Living Between #1: A New Series
Conversations on navigating life between cultures and a space for those who carry more than one place within them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to live between cultures. Between languages. Between places that carry parts of who we are. This new series, Living Between, is a space for voices on navigating life between cultures. Whether that journey comes through ancestry, adoption, migration, partnership, or lived experience, your story is welcome here.
This series is a way to connect our Blend community of over 500 (!) readers who may share similar experiences, places, or feelings.
To begin, I’d like to start the Living Between series by sharing two stories close to home: mine and my husband’s.
While we now live together and share a life in Paris, our individual journeys - especially those early, formative chapters before we became us - have shaped how we move through the world, how we love, and how we view home. I hope you enjoy our stories and this type of post. I can’t wait to share more voices with you soon.
Our Stories
His Story
Thibault grew up in France, first in the southern suburbs of Paris and later on the French Riviera. His father is from Normandy, and his mother is French-Vietnamese with his Vietnamese heritage coming from his maternal grandfather. Over the years, his journey took him abroad - living and working in the U.S., U.K., Asia, and Ireland - before returning to Paris with an evolved sense of identity. That time away reshaped his understanding of “home” into something more fluid. It deepened his sensitivity to cultural nuance and continues to inform how he approaches emotion, friendships, and hobbies. By day, Thibault works in customer experience within the technology industry. Outside of work, he’s passionate about sports, urban culture, and internet culture.
My Story
I’m Shana. I grew up in Maryland, USA, the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and a Jewish American father. I now live in Paris, France, with my husband, who has both French and Vietnamese heritage, and our daughter, who was born here. Paris wasn’t part of my original story - but love and the hope for a slower, more meaningful life brought me here. I met my husband in London while on vacation, we shared meaningful moments in South Korea and Vietnam, and we first lived together in Dublin, Ireland.
Moving across the world, learning a new language, and shifting careers all asked me to redefine what home means - not just where it is, but how it feels. In creating my own sense of rootedness in Paris, I’ve come to believe that home can hold your story, honor your transitions, and help you feel like yourself again. As an interior decorator, I’m passionate about creating spaces that help people feel at home in their own stories.
Where do you live now, and what cultures or places do you carry with you?
Thibault: So we currently live right outside of Paris, and our family carries the different cultures that we all embody: French, American, Vietnamese, European, Jewish. Early on in my life and in our relationship together, we were able to travel a lot, and I feel like these experiences shaped us and how we see the world and what we're attracted to.
Shana: I was born in Maryland, USA and now live in Paris, France. I was born into a mixed race, mixed culture, and mixed religion family. My father is Jewish American, and I grew up close to his family, celebrating Jewish holidays and enjoying my grandmother’s homemade Jewish food. My mother is Vietnamese. She grew up in Vietnam in the 1960s and fled as a refugee after the fall of Saigon in 1975. When my mom was in high school, she lived with a Seventh Day Adventist foster family in Maryland, and growing up, we often celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter together. Though I had relationships with my mom’s Vietnamese family, the war, language barriers, emotions, and distance meant they weren’t part of my daily life.
My husband was born in France, with a Vietnamese grandfather. Since we met, I’ve learned French and studied French decorative arts in Paris. Much of my everyday life now reflects the French culture I live in, especially since our daughter was born in Paris in late 2023.
Do you have a story (perhaps funny, surprising, or memorable) about living between cultures or navigating your cultural identity?
Thibault: A simple one: a stuffed animal in French is called a doudou (pronounced “doodoo”), which, in English, means 💩. Always a fun one when having anglophone people around and chatting with our daughter.
Shana: Although my father is Jewish American, and I believe I look very mixed Asian, I present to a large majority of the world as an Asian woman. I’ve come to understand this through the comments, questions, and languages strangers use when they interact with me, no matter where I’ve found myself in the world. I’ve had countless moments of being asked (or even physically tapped or touched) if I’m Japanese - on metros in Washington D.C., walking along sidewalks in Paris, in airports in Eastern Europe, or in museums in Africa.
For a long time, these kinds of interactions made me feel frustrated and misunderstood. But in 2019, during my immigration classes (OFII) in Paris, I met a young Japanese woman who, like me, was the spouse of a French man. French was still relatively new for both of us, and she began speaking to me in Japanese - assuming I was Japanese too. We navigated the moment in broken English and French, eventually realizing the misunderstanding. And yet, there was something tender in that exchange. She genuinely believed I was Japanese.
