Little bit of myself: I am South Korean who grew up in midwestern America for 8 years and also spent another year in Japan. Now I am back in South Korea, working with bunch of South Koreans at a local university. Usually in midwest there are less than 5% of asian population, and sometimes Asians fall under “the other race.” Fun times. All my parents are Korean-Korean, born and raised and educated in Korea.

Since I came back, working and living with my parents in the same home, there has been some communicational problems with my parents. My mom and I get along alright now, but the communication between my dad and I are not improving (note: the following story is written from my point of view – I have no intention to point my dad and blame everything on him). Basically, whenever we have trouble and get into an argument, I start with stating my status and and what I am feeling clearly. He takes this as “talking back.” Whenever I try to give my opinion on what he says, he replies that all I have to say is yes and nod even if I do not agree. Okay, so I do that. Then frequently he goes that I am not being sincere and that is rude. What should I do?

Let me give you some examples.

In the early stages, dad would call me with some weird, (to me, often not very pleasant,) nicknames. Obviously I always got upset whenever I hear it. Dad keeps saying he’s just joking around. Eventually we got into an argument. I was trying to make it clear that 1) even though he did not intend to hurt me, it makes me upset and 2) I do not think it is appropriate to use such vocabs to a full-grown adult or treat me without considering how I would feel just because he is my dad. My dad’s reaction was I am just overreacting and if I am to overeact on everything he says, he cannot hold a decent conversation with me. And he can do #1 and #2 because he is my dad.

I believe the 1st step of working things out by conversation is stating your position/feeling clearly to the other person. Whenever I do this, he would just go how I am being disrespectful, and don’t dare to talk him back. Sometimes I feel like he is obsessed about keeping his face as a dad, rather than listening to me.

Sometimes I cannot believe the whole situation: this is very recent example. My family came back from a dinner out. Since I plan to take a 15 min rest and then go out for a workout, I was watching TV mindlessly.

(The whole conversation was carried out in Korean)

Dad: You’d better get washed.

I: Oh,no worries, will be back in the outside in 15 min for workout.

Dad: Well, but still, you’d better get washed.

I: Er, but I’ll be dripping sweaty within 15 min…

Dad: *sudden yelling begins* You brat, you always keep talking back to me!! Just wash your hands when I say it!

I: Eh…? Oh, you mean hands! I thought you meant body shower. I see, but again no worries, I always wash my hands with anti-back gel. Thats the 1st thing I do whenever I come back.

Dad: *still yelling* Whatever! Stop talking back to me and do it when I say it!

I: * shrugs, eye rolling*

Next day all of sudden he came to my room, gave me a book and says I should read this. The book is written by some Korean businessman who worked for korean firms about 30 years, listing how to behave in front of your boss and stuff. Of course I was not very happy. Also for the realistic reason, I said “well I have something I am reading, so I’d rather read it after I finish what I am reading.” I could see my dad getting upset again so accepted the book anyway. Only 2 days later, he asked “so did you start on it?” I mean…I don’t even know what to say about this. I feel like he just wants to mold me in a way he wants, rather than listening to me or try to understand that I grew up in US, with very low percentage of Asian population.

Long before the example above happened, I already started sharing all my daily stuff only with my mom. Yes I still interact with my dad but only with some shallow jokes. Whenever he says or asks something I just go “yesss…” because I don’t want to make him all angry again. I’ve been talking with my close friends about this matter and there are lots of different opinions: well he’s man, maybe it’s because he is the parent of different side from you, etc etc. I personally believe it is because him being Asian, familiar with Asian rigid hiearchy system and me growing up in US where you have to state yourself clearly.

So in summary, do other TCKs have this problem too? How did you work it out? Please share your stories – and of course any kind of advice is welcomed.

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I fisrt took note of this turn during my church’s bible study for young adults (18-30). In trueth I wasn’t really paying atention to anything and was just drifting away, as I always do in most group settings (i sort of drift into myself, and close the world out around me). anyways i just remember hearing the group leader say “…. and some people are socially awkward…” As soon as he said this it was like a bell flicked on in my head, i knew he wasn’t talking about me, but I completly felt that way. So immediately, after he said this I pointed to myself in a self comidic sort of way (i did it without really thinking about it, was more like a reflex, sort of my way of breaking the ice when the conversation in a room gets to deap for my comfort). Anyways this caused a little much needed laughter in the room, with the group leader trying to asure me that i wasn’t socialy awkward. In truth, it dosn’t matter if he truely believed i wasn’t or if he did but was trying to be nice, the fact is, it was truely how i feal, every moment of the day when i have to interact with people of my age group, especially when in large groups.

