222 Published in Adam Komisarof and Zhu Hua (eds.). (2016) Crossing Boundaries and Weaving Intercultural Work, Life, and Scholarship in Globalizing Universities (pp.147-159). London: Routledge. “Where are you from?”: Interculturality and interactional practices Zhu Hua “Where are you from?” “Upstairs.” This is the reply given by my then 3-year-old son when we were quizzed by a waiter in a hotel restaurant during a stop-over in Bangkok on our way back to the UK from Australia. I knew exactly where the question came from. We looked like Chinese tourists, but seemed to be comfortable with the menu in English and ordered food in pretty good English. I also knew why my 3-year-old said “upstairs.” We had just checked into our hotel after 12 hours’ flight and our room was indeed “upstairs” on the 12 th floor overlooking a river. It was the most innocent and yet diplomatic answer I have ever heard. Little did I know then that I would be writing a chapter on that very question ten years later. Like many people who have lived and worked in many different places, I often find it difficult to answer such a question in small talk. I do not really have a place which I can confidently and comfortably describe as my “hometown”. I was born into a family of zhishifenzi ( 知识分子), a term referring to the educated as opposed to factory workers, peasants, and soldiers, the supposed three “pillars” of the Chinese society in the era of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and spent most of my school years in one of the coldest cities in China close to the Russian border. My parents, with degrees in agricultural science, were allocated by the government to work in a research institute affiliated with a state farm, far away from the places where they grew up. Their danwei (单位), the workplace, provided housing, medical care, and schooling for children. And almost everyone on the farm originally came from somewhere else and had a story to tell about where they came from: Uncle Jia, who was addressed as Jia Laoshi (贾㗕师，literal translation: Jia teacher) by my parents, grew up in Changsha (one of the biggest cities in Central China), went to a prestigious university and then was sent to the farm to “be reformed through manual labour”. Auntie Xiao Zhang, referred to as zhishiqingnian (知识青年, educated youth) among the locals, grew up in Shanghai, and came to the farm as a volunteer to take on the challenge of working in harsh conditions in response to Mao’s call. Grandpa Ma, who got the nickname of Laojuetou (㗕倔头, literal translation: old stubborn head), was a retired soldier originally from Hebei Province. He married a local woman and settled down on the farm.