Originally published on December 29, 2007 @ 13:01.
This is a writing exercise w/ health benefits. Name 3 reasons Why being a TCK is challenging. (Very popular article with 162 comments)

Do you think being a Third Culture Kid is challenging? Some people seem to think so, but they haven’t been allowed to grieve for their hidden losses. “You lived a privileged lifestyle, what are you complaining about?” parents often remind them.

While there are many positive benefits to a cross cultural childhood, it’s important to acknowledge losses. According to research, when people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals, they often experience improved health.

“Grief is healthy and has a purpose.” writes Tom Query, a counselor who has helped Third Culture Kids and over 1,000 victims from NYC from grief and trauma.

“But why write about negative emotions? Isn’t that a bad idea?”
Pennebaker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin is a pioneer in the study of using expressive writing as a route to healing. His research has shown that short-term focused writing can have a beneficial effect on everyone from those dealing with a terminal illness to victims of violent crime to college students facing first-year transitions.

“When people are given the opportunity to write about emotional upheavals, they often experience improved health,” Pennebaker says. “They go to the doctor less. They have changes in immune function. If they are first-year college students, their grades tend to go up. People will tell us months afterward that it’s been a very beneficial experience for them.”

What could you explore writing about?

Many Third Culture Kids have expressed having restlessness, a lack of identity, short-term relationships and unresolved grief. It’s not surprising to find out that some TCKs have had to deal with issues like depression, drugs, alcoholism, and self-injury.

-Do you feel like you don’t belong anywhere?
-Do you have short-term relationships and friendships (18 months to 2 years)?
-Do you have a lot of unresolved grief and sadness for breaking off relationships and friendships?
-Do you feel restless and unable to deal with it?
-Have you always felt you never got a say when your parents decided to move?

We have many hidden losses and unresolved grief. It’s time to write about them.

This post is about naming 3 reasons why being a TCK is challenging. Name your losses and allow yourself to write about your deepest feelings.

What did you lose? What are you really angry or sad about? What are your fears? Who hurt you and who did you hurt?

You can express yourself and post anonymously if you want.

The purpose of this post isn’t to neglect the positive benefits of growing up cross culturally, but it’s to help you put your post losses behind so you can use all the rich gifts this experience has to offer.

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE: Top 10 Positive Reasons to be a TCK Read reasons why being a TCK has been a positive experience. Should my children be TCKs?

Popularity: 53% [?]

I just wanted to know… How should I put this?
Does anyone feel like this or has anyone had this happen?

Out of the blue I just had this thought come into my head: I want to go home.

***That sounds really TCK and not unusual but here’s why it feels strange:***

I hadn’t really thought that in a while, and it (the thought, the words) felt like someone else’s thought, I don’t know if I even understand that thought now/anymore, but it was late at night and I was in bed and I just started crying and I couldn’t stop.
I don’t/didn’t even feel 100% emotionally sound right now as I type this.

For a while now I’ve been like this: I don’t know where “home” is anymore and I think I’ve sort of given up on finding it, I’m lost and feel displaced and I don’t think “home” exists anywhere except maybe with (certain) people and inside one’s head (and maybe one’s heart); maybe I’ll find a place someday and/or maybe I’ll find the people — or maybe I’ve already found the people (maybe here) — and maybe I’ll make somewhere home (iunno).

But “will I find home?” is not my question.
Why didn’t the thought feel like it was mine?

And if I’ve really given up on it, why did I think that?

Why did it revisit and wrack me so like that (a few days ago)
and affect me still now (when I started this post)?

It feels like… iunno, maybe it felt a little like it was from a younger me or a locked away me or… something.
Maybe I just really feel lonely (and detached) or maybe it’s something else but has anyone had that thought come into their head but not feel like it was their own yet still be affected by it maybe to the point of crying?

Maybe detachedness just always feels strange to me and probably would to most others / everyone in most circumstances,
but have you ever felt detached about… well, this?

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Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve returned to Ghana after not having been there in 18 years, and not having lived there in 24 years. (I’m 25.) It was completely unplanned, but I was unable to get my visa renewed in China and was given a day to get out of the country. I was incredibly stressed out and panicked, but now I’m back, and can’t complain….yet. (Give me time, I can always find something.) I’ll most likely only be here for a month, and I’m definitely way way way out of my adolescence, but does this count as repatriation? I know I don’t have the experience like a lot of other TCK’s do when they return to their home country during junior high or high school and have to struggle with being an outsider in their own land, because I’m 25 now, but I still feel like an outsider. I mean, a few seconds ago some guy saw me on the street and called me a white person. (What the hell?????)

Repatriation or not?

P.S. Anyone in Accra want to meet up?