I often find myself in situations like today, where i’m in a group of people my age (22ish), I’m kind of the outsider watching them interact. And one thing about Canadians, is they can be quite witty, and are in generally comedic people in my opinion (or atleast in comparision asians). So i’m watching interact, then they’d say somthing to me, and i rarly know how to reply. Theres a thing in Canada called sarcasim, it can be a wonderful thing, unless your like me, and have a hard time detecting it! And i’m not say i have no sence of humor, in trueth, when i’m with friends who i know really well (all of them also tcks) i’m often the life of the party. But with my “canadian” buddies, I just don’t know how to react to them, and often don’t really understand whats going on because of all the cultural refrenses they make. So i just become that idiot who laughs when they laugh, not because i think that the joke is funny, but because i don’t get it! Well my main problem is in group settings, when i’m with just one friend, I’m able to interact a little beter, perhaps it’s because i don’t feel as much social presure to impress when i’m only around one person.

Shaking hands

Other then my struggle in group settings, knowing what to say, and saying the right things so i don’t sound stupid, but I also struggle greatly with physical contact! To exsplain, my parents are Canadian, but I was raised in Taiwan, and learned Taiwanese rules of greatings, and departures. I remember when i was old enough to care about not seeming wierd, I actually did some self studying about how to interact with westreners. I had to teach myself how to shake hands properly (not to soft, not to hard) so that I come across as a confident young man. I also took note, not to offer my hand to a woman, unless she offerd first (I learned from some very conservitive southren baptist course on how to be a gentalmen). So now that i’v lived in canada i’ve had to really master how and when to “shake hands”. The problem, its a reflex for me, someone in church might reach their hand out to grabe a coffee, but my brain tells my arm to shakehands, when thats not what me not the other perosn plan on doing. It can be extreemly embaracing!

being asked “hows it going?”

for me it seems, it is never going well, which really sucks, since i find it extreemly hard to lie, even when it’s to be an answer to a redundant question. I know when people say “hows it going?” or “whatsup?” its just that their saying “hi” and the answer should be something like “good, how about you?” without actually wanting to know the answer, but i always take “hows it going?” as a starter to a conversation. And like I said, Its always going badly with me, so I end up sounding like that guy whos always complaining about everything. So i’ve learned, short answers like, “well…. its been better – (quickly followed by) hows it going with you?” so that they can answer my question without having to do the polite thing of asking me what wrong.

Hugging

dear lord, I’m still practicing at this. For those who don’t know, people don’t hug in Taiwan, even handshakes are much rarer. anyways, The fisrt time in my teen life (as a kid, i probably didn’t have such a probblem with hugging) that i remember giving someone a hug, was when my oldest sister, was leaving at the airport, on her way to repaitriate into canada (for unviesrity). So i sort of learned, to hug when it was a family member who I wasn’t going to see for a long time (more then a year), or when a family member I hadn’t seen for a long time, comes back. Then I went to canada in my mid teens and had to learn to hug my aunts, which seemed wierd, since i wasn’t really close to most of them at the time. So i learned to hug extened family members, or friends of my parents who where like family. Now after living in Canada a little more then 4 years (too long!) I’ve learned that hugs are like handshakes in many social circles, but i feel very uncomfortable at both! I remember being really surprised at when one of my coworkers who i hadn’t seen in a few weeks – when she saw me, she pritty much jumped into my arms, I was quite shocked, I had no idea that friends hugged like that. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it, we both had an unoffical “thing” for one anouther, and that hug, made me feel so close to her, It was a very intimate feeling for me. I don’t remember ever feeling so close to someone, its a shame I never asked her out (i always figured, I didn’t have enough in common with non-tck canadians). So anyways, the hug, for me, is something I don’t feel very comfortable with, unless it’s with a family member, or a girl i’m close with, so its very hard for me to hug. I usally just react to what the other person dose, if they open thier arms that means “hug”. kind of like a robot reaction, same as the “handshake”.

Kissing

I plan to go to spain next year and in the future LAmerica, and I hear that people kiss each other on the cheeks. I don’t know what i’ll do, since in the culture I was raised in, husbends and wives don’t even kiss in public, so this whole casual kissing for greeting people and saying good bye, is terifyingly foreign to me!

