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Musings of a Twenty-Something

Musings of a Twenty-Something

Category Archives: Third Culture

Collaborating: Third Culture Adults and Those Who Are Not

11 Tuesday Apr 2017

Posted by AliciaRose in Culture, Third Culture, Third Culture Adults, Third Culture Kid, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Megan* grew up in three different countries on two continents. She speaks two languages, enjoys pickled chicken feet for a snack, and currently lives half a world away from her family. As a TCK in the early stages of adulthood, she has a very broad outlook on life and the world around her while wrestling with career choices and never feeling completely at home no matter where she lives. Because her family lives far away, she must lay her own foundation for connections with people and church and community.

Third Culture Adults are not a new phenomenon, and I don’t mean to write about them like they are. I vaguely attempted to write about this stage of life based off of my young adult experiences, but found them lacking. You see, I’m quite sure every TCK moves into adulthood differently. Writing my story alone wouldn’t sufficiently cover all that is to be said. Just like childhood, every experience is different. I have noted a few common themes that seem to be more prominent in the lives of those who have been raised in more than one cultural setting. However, before making blanket statements on these themes, my hope is to gather more stories and experiences outside of my limited knowledge. Namely, I want to hear from other Third Culture Adults.

While I have already asked some friends and family members for feedback, I’d also be interested in hearing from you, the reader, the TCK community at-large, and those affected or influenced by TCK friends or family members.

Before going any farther, I want to add a disclaimer that is vital to this subject: Being a TCK does not make you/us more special, talented, gifted, or superior than any other individual. It is nice to have a place or a “box,” if you will, to fit into, but I’m not looking to create an exclusive identity club for people with unique cultural experiences. This is something I realized with startling clarity after blogging my story. So maybe your childhood is different and you grew up eating strange foods or speaking fluent Cantonese. These things do matter because they so often strongly affect your worldview. However, they do not place you/us on some sort of special-ness, hierarchy scale. Sometimes I wonder if, in an honest desire to be understood, we over-emphasize our uniqueness and lose our audience in the process. I guess what I’m hoping for is that I don’t get so caught up in my own experience that I lose sight of caring about somebody else.

In this new series of posts, I want to hear from TCK’s who are now adults:

What are some strengths and weaknesses you’ve found that are traced back to your childhood experiences? Did your multi-cultural childhood feel primarily like a hindrance or a gift?

I would also love to hear from non-TCK individuals:

What strengths and weaknesses have you found in living in one primary culture? If you could tell your TCK friend one thing (whether it be positive or negative), what would that one thing be? What are pros and cons you’ve found in having friends who are TCK’s?

These are loaded questions, and it might feel easy to shy away from them. Instead of looking at it as a mountain, maybe we need to start looking at it like a bridge. My hope is that we can bridge the chasm that often seems to separate one cultural perspective from another. Perhaps we can use it as a driving force for connection. Let’s collaborate and learn from each other. I wonder sometimes if we don’t miss out on all kinds of good things because we’re too focused on the differences.

So, what does it look like to learn from each other? How would you answer the questions above? Whether it’s through comments, messages, or conversations, I’d love to hear your feedback!

(feel free to refer to Part One of this series for the definition of a Third Culture Kid and more resources about it)

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Third Culture Kid: The Collision

01 Sunday May 2016

Posted by AliciaRose in Culture, Third Culture, Third Culture Kid, Travel

≈ 14 Comments

I was 19 years old, sitting in a counseling office, convinced the weight of the world was on my shoulders. The reasons for being there that day were varied and loose. I still don’t remember what we talked about in that short time except for one statement.

“You are a third culture kid, Alicia.”

She posed this phrase as a statement. It wasn’t a question.

Even if I wanted to tell you all that transpired after our move from Otterburne, Canada, to Lancaster County, USA, I couldn’t. [Find out why we moved HERE]  Mostly because I don’t remember a lot of it. Some days vague memories jump out at me, but its mostly gray and foggy, like a dream where you try to completely open your eyes but you find it impossible to do so.

