Uncle Dan’s Blog - The Pilot Episode
So I’ve had a few of these, and we can start with the context:
I live in Brig, Switzerland. I’m here because my parents live in Zurich, and I’m attending a hotel management college. What I mean by that is the full terminology: International Hospitality and Tourism Management College. The degree in the end will be Bachelor of International Business with a focus in Hospitality and Tourism.
This college has over 40 nationalities in it at any one time. It’s a boon and a blessing, because while what happens from day to day is amazing in any other context considering the intercultural interaction which goes on, it’s also disappointing. You see how divided people become, and how easy it is to write off this experience in regard to later life. It’s also not a cheap school, easily comparing with private universities in the US for tuition, often without scholarship, and it’s easy to get disillusioned with some rich kids who live up to their stereotypes.
Usually they get weeded out over time, though. Service and Kitchen training (12 hours a day of classes and work) either toughen or weed out the weak, and forces students to build solid bonds with the classmates they go through it with, often surpassing culture. In that way, I guess it’s more than a bit disappointing that afterwards these bonds can be weighed back down and people divide themselves along those cultural lines again.
I’ve had friends I thought very close, over time, go back to Koreans, or Germans, or Chinese, or whatever. Or who never quite saw that bond the way I did.
But while they might find solace among their own nationalities, they still remember friendships. It wasn’t like we all abandoned each other. It just seemed like they took less from the experience than they could have, and that their friendships weren’t as tight as I thought they were. I can’t do that, because I’m a TCK. Oh, there are other TCKs, but we don’t really band together. The feeling is too weird. I also can’t do that because I feel elitist committing myself too deeply with just a few friends.
My idea behind that is that I know my life here is temporary. And the last thing I really want is to show someone a class photo, or yearbook, years from now, and have the following conversation:
“Oh yeah, I had a great time there. It was fantastic, I loved everyone.”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, her? Uhh… I never really got to know her… But really, we had a great time.”
“What about him?”
“Oh, he was kind of weird, I didn’t talk to him much.”
And so on.
I think most people don’t put much perspective in their lives, and live from day to day as if it would never end. That’s alright to do as far as stress and worries are concerned, but I think the chance to build up relationships, especially internationally, isn’t something to be squandered. Everyone you meet can have a dramatic effect on your life, and by limiting yourself, you don’t give people that chance. Likewise, as TCKs, we can dramatically affect other people’s lives as positive examples of how to bridge cultures. Why limit their experience?
Nevertheless, I always feel a bit aloof in most situations, because I’m always different from everyone. Even with TCKs, it feels weird to talk to each other in person about our TCK-ness. We don’t mind being together while telling other people about it, but it feels weird to go to a friend and say “You know, I was thinking about my Hidden Losses today…”
Nevertheless, casual and deep conversation alike gets lively among TCKs and CCKs. Every Sunday, a Thai/Indian TCK and I make Asian food for some friends. Asians miss it from home, and Europeans get a taste of how it’s supposed to be like, and the dishes they never tried. Chats over the table are interesting, because each case is a story in itself:
(This may be taken out later, since I’d be posting this without permission. BUT, using code names.)
- Me. Well, see my intro post if you want to know more.
- A Thai/Indian named Kan. His mother is Thai, his father south Indian. He spent his early years in Bangkok, and then Bangalore, going to university there. His father moved to Egypt, and he went on to do a Masters here in Switzerland. He’s worked as a Chef, a DJ, and most interestingly a porn dealer in high school. He didn’t make it, he just downloaded it while in India (which publicly frowns on pornography, but people still want it) and sold it. He speaks Tamil, broken Hindi, street Thai, understands German and French, and can cuss in Spanish.
- A “Russian” we’ll call Lo Mia. She grew up in the Tatarstan region (where Russians lean more towards Asian than European) is half Ukrainian, half Jewish, and having lived in Kazan, Moscow and Amsterdam before coming to Switzerland, has an open-mind that comes with leading a mobile life.
- A Hongke we can call Li. Lived a mostly Hong Kong life until he went to England for high school. He finished his GCSEs there before coming to Switzerland, and when I first met him he seemed like a young punk with a horrible Essex accent. He’s grown up quite a bit in 2 years.
