It’s been a minute since our last Sunday Spotlight, and to make up for lost time, we’re featuring not one but two cross cultural individuals with this in-depth Q&A style dispatch. This week features one of our favourite couples; Naima (@naimasouzavogt) and Nick (@nicolas.jacob). From Turkey to Brazil to France to Hong Kong to US to UK and more(!), together this couple’s upbringings and adulthoods spanned across multiple continents, collecting pieces of cultures that make up who they are today.
We sat down (virtually, as at the time of writing Naima is in Finland while Nick in the UK) with both of them individually to discuss their backgrounds and how they navigate through it all as a couple and what the future looks together. And without further ado… hello Naima and Nick!
On Naima
Alright, ladies first. Naima, do you want to tell the readers a little bit about your background and upbringing?
Definitely! I’m half Brazilian half Canadian, born in London to two intrepid journalists who both left their home countries in their twenties to explore the world and eventually fall in love with one another in the very same neighbourhood that I currently live in now in London (so cute, right!). My parents’ careers as journalists moved our family of five from London, to Istanbul, to the South of France and eventually to Los Angeles -- a city we have, as a family, called “homebase” for what has become a remarkably long 12 year period (the longest ever, even though I only lived there for two years before leaving the nest and heading off to my own life adventures).
Do you think growing up in so many different places around the world and surrounding yourself with so many different cultures has contributed to your “relocation itch”?
Oh, one hundred percent. Unsurprisingly perhaps, my upbringing and my admiration for my parents lifestyle gave me what I jokingly call the “three year itch” (the marker where after 3 years of living somewhere, I yearn for the next place to call home). I followed in my parents footsteps and moved across the continent to Montreal for three years of University (a bridge between Europe and North America), then down to New York where I met Nick and experienced the first two years of my professional life in production. Together, we journeyed across the globe to China for nine months of remote working (before it was cool! LOL JK), before moving to London with Nick and completing my full circle and ending up literally a brisk 15-minute walk away from the apartment that I first came home to as a newborn baby girl.
I can’t imagine living in London (or anywhere else for that matter) for the rest of my life, but I also don’t know where I’d move to next - there are so many places in the world that I’d like to experience, and the concept of “settling down” somewhere just seems quite improbable at this point in my life. I look at my parents, who have lived in Los Angeles for 12 years now, and who are thinking about what they’ll do in their retirement years: live in a van and travel from one child’s home to another’s? Move back to the South of France? Someday, if things get better, retire in Brazil?…
The more I grow older, the more I understand and long for that sense of unpredictability in life, that love for spontaneity, of last-minute planning…
although anyone who knows me well knows I am the most obsessed (over)planner - I think there’s a massive excitement in not knowing where I’ll end up in this wide world.
Thanks Naima! Throughout all of this, was there ever a moment in time where you experienced an identity crisis?
I remember when I was younger going through various phases of identifying more strongly with one culture, one passport, than the other. It was very much like a ping pong effect. I remember speaking English with a Brazilian accent as a toddler, I remember being obsessed with reading illustrated Canadian history books as a nine year old, I remember being (lovingly) ridiculed by my British childhood friends whenever I insisted I was “from London” because I was born there (despite having left London at age 1 ½…. And in hindsight, they were spot on). I remember convincing my school friends in France to sign up to Canadian social media website Nexopia (before Facebook was a thing). I remember being incredibly upset when my parents told us we’d be moving away from France, our home of 9 years, to Los Angeles - that feeling of being “ripped away from home”. I remember being nicknamed “Frenchie” in our LA high school because it was impossible for some of our peers to understand that having moved from France and speaking the language didn’t mean I actually was French.
I remember moving to Canada and feeling both more and less Canadian all at the same time. I remember feeling more and more distant from my Brazilian roots after my grandfather passed away and our family trips to Brazil became more and more rare…
I eventually replaced that physical association with a stronger urge to connect with that part of my identity through language, food, and music. I think all of these marked moments speak to the mood-ring-like properties of who I am.
I’ve always felt like I can allow myself to feel more Brazilian or Canadian (and at times British!) depending on the context of the situation and on how I’m feeling on any given day. While it’s felt unsettling at times - that feeling of never feeling fully one or the other, I think eventually it’s given me this incredible sense of flexibility and freedom. Nobody puts baby in a [cultural] corner! In fact - one of the things I LOVE doing is speaking in “frenglish” or “portinglês”: the best of both worlds!