5th grade hit me like a ton of bricks. I went to a private, conservative Mennonite school. I was distantly related to half of my class. My last name was no longer unusual, but commonplace and almost expected. The ability to introduce myself in French could not help me conquer verbs and adjectives nor did it do anything for my math homework. If it is possible to have a constant headache for months on end, then that is what I most remember.

The headache of trying to figure out a new school system. The shock of going to a church that all dressed like us, instead of being the only girl wearing different attire. Sunday School wasn’t a program of skits or songs about Pharaoh baby and sailing home, but an actual class around a table, where we sat on hard-back chairs and read from the lesson.

This new period of life was a maze of confusion and guilt. I looked like these people. I dressed like these people. My name implied that I belonged here. The guilt came from feeling like an outsider and an intruder. It came from the exorbitant amount of time I fantasized a different life. The confusion was trying to navigate the murky waters of adolescence and a new culture at the same time. I cried several times a week, always in private. The only reprieve came from daily, then weekly phone conversations with my best friend.

It was not a particular person, group, or individual circumstance that caused these hard years. It was the clash of cultures blown up in the world of a child. It wasn’t one moment of misunderstanding. It was a thousand little details that left me confused and frustrated. Some were humorous, like the time we asked where the washroom was at a friend’s house, and they led us to the laundry room. Others were hard, like the day I figured out you need to be invited before you randomly go over to someone’s house.

The simplest way to sum it up is this: In my Canadian world, I was different and I knew it. My friends knew it too. “Why do you wear dresses and skirts all the time?” In these moments I would gather them around and, in hushed tones proclaim “It’s because I am Mennonite.” Then we would run off and play another round of soccer or grounders. It was curiosity, but it didn’t change our relationship.

In my new American world, I looked the same. I dressed the same. My name said I belonged here. But I didn’t think the same or act the same, and this is what set me apart most. Attempting to even describe the exact differences is nearly impossible without categorizing or labeling.

From the age of 10 until that day in the counselor’s office 9 years later, I tried to convince myself that someday I would fit in. I wanted to believe that at some point in my life there would be a time I could clearly say, “I am from here,” and wholeheartedly mean it. It hadn’t happened yet, and suddenly I knew it never would. I am from Lancaster, yes. But I am also from Ontario and Manitoba and all those pieces of life have influenced who I am, whether I admit to it or not. It is different, perhaps, but not bad or wrong.

Throughout my teenage years, I looked at this difference as a detriment. We all applaud the idea of being different, but the reality of being different was and is excruciatingly frustrating some days. Most common love-hate questions?

“Where are you from?”

“Where did you grow up?”

“So you’re Canadian, eh?”

“Where are your parents from?”

“What was it like to live in  __________?”

Every TCK dilemma is how to answer these or similar questions. The long version? The short version? The sarcastic version? Sometimes they are good questions. Other times it’s hard to know how to respond without launching into a 10 minute explanation.

Becoming an adult has its own set of problems. Where do I root myself? Do I even try to root myself at all?  Which place do I refer to as “home”? Sometimes the heightened awareness of culture shock and adjustment is an asset. Sometimes you enter another country and tiptoe around, figuratively speaking, because you don’t want to offend anyone. Like a human chameleon, most TCK’s are subconsciously or consciously looking for ways to blend in or adapt quickly to the culture(s) we are in at any given time.

It’s not always an obvious difference that “sets us apart.” There are definitely varying degrees of Third Culture experience. Perhaps the greatest significance in the TCK label is just that: we actually have a definition for what we are. It wasn’t so much that a professional counselor told me I was a Third Culture Kid, but rather it was because someone who barely even knew me paid enough attention to recognize that part of my story.

Belonging everywhere and nowhere is a gift, not an impediment. It’s hard, confusing, exhausting, and soul-searching, but it’s still a gift. It’s okay to be different. The world needs to hear your insight and perspective that spans beyond a singular, primary culture. It needs you to risk in the places that hurt most. My hope in these series of posts is not just for you, the reader, to hear my story. Rather, that we as a community of people, no matter the story, can start engaging each other in discussion and dialogue on how to use our multi-cultured childhood experience as a tool for good.

