Beirut

When I was about five or six years old, my older sister told me and my brother that she wasn't actually our biological sister - she was adopted, from Lebanon.

She was very serious about it so we weren't really sure if she was lying to us or not. "Mooooom, is Victoria from Le-baaaa-noooooooon???" and our mom would yell back from upstairs "Of course not!!", but without offering further explanation or proof that she was actually not. Victoria would then add: "She's just saying that so that you two won't get upset, but I really am from Lebanon." For years, my brother and I weren't sure if we had an adopted sister or not.

A few years later I told my younger sister (child #4 in our family) "you know that every fourth kid that is born in the world is Chinese, right?" and she'd look at me with suspicious five-year-old eyes and then I'd say: "that means that you are Chinese!!"

"Moooooooom, am I Chiiiiiiiineeeeeeeeeseeeee???"
"Of course not!!"

Today, whenever I meet or hang out with people from Lebanon (the receptionist at work, for example) I feel like we're somehow from the same place, related.