This question is a bit difficult to answer because I don’t get homesick. I miss food from time to time, but when I do, I’ll go to Tesco or Carrefour, buy groceries, and make the meal. I guess I’ve never really thought of myself as having just one home. I’m not a third culture child (a child who has spent most of their life outside his or her parents’ culture) but I’m not a one culture child either. I enjoy fresh experiences and surroundings, choosing to relish them rather than pine for home. Homesickness is as foreign to me as the top of Mount Everest and you know what? That’s perfectly okay.

-- Sarabi N. Eventide

When I came to Shanghai as a freshman last year, I was so excited. There was so much to do and so much to see, I didn’t think about home for quite a while. But then, one day, as happens to everyone at some point or another, I felt that sudden pang in my chest, aching for all the sights, sounds and smells I had left behind. It got so bad that I spent a few days shut up in my room crying. The thing that I missed the most about home was my grandmother’s food. She’s a tiny little Indian woman who spends most of her time in the kitchen cooking, and every afternoon when I came home from school, the house would be filled with the smell of thyme and cardamom, hot spicy curries and warm, buttery naan. As it turned out however, I wasn’t the only one who felt this way and a lot of my friends missed these same things too. Once I actually talked about it with others, the homesickness became easier to handle. We ended up gathering together, ordering a whole bunch of Indian food and eating it in the lobby. I remember that night because I made new friends, had fun, and realized that, while homesickness is inevitable, it’s always better to be homesick together.

-- Rae Dehal

I haven’t been homesick in two years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t remember what it feels like. The way you feel unfortunately singular; how the emotional distance between yourself and the people you loved in what can feel like a different life could amount to light years rather than miles or the seconds it takes to dial a phone number, has stuck with me since my first experience abroad. These feelings are one that you grow with, and then grow out of as you make your way into the world, understanding that “home” can be applied to a vast array of things. For me I think of my homes in multitudes: the mountain pathway in the Pirineos that I climbed in pouring rain felt like a spiritual home, and a new baptism. But I always consider my base to be the once-upon-a-time barn red house that I grew up in. Still, this doesn’t mean that home cannot be applied to the way my roommate sleeps at 5 A.M. as I drink my first cup of coffee, or the way I could go up to any NYU Shanghai student and hug them without it being a (more or less) awkward exchange. Home can be here, and it can be there. The concept can be elongated like shadows and shortened like recipes. Nobody is going to tell you that this transition, and this time in your life will be easy. In fact I will tell you the opposite: freshman year is difficult for everyone, and it will be difficult for you in places as well. But I am going to tell you that it doesn’t mean you won’t grow out of feeling lost and separated from the places you had been once before. Eventually there will come a day where you realize home is subjective, and wherever you are can give you a new perspective with which to view the world and those who inhabit it, and can be a safe place to land on.

-- Natalie Soloperto

If you had asked me last Fall whether I thought I would ever miss home, I wouldn’t have had an honest answer to give. The rush of being introduced to a city like Shanghai was as captivating for me as it was for everyone else. But everyone experiences homesickness, even if it takes months to set in. After a while, the honeymoon phase one has with Shanghai is replaced with more of an unspoken, mutually understood kind of love. Other things—including thoughts of the city that was home—start to invade your thoughts more often. The only real cure for this is time. Eventually, you will return home, and wonder why you ever let your time in Shanghai be fraught with anxiety. So, above all, live for the now. Shanghai is beautiful; she’s full of life, and she is giving all of that life to you. The only question is: What are you going to do with it?

-- Michael Margaritoff

This article was written by Sarabi Eventide, Rae Dehal, Natalie Soloperto, and Michael Margaritoff. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Nicole Chan