How can we walk in grace towards the people and cultures around us?

What has been most helpful to you, as a TCK, in your Third Culture experience?

To my non-TCK readers, what have you learned (if any) from these posts? What can we do to better engage you with our experiences, while also hearing yours?

 

Third Culture Kid: The Memoir

27 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by AliciaRose in Culture, Third Culture, Third Culture Kid

≈ 2 Comments

//the backdrop for any one person is always the story. It’s significant to the individual, but not always to the general public. In the next few paragraphs below, I am attempting to summarize the first half of my life in the hopes that the second half might be more understandable. This is part two of a series of posts on my experience as a Third Culture Kid. Read the introduction HERE//

I grew up in… well. Three different places, I guess. My childhood started in Southern Ontario, Canada, where we moved 3 times before my 4th birthday. The summer I was 4, we moved to smalltown, Manitoba, Canada. Exchanging rolling farms for flat prairies, the majority of my childhood memories are of this place. We lived in a college campus trailer court, surrounded by those like us- poor college students with aging cars.

From the ages of 4-9, I lived most of my life outside. The Manitoban outdoors contained all seasons of mud, ditches filled with melting snow, mosquitoes, and daily bike rides on the dirt roads. I had a best friend, places to explore, dandelions to pick in the spring and snow forts to build in the winter. The first two summers we returned to Ontario where dad worked as a mechanic and we lived in one-bedroom apartments.

If I can credit anyone with my exposure to various cultures, it would have to be my parents. My dad grew up as a missionary kid in Northern Ontario and my mom as a pastor’s kid in Ohio. Combining his easygoing appreciation for different cultures with her compassion for the handicapped employee at Wal-Mart made for a rather dynamic duo.

As a child, I never fully appreciated the variety of college friends they seemed to have. An Indian friend who made us curry, a Pakistani family that taught my mother how to make amazing rice, a Korean couple that were like an aunt and uncle to us, dad’s Burmese friend who we introduced to ski-doo rides, and Canadian Grandpa Pat who we thought was the jolliest white-haired man ever. The seaweed soup from our Chinese friends smelled odd in comparison to my favorite grilled cheese sandwiches. Sometimes the thick accents were hard to understand. However, they were our friends and some our surrogate family.

If this wasn’t diverse enough, my parents decided to attend a Salvation Army church in the heart of the city for several months. The first Sunday we attended, I was convinced we were going to be shot at some point. Once again, the smells were strange. A few people were sober, but most were drunk, high, or just coming for the free food afterwards. In my childish mind, this was NOT a good place to be. My parents faithfully drove the 1 hour distance every Sunday morning for 6 months, right up until the time my youngest brother was born.

My favorite “second home” was visiting our grandparents in Northern Ontario. It was the home of my father’s childhood and teenage years, so it seemed a natural fit. Missionary kid playmates, airplane rides with Grandpa, and exploring in the bush was different than Manitoba life yet completely normal and exciting to my child-mind. Bundling up to go on ski-doo rides through the bush-land in the winter was absolute bliss, wind whipped cheeks included.

The 2nd and 4th grade years of life, I attended the local public school. 4th grade is the time I look back on as one of the best years of my childhood. I had three best friends and played jump rope, soccer, and grounders every recess, all year round. My friend and I would walk from school to piano lessons every other week. The French teacher read us children’s books and immersed us in Canadian French history, speaking basic phrases, and the time of day. There was also the Terry Fox run, , attending the Festival de Voyageur, and building snow turtles that turned to ice after several weeks.

The rumblings of a move came over Christmas time. We went to Ohio to visit family, and while there, my parents took a short trip to Pennsylvania for a job interview. We had visited this distant place several years ago and I had faint memories. A girl with a nice dress that smiled at me during Sunday School, lots of mountains/hills, and the musty smell of Great Grandpa and Grandma’s house. I didn’t think much of it until January when my parents sat down and told us we were moving. Even then, it didn’t fully register.