That interaction only lasted a few minutes, but it’s stayed with me these past 6 years. It softened something in me. Since then, I’ve been more open when I’m asked the inevitable “Are you Japanese?” question. I used to assume questions like this were always rooted in racism - and oftentimes, they are. But not always. Sometimes, someone is simply reaching out, trying to find a point of connection. That’s a possibility I hadn’t given space to before.
Is there a space, object, or ritual that helps you feel at home?
Thibault: I like that over the past 4–5 years, we've tried to create our own celebrations for things that touch our culture (usually around food), like Lunar New Year, Easter, Hannukah, or Thanksgiving.
And then there are little rituals, like having breakfast together every single day, whenever possible. And eggs & pancakes on the weekend.
Shana: In the past 15 years, I've lived in numerous places in the U.S. (in Maryland, Michigan, and Washington D.C.), in Ireland, and in France. While many of the items I've had through the years have found their way onto secondhand sites or donated, there's a few objects I've carefully packed and taken with me across state lines and across oceans: a letter my father wrote me, a handwritten book of recipes from my grandma, and a fake magazine cover my parents printed of me from an ice skating competition.
How do you stay connected to the different cultures you carry?
Thibault: Good question. Definitely through food—I guess food is a universal one that we both enjoy so much (when done well!), but also through trying to learn languages (my wife learnt French when we moved to Paris / I've been trying to learn basic Vietnamese via Duolingo these past 4–5 years), and finding communities around us that celebrate these cultures too.
Shana: I can probably best describe my connection to my many cultures by walking through what a “perfect” day might look like in my current day-to-day life in Paris.
I’d start the morning by slipping on my robe from Antoinette Poisson (one of my favorite French brands), and making scrambled eggs and pancakes (American-style, of course!), alongside a Vietnamese cà phê brewed with a phin filter, poured into my Jewish American great-grandmother’s porcelain coffee cups. I’d get dressed in something from Kaarem (a Vietnamese American brand I love), then bike with my husband and daughter to see an exhibit at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
We’d grab sandwiches for lunch sitting in the Tuileries or Palais Royal, people-watching and admiring the gardens. In the afternoon, we’d stop by Monocle Café for a goûter, reading magazines and books in English, before FaceTiming with my family in the U.S. while they’re having their breakfast or brunch. Later, we’d bike to the 13th arrondissement for phở and end the day with red wine on our balcony, sharing the evening with friends long into the night.
What are you still learning or unlearning about living between cultures? Any lessons or insights you'd offer to others on a similar journey?
Thibault: Growing up in a very traditional French/white surrounding, it took a long time for me to feel good in my own identity as part-Asian in public, with other people I didn't know.
Then when I started accepting myself, being mixed, I didn’t feel legitimate in Asian culture for a long time, because I grew up on the sidelines.
It took me until a few years ago, and in part meeting my wife, for this to change. I started learning more about my own roots, traveling to Vietnam, and discovering more about the culture by myself, taking the time to educate myself. And I realized my experience—whatever it is—is a valid one that other people also share.
Shana: I’m still learning that living between cultures doesn’t mean choosing one over another. I feel a lot of fluidity in my identity, and I can sense my longing for certain cultures when I’ve pulled too far - or for too long - into feeding only one of the cultures I carry.
For a long time, I felt pressure to simplify my identity to make it easier to explain to others, and sometimes even to myself. I’m unlearning the need to resolve it all neatly, and learning to be comfortable without forcing clarity.
Some days I feel more French. Other days more Vietnamese. Sometimes it's more Jewish. Then American. And often, a blend of all of them at once.
If you’re on a similar journey, my gentle advice is to allow yourself to belong to all the cultures that shape you, even if the fit feels imperfect or “less than” others’ experiences within those cultures at times.
To Stay Connected
Thibault shares thoughts, observations, and reflections on his personal microblog, a quiet corner of the internet away from controlled algorithms.
You can find me (Shana) right here on Blend and on Instagram.
Would you like to be featured in the Living Between Series?
If you navigate life between cultures, I’d love to hear your story. Leave a comment below or send me a message.
This series connects our community of over 500 readers who may share similar experiences, places, or feelings. Your voice matters. By sharing your story, you could be featured in a future Blend newsletter. Thank you for being part of this conversation.
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Love love this entry! So fun 🤩 Also, your childhood photo?? Your bb girl is so your mini-me!
I never tire of hearing your and Thibault’s story. It’s so beautiful. And learning more about you all individually and collectively was fun. Beautiful piece and photos to match!