Sounds like you’ve made peace with it or at least in the process of making peace with it all?
I think with age I’ve come to make peace with it. It took a while to go from feeling alienated and judged by others around me, to feeling empowered by the incredible childhood that my parents blessed us with.
What do you think has been the biggest challenge and biggest benefit about being a cross cultural individual?
I think the biggest challenge was grappling with the recurring sense of feeling in limbo between cultures. I think the biggest benefit has been how it has opened my mind to different perspectives and people around me. I think it’s also taught me to adapt quickly to new environments, situations - making me a fast learner.
We definitely feel the same Naima and I think our biggest advantage as cross cultural individuals lie in our innate deep ability to see things from different perspectives like second nature and our adaptability. Okay lastly, Naima you know approximately 500 different languages, what does language mean to you?
Language is a way for me to feel rooted, a way to visualise my past, a way to illustrate who I am as a person. It’s a way for me to feel connected with my family and friends around the world, and to justify my strong sense of belonging across my different cultures. In many ways language is what I cling on to after leaving.
Love it, thanks Naima!
On Nick
Nick! Same as Naima, do you want to tell the readers a little bit about your background and upbringing to start off?
Sure! I was born in France to two French parents who very quickly moved to Hong Kong for work. I grew up in this amazing international Asian city until the age of 17 speaking French at home and English anytime outside the house. My parents still live in Hong Kong to this day. Upon graduation from high-school, I moved to New York for university and spent a total of 5 years there where I also got my first job and met Naima through a high-school friend who also knew her. I was forced to leave New York unfortunately after encountering difficulties in getting a full-time work visa.
At that point I was happy to go anywhere in the world and got a job in Haikou, the capital of China’s Hainan province (a big tropical island in the south west of the country). I worked there for a year and Naima eventually managed to negotiate with her company to come work remotely from there before heading together to London. We decided to move there as it just made the most sense for the both of us based on our nationalities/rights to work and opportunities in our respective industries. Upon moving to London I went straight into doing a masters degree and then got a job at British Airways. In a few months we will have been in London for four years which is crazy to think how quickly the time has flown!
Wow, again, like Naima, such rich history! It’s an especially interesting one as well as we often see ‘migration’ of people from non-white to white societies, or white to white societies, and not as often white to non-white societies. And a lot of times in the first two scenarios there’s a sense of discrimination being the ‘Other’ in the host white society, did you ever feel a sense of discrimination in Hong Kong? Was there a specific moment that comes to mind?
Hong Kong is a very interesting place in that regard - it’s a city with a long and at times brutal history but one that has seen the city rise as a free market champion fostering an international melting pot of cultures in Asia over the last 70 years.
Of course, I am not Chinese and will never be. Like most foreigners in Hong Kong, I will have gotten the occasional side comment from locals being treated as ‘gweilo’, or white ghost.
But you can get these kinds of attitudes from people as a foreigner anywhere you go and shouldn’t pay too much attention to it as long as they’re far and few between, and you remain conscious of the respect any culture different to yours requires. Thankfully while I’ve had such encounters, I wouldn’t say they’ve played any significant part in my time in Hong Kong. Overall there’s just an incredible amount of diversity in Hong Kong with people from all corners of the world and cultures living there and it’s something that is very much part of the city’s social fabric in the 21st century.
Thanks Nick. While living away from your ‘home country’, when visiting people back in France who may not be used to your upbringing, especially family members, do you ever find it challenging to talk about your life abroad in fear of sounding like you’re bragging? If so, how have you learned to deal with this?
Oh yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. I’ve actually found that discomfort as a child growing up to be much greater when going back to my native motherland of France rather than when in my home city as a foreigner for that very reason. Not so much from my family - my cousins lived in Dubai for a few years and my grandparents were well travelled - but more so when I’ve had to introduce myself in new circles while on holiday in France… I’ve definitely needed to tread lightly. I’ve been asked ignorant questions like whether I could speak Japanese or enjoyed eating dog meat, but also had to endure hearing about how I wasn’t really French since I had never lived there. Those types of comments can leave you questioning a few things about your identity especially at a younger age. Over the years I’ve really learnt to gauge my audience and adapt the level of sharing needed to ensure I simply have a good time.
