Where are you from?

It has been a while since I have written a "special note", one of my little philosophical discussion with myself... But a question I was recently asked 3 times in the laps of 3 days prompted it.

 

It is rather frequent when abroad that I am asked where I am from and I never really know what to say! If I'm in Thailand for the WE let's say, I would tend to say that I'm from Singapore (because after all, it's where I came from for that particular WE!) but then people look at me weirdly, apparently my eyes don't look Asian enough...

This time, the 3 questions were asked in Singapore and all of them within the boundaries of the F1 circuit. (Post on F1 coming, R is playing with the photos!)

First while ordering beer, someone heard us speaking French and asked where we were from (in French), he didn't seem very satisfied with the answer Singapore... Neither did he seem satisfied with France, what he was looking for was Lyon/Burgundy.

Then the next day, we were asked to fill a survey at the entrance gate and to the question where are you from we said France, again False! He was looking for Singapore as we live here and have employment pass, he had another question later on for nationality...

And finally, metal detector guy asked me where I was from and this time I got it right, I said France and he was happy!

As you can tell, France is my go-by answer because in Asia people can not tell from my accent! (British people please do not laugh too hard...) and then they are surprised that my accent is not horrendous! :-)

When I was in London, I couldn't answer France to the same question as most people already knew that from the way I speak!

May be to please everyone I should go with:

"I hold a French passport, was born and grew up in Lyon (to be replaced by "Lyon, France" if talking to US citizen, they like attaching state to city!), spent most of the last 10 years in and out of London and currently live in Singapore" but that seems rather extensive knowing that most of the time the person doesn't really care...

So I'm still looking for the perfect answer but may be, as my physics teacher would say: "tout depend du referentiel!" (my answer should be adjusted to the referential!)