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Blasé attitude to cultural differences?

nick

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nick

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I have a blog I write on about my TCK thoughts/experiences/reflections/whatever crosses my mind and, at Brice’s (very good) suggestion, I thought I’d start posting some of my posts that are possibly slightly more relevant to other (A)TCKs on here.

Something that I’ve been thinking about recently is our attitude to multiculturalism/cultural differences. I spent the last 5 months or so in Belgium, with other international students. The key word is international students - not TCKs. In other words they all had their home culture to which they could identify (all European - Spanish, German, English, Italian, etc.) and to which they felt like they belonged. I obviously don’t have that, but to me it was a TCK-ish setting, because like me they were all living in a host country and we were all learning about Belgian culture. But what struck me was that they seemed to pick up on some cultural differences more than I did, or at least more quickly.

I got to wondering why this was the case - whether they were simply more apt at picking up the differences, or if there was a reason for it as a result of our backgrounds. I won’t re-type my entire post though, for those of you who are interested the link is: http://www.wanderlusttck.blogspot.com/

I just wondered if anyone else on here had experienced the same thing and even if you haven’t, if you have any thoughts or comments on it.

Having said that though, and as I mention in another post on my blog, I found it fascinating watching these non-TCKs I was with discuss the Belgian culture as well as comparing their own cultures, i.e. comparing Spanish and English and German Christmas traditions. It was like watching TCKs being formed, just not in their developmental years like us!


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January 5, 2008 | Filed Under General Forum 

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12 Responses to “Blasé attitude to cultural differences?”

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  1. 11
    IngridGiles
    IngridGiles Says:
    January 12th, 2008 at 9:36 am

    I also read that children of immigrants are not TCKs — I think that’s in the book. If I remember correctly, the difference was that TCKs live in one country while they know that it isn’t permanent; some ties are maintained to their passport country and they are not encouraged to become totally culturally integrated. Children of immigrants, on the other hand, are expected to “become” part of the new culture, even if they continue speaking their old language at home and eating the food they’re used to.

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  2. 12
    Lina
    Lina Says:
    January 12th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    This is very interesting… I’ve seen it happen, too! Over the last two years, I’ve been asked so often by other international students what I thought about Kiwis/Brits behaving in this way or that. I usually hadn’t realized. Which often let me feel a bit… I wouldn’t say stupid, but I kept wondering why I didn’t see these things :p On the other hand, if other international students mention a home student’s character trait they don’t like, I often find that I had accepted it as “probably just a cultural thing” and not thought of them worse for it.
    About multi-racial kids… I guess it strongly depends on how you’re being raised. You will probably never be completely mono-cultural though - the “environment” of your parents multi-cultural relationship will usually prevent that. They won’t be able to live their own cultures to the full like they could in a monocultural relationship, it’s all about compromises. There will probably often be a strong emphasis to the culture the family lives in, so one of them will have to make more compromises, but I can’t imagine it be 100% on “one side”. So a multi-racial kid will already be raised in a different environment. This is why they’ll be CCKs, isn’t it?
    I’m bi-racial myself. I was raised with a strong emphasis on … well, I wouldn’t say German culture, maybe more of a Western culture. My dad is Palestinian from Israel (which probably makes him somewhat of a CCK, but that’s a whole different topic) but had been living in Germany for about 15 years already before my parents had me. Funnily enough, this rather “emphasised” upbringing is what made me a TCK in the first place when my family went to live in Israel. At least I think I’m a TCK, my situation is a bit confusing :p
    Now I’ve completely forgotten where I was going with this… My poor brain is mashed up by all the revising and essay-writing. I’ll just leave it here.

    (Is this spam?)

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