I will gladly have an honest conversation sharing my experiences from abroad with someone who is truly curious and approaching the conversation in a non-judgmental manner, but for the more light-hearted encounters, I’ve learnt it’s often easier to keep it high-level. Otherwise you risk inadvertently sounding like you are bragging and making your encounter more difficult than it needs to be.
I think the one key thing it has taught me is to recognise how lucky I have been to grow up in such a different environment and to be humble about it.
Was there anything you are particularly grateful for, from growing up in HK?
For sure, many many things. I think first and foremost it would be the fact that I grew up surrounded by such a diverse group of people with different cultures and beliefs.
I think from a very young age that sets you on a good path to have such an appreciation for our differences.
I’m definitely grateful to have grown up in an anglophone education system where I learnt English from kindergarten in parallel to French at home. I’m also very much grateful for Hong Kong’s geographical location in the world so close to such beautiful places that are relatively easy to get to. From the gorgeous mountains of Yunnan province in China, to neighbouring cosmopolitan cities like Bangkok and the crystal clear waters of the Philippines...it doesn’t get much better than that and all of these are as close to Hong Kong as Berlin is to London! I’m a keen scuba diver for example and don’t necessarily think I would have gotten into it growing up in France. Oh and last but not least the food… it’s just mesmerising and will forever be grateful to Cantonese cuisine!
Yes yes yes times 100, though there are obvious identity issues that arise at times being cross cultural, we feel the same type of gratitude here at The Gen (we also LOVE Cantonese cuisine as well). Alright to wrap it up, Nick, where is home now and what does home mean for you?
Home is where I am and where I’ve got keys to on my keychain! To me home is where I feel comfortable, happy and fulfilled, and I think it’s fair to say that with Naima we both very much feel at home in our place in London.
On Nick & Naima
Alright guys, two quick questions to finish this off, and these are addressed to both of you. During your times together as a couple, how do you navigate the different cultural needs and perspectives of one another?
One of the things that Nick and I really obsessed about when we first met was just how crazily similar we were to one another. Despite having been brought up in very different environments and coming from opposite sides of the world, we shared a crazy amount of similar experiences… starting off with the music fundamentals: Avril Lavigne was our first concert (same tour!), we both grew up loving Incubus, and we are The National’s biggest fans. But I digress - after eight years together, we built a home together by creating our own cultural ecosystem, a mixed bag of values and perspectives that we’ve merged together from our individual and very different upbringings.
That being said, I think our cultural differences become more pronounced when we mix in family settings, when we go back to our home roots and reveal the intricacies of our cultural and genetic makeups that have made us into who we are today but also who we were when we first met. I think from both of our sides, we fulfil a different role when we’re around our families. The more time we spend together, the more we understand how fundamental our families have been in drawing up the blueprints of ourselves, teaching us how to be good, how to be strong, how to love, how to share, how to grow. I think in sharing those moments at home with our families, we both gravitate heavily towards our original roots and it’s really in that space that we really discover our differences. And to be honest it’s quite refreshing to realise that we’re not as freakishly similar as we’ve always thought ourselves to be.
Lastly, with so many cultures in between you two, how do you think you might raise a family in the future?
With a little bit of everything: hopefully with a strong appreciation for our different backgrounds, cultures and experiences that have come together in our relationship.
I think the key focus in raising our family will be around making sure they keep a piece of our cultures as they grow up, mastering our different languages, feeling proud of their portfolio of passports they’re bound to inherit, fostering curiosity for different societies and their cultures around the world through our inevitable travels,
and for us -- just having fun and role-modelling a loving friendship and relationship they can aspire to as they grow older.
Awesome, I think that’s all, thanks so much for your time guys.
Bit about Nick:
Nicolas (@nicolas.jacob) is currently working for British Airways in London, pursing his passion for all things aviation.
Bit about Naima:
Naima (@naimasouzavogt) is currently working as Line Producer on an exciting new animated series, traveling between London and Helsinki.
Together:
On weekends you can find them cooking up creative storms in their kitchen and training for that half marathon they’ve finally gotten the courage to work up to.
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