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Growing up in different cultures during my childhood gave me an outside perspective on my own culture. I learned not to view any one custom as the ‘right’ way to do things and all others as wrong or weird. Each culture had its own merits as well as its own stubbornly held stupidities. Eventually, I found it hard to understand how anyone could cling to every point of their culture as entirely right and normal 100% of the time, without pausing for rational thought or logic and while viewing all other customs and ideas with suspicion or outright disgust. It’s something I’m finding quite difficult about being back in mainstream North American white culture. My mom is a big believer in assimilating to whatever culture you’re in – “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, but I find completely readopting all white mainstream customs difficult, as some of them are so entirely pointless, and might I say, rather stupid upon study. I think half my problem is that I generally study the historical precedent for any given custom, regardless of culture, and so I know that many of our customs here today in mainstream North America are based on ancient situations which no longer apply today and therefore the customs have become unneeded ritual which serve no useful purpose.

For example:

In North America it is rude to wear a baseball cap or hat indoors, especially among the older generations. It is considered such a sign of disrespect that in many schools ball caps, toques, or any other form of head covering is banned in the school building. I was literally accosted by teachers in my school when I would come in from the cold and hadn’t yet removed my hat or toque on the way to my locker. They’d run up and rip it off my head, because of ’school rules’ and the perceived disrespect. The historical precedent for taking off headwear indoors originated during the days of top hats and bowler caps. Pistols and knives were often hidden in the ample space these hats provided. As a gesture of goodwill, a man would remove his hat upon entering a house to show his hosts that he harbored no weapons. Ballcaps today are skullfitting and leave no room to hide a pistol; therefore, it serves no earthly purpose to remove them upon entering a house. Yet, my school had this ridiculous and rigid policy, and my mother herself would have spaz sessions if I wore a ball cap in any indoor place including restaurants, even after I tried explaining all the above to her. “It’s still rude!” she’d exclaim. “But WHY is it rude?” I’d ask, but she could never seem to pause for rational thought and she’d become extremely upset.

Another example – handshaking. It is rude to shake with the left hand instead of the right. This originated because people traditionally wiped themselves after using the washroom with their left hand, and used their right hand for everything else, including eating. This was in the days before toilet paper, and before running water and any significant form of personal hygiene. Therefore the left hand was indeed dirty and disease ridden and it was the ultimate disgusting act to offer it for a handshake. However, in our culture now, we tend to do everything with the dominant hand – if someone is righthanded, they both eat with that hand AND wipe with that hand, the point being they use toilet paper and hopefully wash afterwards with soap and hot water. Yet the non-dominant hand, which is no longer used to wipe with, and is perfectly clean, is still abominably rude to shake with. It’s ridiculous.

And finally, the one that my question here is mainly about: eating with utensils vs eating with hands. Many of my closest friends are African, from various countries – Sudan, Ghana, etc. It is traditional to eat with one’s hands there. They have still kept this traditional here. The food is clean, their hands are washed and clean. There is no contamination happening. Many people are under the impression that the reason we eat with utensils is so that the food doesn’t get ‘dirty’ or contaminated with germs (even though their are special foods which you are SUPPOSED to eat with your hands, like pizza, corn on the cob, sandwiches, and fried chicken). This isn’t actually true. Even the English royalty ate with their hands hundreds of years ago, but then fashions changed, and they began wearing long, flowing sleeves with lace cuffs which came down over their hands. The lace was constantly getting soiled by the food as they ate with their hands, and utensils were invented to allow them to eat while keeping their lace sleeves out of the food. Thus the fork and knife. (Instead of just changing their FASHION, which would have been eminently more practical.) Most of us no longer wear flowing lace cuffed sleeves which drag into our food. Eating with ones hands is actually a faster and more efficient way to consume one’s meal in most circumstances, the only caveat being to wash your hands between servings if you intend to serve yourself from the communal pot with your hands as well (although I don’t see anyone washing their hands between taking chips out of the same bag and stuffing them in their mouths). Eating with your hands is also a more sensual and pleasurable experience. My African friends do it, and it is practical, and I don’t see any reasons why I shouldn’t mostly abandon the ridiculousness of utensils for a more practical method. My mother of course is going to have a fit, all rational arguments not withstanding. It’s “rude, wrong, impolite, unsanitary, etc, etc.”

I have no problem with conforming to customs in another person’s home or country in order to be polite. In my own home though, I don’t see the problem with picking which customs I will follow based on their practicality and not how North American they are. I don’t see any reason to follow a particular custom just because it’s customary in this country, when it serves no purpose and there are better, more practical customs I can pick from other cultures.

