people who do not belong anywhere, really belong to the world."

"...people who do not belong anywhere, really belong to the world."

As a person who does not particularly belong to any single place, I liked this quote from a Japan Times article featuring Sophia professor Matsuo.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20090509a1.html

I think anyone who has lived in a different culture or two can relate to this. After living together with people from a different culture, I think we begin to realize that our most important identity is "human" more than any smaller category such as American or Japanese

I think it takes time for people to realize that they do not primarily belong to one small social or cultural category of humans, but many. For example, I consider myself having a Californian (born, raised), Seattlian (college), a Tokyo-ite (high school, now), and a Nagano-ken (most of my childhood) identity among others such as 1970s born, male, heterosexual, ex?-Christian, missionary kid (still), language instructor and researcher, Dad, husband, marathon runner, beer lover and so on.

Without doubt, all of us are multicultural; we just don't accept that fact until we feel out of place in one of the monocultures we thought we belonged to or happen to be lucky enough to feel at home in a new culture.