- A Chinese-Thai I’ll call Rit. Chinese ethnicities, as in most of South East Asia, tend to hold a slightly raised status, coming from more successful families, and being ethnically different. Rit went to high school in Singapore, from where his English is still littered with a Singlish accent, and he picked up Hokkien and Malay. His girlfriend is Korean, and he’s learned an immense amount of Korean phrases from the year and a half he’s been with her. Still young, he’s nevertheless a very talented House and Hip Hop DJ.
- A Norwegian we’ll call Anne. Half-Swedish and half-Norwegian and able to speak both, she’s moved around Sweden and Norway because of her parents and her work. She spent time as an Au Pere in California, leaving her accent inflected in an American way.
- A German who thinks she’s Irish, we’ll call Kit. Coming from what I think is probably a fairly successful family in Hamburg, Kit was raised in between the two countries, despite that both her parents are German, and her mother barely speaks any English. She went through primary school in Germany, and boarded through secondary school in Ireland. The latter experience shook up her life, made her more responsible, capable, independent and observant. By the time I met her in Switzerland, she’d come straight from Ireland and had the brill. She’s dying to get a job opportunity in Beijing.
There are loads of others, but these are the regulars to the table on Sundays, and mostly people I don’t mind sharing with.
So you can consider this post to be the pilot for further episodes! 
Uncle Dan.
Daniel Nguyen-Phuoc
Vietnamese in ethnicity, born in Houston, Texas. Lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for 14 years while going to a British International School to finish with the International Baccalaureate. Survived only two years in the University of Michigan before ending up in Switzerland. Graduated from an international (and that's meant in every word) hospitality college. Interesting life, to be sure. But not the only one.Related Posts
9 Comments to “Uncle Dan’s Blog - The Pilot Episode”
December 13th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Wow Dan, excellent blog post. I can’t wait to follow the daily adventures of Dan! What I find very interesting is you’re actually living in a TCK world. All your friends are either mixed or from different backgrounds, and that’s very interesting.
You know, I was wondering why you said “I can’t commit myself too deeply with just a few friends.” but it all made sense when you said you realize your life here is temporary. You just want to experience it all, for what it is.
Kan and Rit sounds like interesting characters haha
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December 14th, 2007 at 10:04 am
hey dan, nice blog. i’d start one but then, i would NEVER leave this site!
i also wanted to comment on the;
‘I also can’t do that because I feel elitist committing myself too deeply with just a few friends.’
comment you made. you have made it before and i puzzles me.
i have always been one to have lots of friends from all over the world and from all ‘groups’ or ‘cliques’. all through high school and college, i had one, what i guess you’d call ‘core’ group and many friends from other groups. some of the friends i had from other groups were closer to me than some of the ones in my ‘core’ group and/or vice versa.
anyway, i guess my question is, why do you feel it elitist to have a close group of friends? i feel like haivng a close group or just having close individual friends helps make long lasting friendships, the kind where you can talk about everyting and nothing. the type of friendship where the other person knows you well, where you can get vulnerable with that person and them with you. for me these sorts of friendships take time to make and when i do make them, they are very valuable to me.
i am very long winded today..(like i am not all the time!)but do you see my point? maybe i misunderstood your point. i guess my thing is this: the closer i get to a person, the more time i spend with them. so i have several best friends. however i really feel like i have lots of other firends and don’t just spend all my time with my close friends, but yes, i probably spend more with the close ones (am i making sense?). this is not elitist to me, its sanity driven. if all my friends were on equal standing in closeness; as opposed to be being really close with all of them, i’d probably end up more casual with most if not all of them, and who wants that? maybe its cos i am a chick, i just need certain friends that i can call and just lay my heart out to and they won’t judge type of thing (but boys need that love too). i can’t do that with just anyone and everyone, can i?
anywho, just thoughts….
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December 14th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Wow, uncle dan, deep, deep meaning but that’s well written!
My blog’s more of a ranting page lol.
Anyways.. yeah, this:
“But while they might find solace among their own nationalities, they still remember friendships. It wasn’t like we all abandoned each other. It just seemed like they took less from the experience than they could have, and that their friendships weren’t as tight as I thought they were.”
