The door slid sideways automatically as the warm, humid air of my homeland grasp onto my skin. The wild grown up who stood right before the arrival lounge reflected back to the early days when her taste buds were only exposed to the sizzling smoke of the wok-fried Char Koay Teow and the ravenous spice of the Nasi Lemak. Large-eyed, naive and curious, she knew what she was going to do in the following three years would be something much more eye-opening. However, the three years I spent, thousands of kilometres away from home, were as rough as the oceans I crossed over in my 13-hour flight.
This girl, who I was, was not a bright person of culture. The habit of small talk and simple questions were what I had learned all my life to be known as enough to maintain a connection. And just like that, it was such an easy task to make friends, whereas my introverted friends were searching lifelong answers to such a paradox. The idea just did not hit me, but finally, being in the Land of Opportunity, a.k.a. Germany, I would contribute the least to most of the German conversations I have. I would be the Listener, and I would be the one who remembers every detail of the discussion that all seemed foreign to me. Disappointed, I have and would never let the silence define my loud personality, or at least that was all I knew.
This girl, who took her first step out of home, was someone who loved and still loves food. I lived on Cloud 9, hovering over this very kingdom that lays cosily in Southeast Asia, stuffed with flavours and colourful delicacies. It was easily taken for granted, when I realized, the cheapest things I could eat day to day were bread and a lot of sauerkraut, which has replaced my starters of peanuts, deep-fried dishes and flavoured salads. Even then, the beauty of the Bavarian cuisine sparked new taste buds when I finally swallowed the combination of the pretzels and the smooth, fizzy beer. Nurtured like the "Rotkohl", this girl brought home a lot more flavour in her.
"I'm only here because I'd like to walk in the footsteps of the physicists, who had left their legacies, allowing the world to take new steps in the path of knowledge," I thought and still in it, I believe. The wars and battles of sleep deprivation and calculus arduously grew larger and larger, with even steeper battlegrounds to conquer. To seem like it was a walk in the park is not how it should be seen, because all I wore were slippery boots of my amateur German that made me understand concepts double the time. And of course, being the strong girl I was, I faced my duties with honour, and I am stronger now, flying home with the recognition of a student who has completed her studies.
As she took her first step before her parents, reborn, an embassy of an identity of two souls, I could finally reunite my Malaysian self, and say, "I'm home". And definitely not "Servus!"