What are your thoughts? Why should I follow North American cultural customs that are irrational or no longer serve a purpose? Why do people cling so strongly to inane customs and get so angry when someone wants to do it a different way? And how should I deal with someone who so narrowmindedly follows the customs of the dominant mainstream culture that they throw a fit whenever I follow a different culture’s customs? Why should I completely assimilate back to this culture and start doing stupid, pointless things just for the purpose of assimilating? I don’t feel any need to have to ‘be white’ and ‘act white’, why can’t I just do the most practical and obvious, instead of basing my actions on silly ancient rituals?

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Hello fellow (?) TCKs!

I wonder if somebody could help me to confirm that I am a TCK (adult)?

Background:

I am Swedish and grew up in Sweden until I was 12, when my mother died and my father immediately moved to Singapore, followed by Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney, Australia. While in Japan he got married to my step-mother who is Japanese but very internationally minded.

However, here is the crux: I didn’t live with my father permanently because I was at boarding school in Sweden. (This was an international school (www.sshl.se), however I not take the international programmes or IB. but local programmes in Swedish wherever possible.)

From 12 for six years onwards I spent all my school holidays in Asia and sometimes on the Costa del Sol of Spain. This continued more or less during university.

Losing my entire life in Sweden and very suddenly finding myself at a posh boarding was very, very strange. Many pupils were speaking English or other languages to each other and many could not speak Swedish (my lang) at all… I had to learn to speak fluent English double-quick!

For all longer holidays I went to Asia where I had to get used to different lifestyles, climates and cultures while my dad mostly worked and ignored me.. Then just as I started to feel a sense of “home” in wherever I was, I had to go back to crazy world of an expat-kids’ boarding school….

I spent the shorter hols with family friends on the Costa del Sol, Spain. Not the most practical arrangement, but I guess they were the only ones that volunteered to take me. This too had its awkward moments of complete alienation, language problems etc.

It was pretty mental and has left me with a surreal feeling of who I am.

I currently live in London, UK and work in an international company.

Based on the above, am I a TCK?

Why or why not?

Love & Peace!
Johanna

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Thanks, Brice, for the greetings, song, and great pictures…wish I could meet you all in person.
It’s been a busy year working on an update of the TCK book, trying to include references to the great work Brice and all of you are doing here, adding a chapter on CCKs. That should be available through amazon.com in September if you are interested.
Having said that, however, I am also sure that we are entering a new phase of this “movement”…where we continue to think about how we can keep growing in our understanding of not only our own stories, but how lessons learned about growing up among many cultural worlds can be applied to understanding many new dynamics going on all around us as the world continues to globalize. Brice and all of you on TCKid.com are such a big and wonderful part of making that happen. Thank you all!
Something I wrote for a Global Nomad seminar some years ago that I believe more now than ever for all of us:
“We are players on the field, not spectators in the stands. We have much to give even as we have much to learn.”
Never forget that there is also always more to learn…from TCKs/CCKs and non-TCKs/CCKs alike. The more fully we engage with life and using the gifts we have been given through the circumstances of our lives, the more we can also open ourselves up to learn from those with different stories as well. I have had a most blessed journey these past 64 years and I am profoundly grateful for each experience and day of it, even the tougher ones. They may be where we learn the most.
Thanks again! May your journeys be filled with wonder as well as you see how the pieces of your life also form a cohesive whole in the end…That’s why it’s nice to live a long time…you get to see that!
hugs to all, Ruth

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Wow, has it been a year already?? Happy 64th birthday Ruth!! I’m going to keep this 2008 thread up to celebrate and remember last year’s birthday!

Listen to my audio message:

To celebrate Ruth’s birthday, I thought I would post a few pictures from recent TCKID meetups we had from our 8 local groups from Singapore to Sweden.

It has been an incredible journey for all of us who have volunteered and build this community from the bottom up … and together, we did it! We will continue to help TCKs meet others like themselves and find a sense of belonging online.. and offline.

Thank you Ruth for being part of the team and supporting the community in so many ways!

Make your Flickr pictures appear here by tagging them “tckid”

—–
Our friend and advisor, Ruth Van Reken, is 63 years old today!!! YAY! Happy birthday Ruth! Thank you so much for all the work you’ve done all these years for TCKs and CCKs everywhere.

Who is Ruth?
Ruth is TCKID’s advisor and the co-author of Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Amoung Worlds and author of Letters Never Sent, a chapter in Strangers at Home. You can read more about Ruth Van Reken here

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both my parents are ethnically French, aunque mi mamá sea salvadoreña. My native languages are English, French, and Spanish, and I mix them up often, saying “dube” for “debí” (the verb is irregular in French, but not Spanish), “ata la manguera al robinete”, and the like. (To be precise, I didn’t learn to speak Spanish as a kid, but heard it on the phone.) I don’t get much chance to speak French here, but if I did I might make up words like “auchancer”. I’ve traveled to Barbados, Portugal, Germany, and Brazil and eagerly look forward to the next trip (maybe Guatemala, maybe Belém, Pará, possibly PNG in the future – I picked up Tok Pisin at Quest).

