Posted by: GwachAquarian August 20, 2012
What makes a place special?
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I have always wondered about this thing that I keep hearing about people going back to their home country (which is Nepal in our case) that they go back because it is where they feel they belong.

I went to Nepal sometime ago. Everytime I go back there, I end up feeling like I do not belong there anymore, finding it hard to adapt to the changes there and disappointment that the Nepal/ my home town is not the same place that I had in my mind before i actually revisited the place. Everytime i visit i find more changes, with less familiar faces and less number of friends and acquaintances than before (except for the family members of older generations whom I love dearly, but I cannot connect with them at the same level at peers who share same views as I do) and the culture and the latest trends shock me as much as they did when i first came here.

Everytime I visit the place I end up feeling that the place I carried in my mind for years is not the same place that I visited. Getting that special (akward) treatment for returning/visiting for a short period of time makes me feel even worser that I feel like a tourist in my own home town, that I hear relatives suggesting me about visiting popular tourist spots instead of the places where I grew up and attached to.

Do any of you feel the same way as I do? Is it really place that makes it special or it is the memories along with the people and things associated with the place that makes it special? The last time I was there I just wondered around so many of those places that I always felt notalgic about while i was here (away from home town). But it did not feel even remotely close to what I thought I would feel being there. The places I used to hang out with my college friends were there no more and even the places that I used to spend time with my girlfriend did not feel the same way without her around anymore, my home did not feel the same way without cousins whom I used to be surrounded by all the time.

So I am just wondering is it only me or there are more of you guys who share similar experience.
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