I often think my sociall problems are more then just the fact I’m a tck, but I see how growing up in no body contact sociaty, and then moving to body contact sociaty (perhaps Zoe can relate to the opposit of my situation! haha) can have a major affect on me, and tcks with similar exsperainaces. Its strange, I’ve very uncomfortable with bodycontact (i often flinch someone touches me, wether on acident or on purpose), but strangly, at the same time I feel starved for it and crave it. So i don’t know is this just a people thing, or is it a tck thing, or is it just me? haha.

please share.

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So I spent last weekend visiting Houston. I haven’t been there for, oh, 4 years. The last time I was there was the summer between my two years in Michigan; about a year before I left to Switzerland. A lot has changed in my life… and not that much has changed there.

It’s worth noting that in the time since I was last in Houston… I learned an entire language. I find that amazing. When I left Michigan I was 20, and barely knew a word of German. Coming back 3-4 years later, I’m somewhere around proficient.

Early on, I feel I often lamented some of the lifestyle there as exactly the kind of thing I was looking to avoid. They seemed too localized, and self-restrained to stay in Texas for the remainder of their lives. It was exactly what I didn’t want to be: stuck here for the rest of my life.

But going back reminded me of a lot. it’s amazing how travel reminds you to be human. If you stay in one place too long, you get too involved in it. For me right now, I work, more or less full time. There isn’t much else in Florida right now that occupies me, so it’s easy to get caught up in work… as the primary focus of my day to day life.

But travel, even to somewhere like Houston where my memories aren’t entirely positive, wakes you up. It reminds you that you’re human, with more to your life than just going to work and doing a job each day. Come to think of it, I wonder if that’s not a reason that Americans aren’t more open. Holidays are comparatively limited here, and free time is a luxury that many don’t partake in. It’s pretty common to work 2-3 jobs all at once, and have just enough time off to sleep. If you can’t remind yourself to be human, you get caught up in the race.

And that’s what I wonder about my cousins. 2 out of 3 have a hard time even imagining leaving Texas. They’ve never taken the time to really consider it. And the eldest is now graduating, and is probably set in place for a good long time.

The funny thing is that, to some extent, they still look up to my life. I was the one who visited every year or two as they grew up, with stories from a long way away. As we became teenagers, I talked about what was trendy out in the world, the nightlife, the music, the clubbing. the adventures (such as they were) with the opposite sex. They lived in Texas suburbia, unimaginable distance from the wild urban life I was leading. And… our lives have continued down this trend. 4 years later, they still look up to my life somewhat.

I find this ironic considering my social life took a nose dive since moving here to Florida, but it’s still more established and adventurous than theirs. Before, I didn’t want much to do with them because they were so… “mono”, I suppose the term is. But now, I want to bring them to Europe, or Asia, and open their eyes.

Yes this is very rambly, and doesn’t have much point. But it’s a blog post, so I will let it be.

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I have a interested in hospitality/tourism career, so

I’ve trie to look about information about it, but

I can’t find a detailed information, especially about

if you know it’s a career for u

Ur posts mentioned/s about it since u work in hotel in Florida,

so i thought that u will be good person to ask

What kind of personality is best for ppl who want to

work in that area? Would you recommend other ppl, esp

TCKs, who r interested in it to pursue it?

What r ups and downs of this career?

Sorry if that post was off-topic for this website xD

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I’ve mentioned before that I’m currently working in Hospitality. It’s true, it’s not a bad industry for a TCK. Easy to travel, easy to meet people from a variety of countries, makes use of our linguistic and adaptable talents…

Another is international teaching. I’ve considered this for some time because there are negatives to Hospitality, but mostly because my interests tend elsewhere. There’s an idealism to diving into a new culture to teach English to thos willing to travel that’s just… engaging. Hospitality, for all its fancy concepts about customer service and satisfaction, still greatly exercises the fact that it is a business that sniffs a bit of arse for money.

So I have, somewhat often, thought of at least experimenting with the idea of English teaching. I think my English is good, I have people’s skills, and a decent personal understanding of different linguistic structures. Besidse, I like the idea of teaching, and I think it’s something I would be good at.

So why is it that NOW, after I leave Switzerland, I discover that I could have taken a certification course right there in Zurich? Well, that’s life. I didn’t investigate it properly for myself.

Regardless, I have the story of one TCK friend who spent a year in the US floundering around different jobs until he signed on for English teaching, got sent to Serbia (where he’d never been before) and has now been having a blast for the last 2-ish years. That’s a pretty attractive idea.