I belong to a Hispanic church; when I was in San Francisco, I attended an Italian church which was just around the corner. Besides a bilingual English/Spanish Bible, I also carry a Hebrew Tenakh and a Greek NT.

A typical lunch for me is brown rice or potatoes with pico de gallo and a little chicken wrapped in nori. Breakfast is a smoothie with açai, a Brazilian fruit, and sometimes marañón, the cashew fruit which is popular in El Salvador. My mom made ratatouille when I was growing up.

So I don’t fit the category of MK or military brat, but I do mix up the cultures. What am I?

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I have an appalling American accent and it puzzles me considering I have never lived in the US until I was 17. I was born in NY to Filipino parents, and grew up in the Philippines as a cross cultural kid, dividing my time between attending an American International School and my parent’s hometown, which was 4 hours away.

I attended the International School until I was 14, and transfered to Philippine local schools for 3 years. However I personally felt that it was a transfer of worlds rather than a mere transfer of schools. Despite not making an overseas move, I viewed the International School as a bubble- an extension of the American world abroad. We had American teachers, we spoke English like Americans, we read American books, etc- this obviously extended to our household to the point where my sisters, parents and I spoke English to each other and heavily relied on American pop culture. Learning the local language and culture had become optional, so when I transferred schools, the local kids treated me differently, and I felt almost…foreign. I had difficulty fitting in, making friends, and understanding why.

I came to the US (Long Island, NY) when I was 17 for college. Because I attended an American school overseas, I expected to be “American enough” for this move to be an easy (easier) transition… boy was I wrong. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t stand out.

Considering that the US is an immigrant-nation, saying that I was from a foreign country, sounded like 95% of the population- nobody just seemed to get it. I remember someone asking me where I was from, and I replied “from the Philippines” and she replied back with “no really, where are you from.” Then there were other times when I was mistaken for an immigrant, “you’re from the Philippines right?” “Yes and I went to an American school there”, she replied with “but it was still in the Philippines.”

My sophomore year in college came in such relief, I was less frequently asked where I was from, what High School I went to. I also felt that with one year’s experience in the US and my American accent from the International School, I made a conscious decision to “pretend” I was from the US. I used my aunt’s address as a domicile, and started telling people that I was from her hometown. It was more trouble-free than saying I was from the Philippines, attended an International school yada yada.. it was easier to lie, than to explain or define where I was from. However, I could only relate to certain American humor, culture and way of life which still made it hard for me to fit in. I tried to brush it off as if time was my only enemy…but the mobility I was still experiencing as an undergrad made it difficult for me to get a strong grasp of the American identity since it varies regionally-because my parents and sisters still live in the Philippines, I was bouncing from relative to relative: I was in NY for the school year, I was in Arlington, VA for the summer, I was in the Philippines for Christmas, and for long breaks and easter, I was in New Haven, CT at my eldest sister’s.

During my senior year in college, I was an Exchange student from a US university in Northern England for 4 months, followed by 12 month stay in London for a Work Exchange. I was representing the US abroad, and I thought that that should be enough for me to consider myself “American.” But it continued: I was lost, I felt like I was living a semi-lie.. I was promoting the American culture abroad, a culture which I lacked identity in and had a terrible time trying to fitting in.

I first came across “Third culture kids” while living in London, on facebook. I immediately felt a sense of belonging, a sense of familiarity. To be honest a lot of posts made me smile, feel sad and reminisce on old times, countless times I said to myself “yeah, me too!”. I also had reunited with a long lost friend, who studied at the International School in the Philippines with me, grew up in South East Asia and Switzerland and now living in the UK. And an older cousin, who grew up in the Philippines, went to university in California and now living in the UK… it felt like a huge burden just left my body.

I’ve been living in NYC for about a year and half now, and been aware of my TCK-ness, I understand most of my feelings and my behavior, and try to deal with them as best as I know. However, sometimes the loneliness, the restlessness, the not-fitting in syndrome kicks in every now and then. There are times when I still feel like the friends I made in the US, who I expected to know me thoroughly still can not be on the same page. I still feel the need to make new friends, yet I am traumatized of my experience of not fitting in. I tend to check in TCKid every so often to find some peace.

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Do you want to update our Facebook Logo picture? The picture of the book is better known and it has been in use on Facebook for a few years, but our friend Ruth Van Reken is updating the TCK book this year …. maybe it’s time for a change for us too? The new logo has pictures of TCK meetup groups from Taiwan to New York of members that would better represent the community.

Old logo on Facebook

New logo on Facebook

(New logo Option #3)

(New logo Option #4)

(New logo Option #5)

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

You decide. Vote or leave your comments.

Do you have suggestions? Want to create a logo? Please feel free to submit pictures and suggestions.

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