Uncle Dan’s Notes: Bashing!
When you first find you’re a TCK, ohhh it’s so easy to start bashing your home country.
In fact, two years on, I’m still doing it. I *am* more careful about it, but yes, I still do it. Well, the USA is pretty easy to bash, I think, though I know some will disagree.
The other thing to take into account is that quite a lot of TCKs are people from Western countries going to developing countries. This is usually because sponsoring organizations are more likely to afford doing it in the West, whether it be church, government or MNC.
And I suppose the experience abroad before maybe returning to the Home culture gives you perspective to disagree with the accepted norms. Not to mention fighting the ignorance.
But it’s a bit hard to not feel guilty, eh? Just a little bit. That’s why you give the country its second, third, fourth and whatevermany chances.
A friend of mine who I know loves his home country, recently felt rejected by it. Without going into details, let’s just say that he felt like their chance to welcome him back into their fold was lost, possibly forever. Despite his patriotism and greater identification with there than any other country he’d lived or felt linked to, he feels like they just don’t want him. And fine and fair enough, he’s come to think.
Me? Well, in my mind, the United States and I just don’t seem to get along. It’s nothing personal, but there are times when you just figure that leaving each other alone is best for all concerned.
The thing is that the country and politics, so often criticized these days, can change. That’s the nature of democracy. But there are plenty of aspects of its culture I just can’t get on board with. Anyone who follows my posts and threads has probably gathered that.
And yet there are TCKs who love it, because that’s more what they’re used to, than the other way around.
We’re also used to thinking in a moderately left-wing position. At least, that’s my gathering from people on the site and elsewhere. Right-wing politics tend to favor the home nation above others, and being international people that’s not usually up our alley. But there are TCKs who do that too. The friend I mentioned above is relatively right-wing, because he sees nations, goals and long term planning. It’s not a bad thing, either. The social systems left-wing politics advocates slow things down, even though they help people.
So it’s all a big balance. The country you bash, I might love. And vice versa.
I suppose the point of this note is to highlight the sheer variety that TCKs can come in. We’re always tempted to think the they think just like us. They don’t, but they DO have access to the same breadth of knowledge you are. They just come to different conclusions.
The feeling I get sometimes, both here and on the Facebook TCK forums last year, is that TCKs go “Yeah! I hate that about <home country> too! Yeesh!”, but right from the beginning, you can tell that the opinion can really vary. Military Brats might grow up pretty patriotic of home, without the same sympathy for other countries. Missionary Kids might or might not grow up with an unswervable belief in God, where other TCKs are secular or atheistic. Business kids and Diplomat brats often grow up with privileges, whereas other TCKs grow up “bush” as Warona would say.
So don’t take for granted that just because we all had these multicultural backgrounds that we necessarily see things exactly as you do. We’re all guilty of having that giddy first joy of being able to think “These people see it just like me!” They don’t. They just have a similar wealth of experiences.
It’s been pretty good overall, though. More often we just want to find out what it is everyone else is thinking. Just don’t catch yourself in the trap that everyone else agrees with you. Both TCKs and Non-TCKs are guilty of that, but we can try to be more progressive.
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
5 Comments to “Uncle Dan’s Notes: Bashing!”
June 10th, 2008 at 1:32 am
When I went back to Japan for university, I ended up hanging out with female TCKs mostly and soon discovered I had hardly anything in common with them. After all we grew-up in different countries and spoke different languages and hence had different cultural backgrounds. One was from France, the other from South Africa, the other from Belgium, one was from Hong Kong, one was from New Jersey, the other from New York City. The only girl I’m still in touch with is the one who grew-up in France, not because she’s more similar to me but simply because she was a nicer person than the rest.
We did share a commonality of having adjustment problems to Japan but this varied too. I had spent almost all of my childhood 2-17 outside Japan whereas some had only spent 4 years. So even adjustment had a whole new different meaning here. Some of them didn’t even speak English very well, and had faint Japanese accents.
At my age now, I don’t seek out TCKs especially - but this forum has been good because it provides me an opportunity to listen to people who do have similar problems as me in the big picture (even though the details are different). It’s also good to see that I wasn’t the ONLY TCK who couldn’t make perfect adjustments to my passport country.
It’s also a bit like taking a stroll down memory lane because a lot of the members are like me when I was in my twenties.
I’m older now so I’ve somehow dealt with a lot of the problems people are going through now in my own way.
Maybe it wasn’t the best way (it wasn’t the best way at all!!), but I survived and I’m here to tell my tale and hang out with all of you.
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June 10th, 2008 at 5:29 am
Aww…Ayako
I am so glad you hang out with all of us.
I wonder many times ‘what if resources like tckid were there when Ayako repatriated to Japan.’
I am very thankful for what you are doing here.
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June 10th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I saw this movie called The Man From Earth, and this movie, is really cool. It’s not a riveting glue your eyes to the screen movie, but I was riveted anyway, because the whole concept is fascinating, but my point is, is that in the movie, this guy who was over 14000 years old, but looked like he was in his late 30’s, and when he was asked the question of how intelligent he is, he said:
“One man. One place at a time, my solitariry viewpoint of a world I knew almost nothing about.”
Yes, as TCK’s we have a better chance than most to open our eyes to the world and see it for what it is, but that doesn’t mean we have to. Alot of people prefer to be kept in the blue, alot of people just refuse other peoples opinions because they believe their experience makes them more intelligent.
To be honest, if anything, my experience has only shown me how little I know!
The great thing about TCKid, is that we meet someone we have a connection with through our background, but when you think about it, two people, who lived in the same neighbourhood their entire lives aren’t necesarilly going to have the same values, morals, beliefs. They aren’t necesarilly going to get on or even like each other.
Being a TCK gives us a certain connection to each other, but you can’t base a friendship on one connection. It takes alot more.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Dude, yeah everyone bashes their “home” country but as long as it doesn’t get out of hand I think you’re ok. I have some friends that bash America in front of americans and it’s just not good. Around other tck’s though, it’s no prob. we all do it. I think it’s important for us to remember though that our “home/host” country is still a good country, it’s just normally the hardest one for us to identify with.
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June 30th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Well I think the greatest thing about TCK is not that we think the same (because obviously we don’t), it’s that we see that different opinions don’t necessarily conflict each other and we can easily make sense of others’ actions and ideas.
Yah not only do I bash my home country, I bash pretty much any country LOL. But I still love them all.
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