Yeah I can totally see what you mean there. This is like most friendships I’ve had. I think it’s really just part of being a TCK. There are friends you thought you were close with when you really weren’t.
But yeah, uhm, wow. Really, everything here hit me (in a good way).
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December 14th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I had a huge, long comment I posted, but it’s all gone now because my Internet decided to fail right then. I’m lazy to respond now, dammit.
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December 14th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Ah, Dan… hate it when it happens. Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C! I’m with Warona on this one, and I’m interested to know why you keep saying it’s elitist.
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December 14th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
So I’m going to take some time to respond now because… I’m crazy and it’s late but I didn’t feel like sleeping for a bit… but I’m sure this response isn’t half as good as the one I originally wrote. Dammit.
The reason I feel like it’s elitist is because cliques are inherently groups. And even the nicest ones inevitably say “We’re a group of friends who’ve earned each others’ trust through time and effort. In order to have that same trust, you’ll have to put that in too.”
But every stage in life is temporary, moreso for TCKs. We arrive, but there will be a day when we leave. And when you leave, what will you have gained? There’s only so much time in the world, and to me it’s economics. You can only really have one or the other, a few close or many to know. Close friends form from chemistry, and then time. Chemistry makes it work in the beginning, time makes it solid.
But as in economics… Time should be used in the best way possible, as a scarce resource. The whole temporary nature of it all makes me want to spend my time effectively. And when you’re placed somewhere where you have so much to learn from so many people… It feels self-centered to limit your experience to just a few.
When I first got here, I found that I was a pretty rare creature, even if I didn’t know the term “TCK” yet. We’re a people in-between, and I found that I was incredibly good at breaking barriers. People are always initially hesitant to meet others, and stick to their cultural boundaries and groups. I had a reason to meet everyone, and pull them together. Through me, they had a reason to get to know each other. I could say “Here Ms. Korean, we’re friends, and you feel uncomfortable meeting others, so here’s my other friend, Mr. German, who thought you were shy.”
I really enjoyed the ability to do that, but there’s never enough time to build the same friendships that others begin to, over time. It’s a bit of a kind of self-sacrificial thing to do for some minorly noble idea, but I felt that by knowing me, people could benefit. We all know that we have fantastic lives, and that we can impact people in a positive way through our experiences. Why limit that potential to just a few?
So it works in twain, we benefit from knowing others because they add to the richness of our experiences, and likewise vice versa. We’re the best examples of how to bridge across cultures so I feel a need to do that, whenever the situation calls for it.
In that way, I feel like it’s almost selfish to say “These few friends are the only ones really worth it.” Moreso because one day you’ll leave, and you’ll lose touch. It tends to happen sooner or later. I hope to have impacted more people through knowing me, and I know that in knowing them I gained something.
I figure this outlook will change once I get married, settle down, start a family. But *until* then, I don’t see much point. There’s a whole wealth of experiences out there, and we can’t experience it all. So we should be looking at what we can and make the most of it.
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December 15th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Dan, very well written! I tend to agree that if you’re in a situation where you plan to move soon, then it’s best to get to know everyone, as you said. But if you’re settling, then it’s important to have close friends. It doesn’t have to be either/or, it can be both.
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December 18th, 2007 at 5:12 am
You know…I see Dan’s point in everything he said, but I just want to add a little advice to you (Dan):
If you WANT to make close friends, don’t not make them just because you are supposed to be a cultural bridge and people should learn from you. You know? For many years in my life I felt I had to be selfless and sacrifice what I wanted so that other people would be happy.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, just make sure you are not putting other people’s need to benefit from your open-mindness in front of your need of making close friends.
I don’t think this would be selfishness, because if you don’t take care of your own needs, no one else will. I learned this the hard way. I always sacrificed my identity and my own wills to do what other people wanted, just to avoid conflict (a lot of this is TCK-issues-related), so I never learned how to stand up for myself, and that screwed my self esteem.
But of course there needs to be a balance (there always needs to be a balance) between satisfying your own needs and being selfless.
And if you don’t REALLY want to make close friends, nevermind what I said. Or maybe try to think about it anyway, with regards to other situations in your life
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December 18th, 2007 at 5:18 am
Good point, Maira. We all need to take care of our own needs, and that includes having close friends or someone who’s willing to create lolcats with you.
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