Frankly speaking, this is probably the easiest means to travel at a young age, post-bachelor’s. Otherwise travelling with a work permit requires experience and loyalty with a big MNC, to the point they consider you a worthy addition to some overseas subsidiary or branch. Which probably has its benefits as it’d be an expatriate lifestyle, but again, takes time.

Funny Quote from a hotel from this evening. My friend, colleague and roommate is Lebanese. One slightly drunk guest asked “Hey, where are you from?” He told her. And she said:

“Lebanon… That’s in Italy isn’t it? I love Italians! You know, I’m so happy I took geography so that I’d know that Lebanon is in Italy.”

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My whole life I’ve been avoiding any close relationships. I just turned 22, 5 days ago, and as of yet, I’ve never had a girlfriend. A lot of it probably has to do with having extremely low self esteem during my teenage years (continuing to now). I was short, fat, and extremely emotionally unbalanced (haha, i probably make myself sound a lot worse then I’m actually am). So low self esteem, plus living as a foreigner in my home country which made finding people similar to me a very hard aspect, and the girls who i liked and had a lot in common with, i avoided getting into a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship because our families were all so close, and it would be like dating a close relative or a sibling (problem with being a minority, is everyone knows everyone, and we all grow up together!). There were also many local girls that i was interested in, but we always had too little in common with each other, and being the pastors kid made me feel like everyone’s eyes were always on me, and whatever i did, seemed to be so interesting to everyone. Not wanting to bring any extra attention to myself (more then i already had) i avoided any sort of relationship.

So now I’m an adult (better looking, with a little more self confidence then i had as a teen), and living in my passport country but because I had zero practice in relationships during my youth, I have no clue how to be more then just friends when around girls! which is annoying since I know there are some girls who are actually interested in me and I’m interested in them. But that’s not the only problem, I’m thinking far ahead, i don’t what to wast mine or her time, on a relationship that won’t have the possibility of eventual marriage, which makes me have very high standards in finding someone who would be compatible to my global view of things. And as of yet, I haven’t found a girl who would want to leave Canada eventually, which really sucks since I know i can’t spend much longer in this wonderful yet not-for-me country. and i don’t want to end up like my sisters, who although they married some great husbands, by marrying monos, they’ve pretty much sealed their fate in northamerica, even though my sisters would much rather live elsewhere. Well I guess marriage is about sacrifice, but honestly I know I am not willing to sacrifice my dreams and identity. So this is why I’m still waiting. Waiting for the right girl. Are my expectations to high? Should i wait until I settle down in a country i can live in before starting a relationship?

One reason why I’m thinking about this now, is i have been faced over the last year again and again with the thought of our limited life, and mortality. About a year ago, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, then a few months ago, right after he finished radiation treatment, my mom was diagnosed with a much worse type of cancer! So perhaps that is pushing me to stop wasting time, start a relationship, and make some commitments to someone other then myself.

anyways, I’m not going to rush into anything stupid, Its just got me thinking. I wonder is this inability for relationships common among tcks? from what I’v seen a few of my friends end up getting married much earlier then the mono population, while the majority of my tck friends are very behind monos in having relationships. It’s seems like we grow up fast, but many of us suck at making commitments, and have a late start in the field of dating. another unscientific observation of mine (about my tck friends) is tck females (seems like mono guys find them exotic) seem to do a little better in getting a boyfriends while me and all my male friends seem to have no clue about how to get a girlfriend. Now i now that is one crude observation, which is often not true, but this is just from my own personal observation. I still know many tck girls my age or older who are in the same boat as me (relationshipless).

I haven’t read that tck book yet, but dose it say anything about tcks and their boyfriend/girlfriend relationships?

and does anyone else here suffer from the same problems or similar problems, in the whole field of romance?

anyways i thought this was an intresting topic, although mostlikly it’s been discused on these fourms before.

