The Diaspora Exists For A Reason

There is a strange way people talk about “the diaspora”, as if it is a glitch in the system. As if the natural state of a people is to stay exactly where they started, speaking the same language, eating the same food, living next to the same river, forever.

If that were true, I would not exist.

I am South African‑born Chinese, third generation. My face looks like it belongs somewhere else. My accent belongs here. My family history belongs to both and to neither. I am the result of someone, at some point, deciding to leave.

The diaspora exists for a reason. Several reasons, actually. None of them are tidy.

People do not uproot themselves for fun. They move because of war, famine, poverty, racism, boredom, ambition, love, fear, opportunity, or some messy combination of all of the above. They move because staying feels like a slow death, and leaving feels like a fast one, and they choose the one that at least has a chance of a different ending.

We are the children and grandchildren of those choices.

Why people leave

There is the official version of why people leave: “for a better life”, “for work”, “for safety”. These are the phrases that fit on forms and in polite conversation.

Then there are the quieter reasons.

A father who could not see a future for his children under a particular government. A grandmother who was tired of being told her place. A young person who wanted to study something that did not exist where they were. A family who had already lost too much and refused to lose more.

Sometimes the reason is as simple and as complicated as hunger. Sometimes it is humiliation. Sometimes it is the knowledge that your children will always be second‑class citizens if you stay.

In Chinese families, the story is often told in shorthand: “They came here to work.” Behind that sentence is a whole world. Long hours. Cramped rooms. Letters home. Money sent back. Names mispronounced. Papers checked. Jokes made at your expense. The constant calculation of risk.

The diaspora is not a romantic adventure. It is a survival strategy.

What we carry

When people leave, they do not just pack clothes and documents. They pack habits, recipes, superstitions, ways of speaking, ways of loving, ways of avoiding what hurts.

They carry:

• Languages, sometimes half‑remembered

• Family stories, polished and edited over time

• Religious practices, strict or relaxed

• Ideas about gender, duty, respect, shame

• A sense of where “home” is, even when they never go back

In my family, we carried food. Soy sauce in a South African kitchen. Rice as a non‑negotiable. Certain dishes that only appear on certain days. The quiet rules about who eats first, who serves whom, who gets the last piece.

We also carried silence. There are questions I have never asked because I know the answers live in a place my elders do not want to revisit. There are gaps in the story that everyone steps around.

The diaspora is full of these half‑told tales. We inherit not just the journey, but the things that were too painful to say out loud.

What we lose

Every gain has a cost. The diaspora is no different.

We lose language first. It slips. We understand more than we can speak. We answer in English even when we are spoken to in something else. We know the words for food and family members, but not for politics, grief or desire.

We lose ease. In the country of origin, you are one of many. In the new country, you are “the Chinese one”, “the foreign one”, “the one with the funny lunch”. You learn to explain yourself before anyone asks. You learn to laugh things off.

We lose proximity. Aunties, cousins, grandparents, old neighbours – they are now phone calls, messages, occasional visits. The casual, everyday togetherness of extended family becomes a logistical project.

We lose certainty about who we are. Are we Chinese enough? South African enough? Too much of one thing in one room, not enough of it in another?

The diaspora exists in this in‑between space. We are always translating, even when we are not speaking.

The myth of going “back”

People love to ask, “Have you ever been back?” As if there is a neat line you can cross and suddenly everything will make sense.

Back to where? To the village my grandparents left, which has changed beyond recognition? To a country that has moved on without us? To a place that might see me as a tourist, an outsider, or a curiosity?

There is a fantasy that if we go “back”, we will feel whole. The food will taste like memory. The streets will recognise us. The language will roll off our tongues. The ancestors will nod in approval.

Sometimes there is a moment like that. Often there is also disappointment. You are too Western, too African, too soft, too blunt. You do not know the right words. You stand out.

The diaspora exists because there was no safe or sustainable way to stay. Going back does not undo that. It can be healing, but it is not a reset button.

Making a life in the in‑between

So what do we do, those of us born into this in‑between?

We improvise.

We mix languages at the dinner table. We celebrate holidays from more than one culture, sometimes badly, sometimes beautifully. We learn to cook dishes from memory, from phone calls with older relatives, from YouTube, from trial and error.

We choose which traditions to keep and which to quietly retire. We ask ourselves:

• Does this still serve us?

• Does this harm someone?

• Is this about respect, or about control?

We build friendships with people who understand what it is to have more than one “home” and not fully belong in any of them. We find comfort in the shared confusion.

We also make mistakes. We romanticise the past. We judge our elders without understanding the pressures they were under. We swing between pride and embarrassment about where we come from.

The diaspora is not a neat identity. It is a daily practice of stitching together something that feels honest.

The reason we are here

It is easy to talk about the diaspora only in terms of loss and struggle. Those are real. They should not be brushed aside.

But there is another side.

The diaspora exists because someone, somewhere, refused to accept that their story had to end where it started. They imagined a different possibility, even if they could not see it clearly. They took a risk that we are now living inside.

Because of that:

• We speak more than one language, even if imperfectly.

• We can move between worlds and read a room quickly.

• We understand that “normal” is relative.

• We carry recipes, rituals and stories that would have died if no one had left.

We are living proof that cultures are not museum pieces. They move. They adapt. They survive in new soil.

The diaspora exists for a reason: to keep something alive, even if it changes shape.

Honouring the journey

We do not honour our ancestors’ journeys by pretending everything is fine. We honour them by telling the truth.

We can say:

• You did what you had to do.

• You hurt people along the way.

• You carried more than anyone should have to carry.

• You gave us chances you never had.

• You also passed on fears and wounds that we are still working through.

Both can be true.

We can cook the food, light the incense, tell the stories, and also go to therapy. We can teach our children where they come from and also give them permission to be different.

The diaspora is not a mistake to be corrected. It is a reality to be understood.

We are here because someone left. We stay because we are still figuring out what it means to belong.

We may never feel fully at home in one place. But we can learn to feel at home in our own skin, in our own mixed, layered, complicated story.

That, in the end, is reason enough.