{"id":315,"date":"2026-06-01T14:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T14:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=315"},"modified":"2026-06-01T14:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T14:13:18","slug":"forward-into-foreignness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"Forward Into Foreignness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the nineteen-sixties, my father, a Corkman, was employed by Chicago Bridge & Iron, an American corporation that built industrial plants worldwide. He worked in hardhat management positions. An early project took him to Mersin, in Turkey. There, he met my mother. She had just spent a year at Langham Secretarial College, in London. They courted in English, then married at Mersin\u2019s Church of St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things.<\/p>\n

Read more Jamil Jan Kochai on Unmooring Memories<\/a><\/p>\n

My mother belonged to Mersin\u2019s well-off Christian community, which was mainly of Syrian origin. This Levantine subculture socialized in French, voiced endearments in Arabic, communicated with functionaries in Turkish. Polyglotism was prized. My mother\u2019s father spoke French, Arabic, Turkish, German, English, Italian, and Ladino. He sent my mother to French-language boarding schools in Lyon and Aleppo. She used French with her four children. We called her Maman and my father Papa. My first word was \u201cattends<\/em>,\u201d because \u201cattends\u201d<\/em> was my mother\u2019s invariable response to my cries from the crib.<\/p>\n

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That was in Neuch\u00e2tel, in Switzerland. We kept moving\u2014to Tripoli, in Lebanon; to Amanzimtoti, in South Africa; and to Matola, in colonial Mozambique. Our nanny there, Victoria, chatted to us in the language of Lisbon, and my first ironic remark was made in Portuguese. I was four years old. The remark came in response to my parents turning off my bedroom light. \u201cMuito obrigado<\/em>,\u201d I said. I added, translating, \u201cThank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n

During my father\u2019s next assignment, in Ras Lanuf, Libya, mother and children stayed in Mersin. At preschool, I rapidly acquired fluent preschool Turkish. My teacher selected me to recite a Mother\u2019s Day poem. I wore a navy-blue velvet suit handmade by my grandmother (her languages: French, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek). The poem began, \u201cAnnecim, d\u00fcnyan\u0131n en iyi sin.\u201d<\/em> My maman, you are best in the world.<\/p>\n

My father was posted to Iran. I didn\u2019t want to go. After a family friend procured the airplane tickets, I cursed him: \u201cAllah belan\u0131 versin, Georges Chalfoun!\u201d<\/em> We moved to Kermanshah, in the Zagros Mountains. There I lost almost all my Turkish.<\/p>\n

A year later, in 1970, we moved to Den Haag. I learned Dutch. My mother, too, learned Dutch, well enough to attend Leiden University and teach French at the Eerste Vrijzinnig-Christelijk Lyceum. Near the V.C.L. was the Lyc\u00e9e Fran\u00e7ais de la Haye, at the front gate of which I was deposited, without my consent, aged ten. I\u2019d been happy at the English School of The Hague. Now I faced two years in the French education system. I had learned an important Gallic concept: the fait accompli.<\/p>\n

Read more The Tally<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was eleven, my mother signed me up for private German lessons with an enigmatic German lady. With her, I reluctantly studied a book called \u201cDie Drei Schwarze Katzen.\u201d Later, I studied German more systematically. I can still affirm the dative prepositions: aus<\/em>, bei<\/em>, mit<\/em>, nach<\/em>, seit<\/em>, von<\/em>, zu<\/em>, and gegen\u00fcber<\/em>. And au\u00dfer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how we did things in my family. You went forward into foreignness. Tabbouleh, hurling, helva<\/em>, \u201cInshallah,\u201d \u201cgodverdomme<\/em>,\u201d Georges Brassens, George Best, the Dubliners, Kaptan Swing, Sinterklaas, \u201cShoot!,\u201d Johan Cruyff, \u201c\u00e7ok g\u00fczel<\/em>,\u201d \u201cya\u2019aburnee shuhelwa<\/em>,\u201d Louis de Fun\u00e8s, \u201c\u00e0 table<\/em>,\u201d \u201cLe Tr\u00e9sor de Rackham le Rouge,\u201d \u201cRevolver,\u201d Roger Casement, \u201cGuerilla Days in Ireland\u201d\u2014all of it was our culture.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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I became a construction worker in County Limerick; a student at Cambridge, in England; a London barrister; a New York dad. For fifteen years, I lived Americanly, monolingually. My French and Dutch rusted like old bicycles. Then my fourth child came along. We lived on the tenth floor of an apartment building. As the ascending elevator approached, my infant daughter and I watched the floor numbers light up. I named them for her in my mother tongue: Un<\/em>, deux<\/em>, trois<\/em> . . . Her first word was \u201cdix<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her eighties, Maman studied Turkish, her fourth language, at the Yunus Emre Enstit\u00fcs\u00fc in London. When she\u2019s anxious, it calms her to read her notebook of Turkish grammar. My father recently turned eighty-seven. In April, he called me on his return from a visit to Cork. He mentioned that, in the fifties, when his brother Brendan was in Ireland\u2019s north, engaged in revolutionary activities, he wrote Brendan a letter as gaeilge<\/em>\u2014in Gaelic. My father, always regarded by the family as the English-bound one, left school with excellent Irish but never put it to use. His visit to Ireland, where his nine brothers and sisters spent their lives while he travelled the world, overwhelmed him. Papa said, \u201cI have missed so much.\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more Jonathan Franzen on Talent, Theatre, and His Next Novel<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s how we did things in my family\u2014tabbouleh, hurling, helva, \u201cInshallah,\u201d \u201cgodverdomme\u201d\u2014all of it was our culture, Joseph O\u2019Neill writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family-values"],"yoast_head":"\nForward Into Foreignness - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=315\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forward Into Foreignness - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"That\u2019s how we did things in my family\u2014tabbouleh, hurling, helva, \u201cInshallah,\u201d \u201cgodverdomme\u201d\u2014all of it was our culture, Joseph O\u2019Neill writes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=315\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-01T14:13:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3e7ce0c0c60d21e12a5ac61fb2b786d4\"},\"headline\":\"Forward Into Foreignness\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-01T14:13:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315\"},\"wordCount\":800,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/32a63caa31fb6dcada6411d40c1e8c3a.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Family Values\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cityrelocationnews.com\\\/?p=315\",\"name\":\"Forward Into Foreignness - 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