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Jennifer, a member of our community asked this question:

“Hello everyone…I’m a parent of a Cross Cultural Kid. I have one 3 year old son who is half American and half Filipino. We are currently living in the Philippines but may soon relocate to another Asian country. My husband and I are in the process of deciding when and if we should expand our family with more children. Due to the current economic situation and extreme expenses of living and traveling abroad, we are contemplating not having any more children. A main concern of mine, however, is that my son will feel even more “alone” if he doesn’t have another TCK sibling to share his unique and many times frustrating experiences with. Is anyone out there an only TCk child? I would greatly appreciate any thoughts you may have on this. I really want to try to be senstive to my son’s (and any future children’s) needs when it comes to being a TCK. Any and all opinions are welcome. ”

What’s your opinion? Vote Now
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I’m 16, I’m Canadian, and I have lived in the Middle East all my life. I only ever was in Canada for like 2-3 months at a time, to visit family mostly, or my parents old friends… except when I was 6 – I lived here for a whole 6 months in one shot (wow!). Now, becuase of personal issues, my parents are moving back to canada – we’ve been here for 7 months already and now we’re heading back to Lebanon to pack up the rest of our stuff and say our final goodbyes. I don’t know how to do this!! How can I say goodbye to everything I’ve ever known????

Does anyone have a word of advice on how not to let this traumatize the rest of my life??? I don’t want to forget anything but I don’t want to remember because it hurts too much.

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The discovery of the TCK world was pure chance and rather random. I was writing a paper on identity ( ironically) for a culture course last semester and came to certain realizations about myself that had never before occurred to me. In class the next day, the term TCK was up on some powerpoint slide. It was not the focus of the lecture at all, just a little tidbit, but it caught my eye and I later looked into it that night. I ended up staying up for hours immersed into this new world that somehow managed to describe me. As is common in most cases, I had no idea that other people shared similar frustrations and feelings of alienation that is common for TCK’s. I haven’t been able to fully convince myself that I actually belong to this group ( this is probably because the sense of belonging to anything fully is particularly foreign and difficult for me) so if someone could please either answer or comment on my uncertainty it would be much appreciated. I feel like I should include my timeline because everyone else does and because it will give insight into what I wrote for my class. So here goes: I was born in Romania and lived there until I was 9. In between that time I visited my father for long periods of time in England (this is how I initially learned English). My mother (who was pregnant at the time), father, and I then moved to Canada and lived there for about a year and a half. Next came Washington, U.S and we lived there about two years before moving back to Canada ( side note: not to the same location we lived in before). We then (this sounds ridiculous) moved back to Washington state (this time it was the same location). Our last major move was to Pennsylvania State. I suppose this is what I currently refer to as home. I’m finishing my undergrad years at Penn State University and have been restless for quite sometime to move somewhere new ( actually, I really really can’t wait to move). And in between all those moves were long summers spent in Romania. So here’s the intro to the paper that I was referring to:

My skin is pretty pale, especially during the winter. My eyes are sometimes green and sometimes blue, depending on the threads that run through my clothes. My hair becomes Barbie blond under the summer rays, and a murky dishwater color under gray skies. These things are easy to account for, my cultural identity, on the other hand, is not. This lingering uncertainty never ran at the forefront of my actions or thoughts, instead, it became an accepted unexamined reality. For a long time, I believed this was a necessary tool that enabled me to adapt quickly, to immerse myself in whatever culture I was placed in, and to make sure I established a sense of belonging in that culture. This gave me freedom, and an open-minded perspective. I was and still am labeled as a ‘free-spirit’, the type of person that easily bounces from group to group, relationship to relationship, friend to friend. I prided myself in my ability to accept, and my innate eagerness to learn about each individuals experience governed my daily actions and philosophical conclusions. I became extremely intrigued by each individual’s ‘world’, and to understand their ‘world’ (whoever it might be), I needed to gain knowledge about what they experienced in life to reach their current perspective. I wanted to know about their upbringing, their culture, their home life, happy moments, traumatizing moments, life changing moments. I did this again and again, and slowly I came to realize that I was beginning to form conclusions about my own identity based on other people’s experiences. Suddenly, whatever identity I thought I had crumbled to the ground, the expected result when one finds their own life insignificant. As bizarre as it sounds, I found myself too insignificant and uninteresting compared to the vast amounts of knowledge that existed in the world. I became so busy living for other people or through other people but it only perpetuated a constant state of dissatisfaction. Nothing and no one was ever enough. I sucked up massive amounts of information from people of all ages and stages of life, and developed an uncanny ability to step into another persons shoes, to the point that friends declared we were exactly alike, an impossibility that felt like an accomplishment. Yet the more I searched, questioned, and philosophized, the more my life lacked patterns, goals, and achievements.

So after I read and researched a lot on TCK’s, I discovered I wasn’t as crazy as I thought I was. Yayyy this was a huge relief although, as I mentioned before and as crazy as it sounds: do I have the right to feel what I described?

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