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Still split after all these years
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I am a native of Denmark brought to the USA at age 5 when my parents emmigrated in 1955. I had been an outgoing child and suddenly became very clingy and shy. I started school shortly after we arrived, and the only English word I knew was elephant (taught me by a Scottish guest of my parents) which didn’t prove very useful. I was terrified and alone. No one else in the school was foreign.
In short order I became a punching bag for the other kids. Black, white and asian - I was the different one. Small, blonde and blue-eyed with funny clothes and a funny haircut (read European) that they ridiculed. The bullying continued through all six years at that school, ending on the final day with 3 boys (1 white, 1 black, and 1 japanese-american who had been my friend) beating me badly and threatening me with a saw. Is it any wonder that I was a really fast runner?? I’ve never entirely trusted Americans since, even though I have lived here for most of my life. No, the teachers never protected me, but my mother, who had 3 older brothers taught me how to defend myself.
It did not help that I was younger than my classmates when I started school and was then advanced a grade. Smart wasn’t acceptable either, but the next 3 years in a new school were better. I had some great teachers who encouraged me, and I met my lifelong best friend when I was 12, an internal TCK, who attended 6 or seven schools by the time we graduated high school. We often go for many years without seeing each other, but time and distance do not matter, we are like sisters and understand each other. I am so very grateful for her.
The summer I was 14, we spent in Denmark. We had been gone 9 years, and in the intervening time my favorite grandfather died, my favorite grandmother became demented from Alzheimer’s and my eldest uncle had died. My other grandparents were still so very angry at my father for emmigrating that they finally picked a huge family fight, and that was the end of the relationship with that side of the family.
I felt very comfortable back “home” and had no dificulty fitting in - sort of. I did not share many cultural references with my peers, a situation that I know many here can identify with. Nevertheless, that summer was wonderful. Re-entry was odd. The sky in California looked all wrong! a function, I later learned, of latitude differences. The scale of buildings and streets was off, everything was so NEW…after all, the castle in my hometown is over 750 years old and the “new” church is over 100.
One positive, for a brief time, after we returned from that summer, I was interesting to the other kids in high school. Then reality set in; I was an athlete (swimmer), serious muscician (flute) and an honor student, in other words a grind. And because I was 2 years junior to my classmates, I was also not allowed to date. But I wasn’t bullied anymore. I became great friends (still keep in touch) with our Turkish foreign exchange student. One other boy, an German/Chinese immigrant from Germany/China/Taiwan also became my friend. We all “recognized” each other!
I started university at UC Berkeley during the great student riots of 1967. I have been tear gassed many times and chased by soldiers with bayonets unsheathed. I learned far more outside the classroom than in, and dropped out at the end of my second year determined to leave America for good. I was fed up with the intolerance (racism) and with the Vietnam war, which I and my family vigorously opposed. I worked for a year as the Pacific Ocean high seas operator (ship to shore) and saved my pennies. At 20, I went home to Denmark for a stay that ended up lasting only a year.
Again, I fit in and I didn’t. My American education was vastly different in structure and content than a Danish education, and entering a Danish university was going to be very difficult. One uncle told me, with love, that Denmark had become too small for me. I was an odd duck in a very homogenous society. Nonetheless, I was grateful for that year. I sang in my local church choir and went to a Folk High School where I learned the Danish folk songs that, in large measure, unite Danes abroad. I sing with an informal group in the Napa Valley wine country now, driving 1 hour plus just to participate.
I have had 3 significant relationships as an adult, none with Americans. They don’t “get” me, though I didn’t understand why I didn’t feel comfortable with them until I read the Third Culture Kids book 2 years ago. My first great love at university was a Danish-American like myself. My mother hated him on sight. I now think that that was because my choosing someone like myself, from my own culture, with displacement experiences like my own seemed like a rebuke to her and my father’s choice to leave our home country. She never understood the extreme comfort level I had with this man, and spent the almost 4 years we were together doing her best to destroy the relationship, finally forcing me to choose between my boyfriend or my family. I chose my family (I had lost enough family already!!!!!), but I lost her too in the process, because I never trusted her or liked her again. When she died 14 years ago, my primary emotion was relief. I shed not one tear, nor have I missed her even once. Yes, I have spent LOTS of time in therapy.
My first husband was an engineer from a Pakistani ministerial family whom I met at work. His dad had been in the first government after partition, and all his uncles were high government types. Fortunately, they were not political, but rather the practical type of minister (heavy industrial development of Punjab, that sort of thing). I seriously enjoyed getting to know my husband’s very educated family. Like many upper class colonials, they were British to the core, British educated with British values. My late father-in-law was educated at the Inns of Court and had an OBE. It was a new and interesting world that I fit right into (chameleon!). We traveled extensively in Pakistan just after Bhutto was imprisoned by General Zia ul Haq. I wore shilwar kemise and saris made for me, and had a ball, but it was like playing dress up. I could not have sustained it.
