it different. It is the sense of belonging or the emotional connections that makes the place special.
Works Cited
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Where Are You From? Notions of Identity &
Place.” Rhode Island. 101-113. Print.
Price, Patricia L. Place. 119-129. Print.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and
Place. 3-18. Print.
Tuan, Yi-Fu. “The Perspective of Experience.” Space and
Place. 136-148. Print.