Two of my classmates came up to me one day after hearing this news, and asked how far away Pennsylvania was. “30 hours,” I replied. They both gaped and walked away exclaiming about the far-ness of it. I felt smug. I was moving somewhere that was far away and different, which apparently astonished my schoolgirl crush. It was a good day.

Somewhere between packing and sorting, writing my name in white out on the dark green bedroom wall so the next trailer dwellers would know I had been here, and having one last slumber party with my besties, the truth began to dawn on me.

I was leaving.

There wasn’t going to be a “see you later” or a return. It was “good-bye.” The excitement of a new adventure quickly became like rocks in the pit of my stomach. I knew virtually no one in the new place, and I certainly wasn’t about to call USA “home.” Moving day came, and my parents came to pick us up at school. It was computer class, and we were busily typing away in the semi-darkness when Mrs. M caught my eye, and motioned to the door. It was time to leave.

The class lined up and I said goodbye, gave hugs, and sulked my way to the Penske truck. You know those memories that are so vivid it’s like a movie you’ve watched a thousand times and memorized every line? That’s what this moment was. We passed the school playground, the street where they did karate chops on bricks during the summer fair, and the ice rink where I had learned to skate amid the swirl of childish hockey games.

Destination: Pennsylvania.

Third Culture Kid: The Introduction

14 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by AliciaRose in Culture, Third Culture Kid

≈ 6 Comments

Third Culture Kid: a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The third culture kid builds relationships to all the cultures, while not having full ownership in any.
(http://www.tckworld.com/)

Every person has a story.

I’ve spent the last 2-3 years attempting to write bits and pieces of my childhood and teenage years as a Third Culture Kid or TCK. It has been primarily difficult for two reasons.

1. No matter how many adjectives, stories, or pictures you tell few, if any, are able to identify with your individual experience. This is true no matter who you are, but especially true in this context.

2. It’s easy to feel unqualified or inept because there are so many others who have experienced this cultural chasm much more deeply than I have.

Despite these hurdles, I will at least attempt to share my story in the hopes that more discussion and recognition of this subject will be birthed.

A few disclaimers to begin:

If you find yourself relating to this idea of being a third culture kid, don’t undermine that identification. I spent years undermining my connection to this group simply because I thought only missionary and military kids fit the bill. Being able to identify myself in this group has drastically helped me understand myself and how I view those around me so much better.

If you can’t identify with this third culture kid (TCK) business, it’s okay. I’m not expecting everyone to identify with this group, nor feel obligated to. My hope for those of you who are not TCK’s is that you can gain insight into a world often full of misunderstanding and cultural faux pas.

If you can identify with it based off your travel or work experiences as an adult, that’s also not a bad thing. You may be a Third Culture Adult (TCA), which is something I (or perhaps some other inspired individual) can expound on in the future. In the age of “going into service” and vast amounts of global opportunity, this group is becoming increasingly larger and broader. When you fully engage yourself in a culture different than the one you came from, returning “home” can be a hard and frustrating thing. Your experience matters and should be addressed more often. However, this first part is primarily about those have been raised in other cultures and/or countries based off of parents’ jobs, schooling, ministries, etc.

In the world of Third Culture Kid-dom, every single story is different, even within families. My youngest brother has known a very different childhood than I have, mostly because we have actually lived in one house longer than 5 years now. In fact, most of his life has been primarily one culture, which means he wouldn’t necessarily relate to the TCK idea.

Whether you are a TCK or not, I am convinced that every story matters. So even though I may be spending a large portion writing about my childhood and experiences as a Third Culture Kid, I don’t believe that those who have lived in one primary culture all their lives have less to offer than ones who have continuously traveled the world or moved around. My goal is simply to share my story in order to engage discussion.

If you have stuck with me thus far, thank you. The beginning of the story is coming up in the next post!

(For more detailed info on different types of TCK’s, facts, etc, check out http://tckid.com/what-is-a-tck.html)

 

 

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