We divorced after I was injured in a severe fall, and it turned out that my husband was not up to having a sick wife. Neither cultural nor religious differences caused the rift. Illness and injury is just something that some spouses cannot tackle. My ex stayed close to my parents, and has been very good to my father. He and his family have hosted him in Hong Kong when they lived there. We are cordially split.
I remained single for 7 years before marrying again at age 38. We have been married 20 years. My husband was born in Hong Kong, and is Chinese. We have known each other since we were 23 (university). He was raised here from infancy, so is actually very American, but he has the experience that I do of starting school unable to speak English.
I am very active in my local community, and well known by many people, but I am a loner with few friends. I really don’t trust people, and friendship is something I don’t know how to do well. I am sure that I fall into the standard catagory of finding it easier not to get too close because I will just have to give them up anyway.
These past 20 years, I have been going home to visit every 18-24 months. I have developed really close relationships with my cousins in Denmark and Norway, and my remaining aunts, who are now in their 80’s. I always feel displacement upon re-entry into the US, as I usually stay in Denmark for 6 weeks at a time. I have one foot firmly planted in both countries. As a childless woman, my husband once asked me what I would do if I became a widow. I unhesitatingly replied, “Go home.” The irony is, I can’t. I don’t meet the Danish legal standard of “enough connection” to the country to return. Even my home country is truly lost to me now.
Losses experienced as a child include all my little friends, all my family except my parents, my culture, my language, my identity, my sense of safety and my home. Like many TCKs, I was also victimized by a family member. I was left with a great-aunt and uncle when my mother entered the hospital for 3 weeks. I was seven, and it was only 1-1/2 years after we came to America. I sought comforting and my great-uncle used the opportunity to begin molesting me sexually, something that lasted for a year until I felt my mother was well enough to be told (she was very ill and I took over many household duties as she was bedridden). My parents believed me, thank God!, but I have an almost impossible time asking for help and comforting even today.
My avatar is a trusting little hedgehog that I am holding in my hands. Trust. It’s my big issue.
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June 18th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Welcome to TCKid.com!
I’m glad you wrote this, it’s very insightful into your life and experiences. Having grown up in a similar situation and from a “scandinavian country” too (Finland), I can understand. When I tell my parents that I’d like to marry a Finnish guy, they don’t quite understand. But even so, I still don’t feel comfortable speaking Finnish to “native” Finns, because I know I don’t speak properly (I can speak colloquial Finnish, with my proper Finnish lacking severely) and also because although I am “Finnish” I didn’t have the same Finnish traditions growing up.
but anyhow, welcome again! I’m so glad to have you here.
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June 18th, 2008 at 6:55 am
Welcome Annette;
thats quite a story, respect for being able to share so much of your life.
I am quite moved by your account; any part of it is already a lifestory in itself… glad you found that life-long friend and glad you found us here too!
wish I could give you a welcome-hug
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June 18th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Hi Annette,
It’s interesting your parents disapproved of you dating someone from your country of birth. My case was the exact opposite. Though I can relate to how difficult it was for you having to choose between your family and your boyfriend at the time.
I’m glad that now you’re involved with the local community actively and have built close relationships with relatives from Denmark. It is admirable that you make an effort to pursue a fulfilling life. Keep it up!
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June 18th, 2008 at 9:28 am
I think you exhibit the greatest of TCK qualities - resilience
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June 22nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Hi Annette,
I admire you for sharing your story and I agree that resilience is definitely a strong point of yours. I also find a, admittedly rather selfish, comfort in one aspect of your story - I hope you don’t mind me saying this - as in that it is possible to find someone at a slightly older age (I’m 35), someone who understands the TCK aspect. I am quite content being on my own, love my life style but sometimes wonder…
Again, thank you for sharing your story.
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June 24th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Wow, I can’t add much after that. Thank you for your candor. This was an amazing read.
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June 24th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Thank you for sharing your story, Annette.
Trust is an issue with anyone who’s not a fool (or very young and innocent), because it’s true that many people in the world can’t be trusted. But I should hope we’ll always have a few people we can depend upon for some things.
I also feel that after your experiences of betrayal and being let down by friends, relatives and spouses…it seems like quite a normal reaction?
Your life has been like a roller coaster with all the elements of a good novel, with its high points and low points, twists and turns and unexpected events.
Thank you for trusting us enough to share your story and I hope we won’t ever let you down.
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