Third Culture Kids

Hey all!
I was born in Calgary, Canada, and when i was 3 my family moved to Australia. we lived there untill i was 12 and then we moved to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. they only have school there up to 9th grade, and they pay for us to go to boarding school after that. so off i went back to Canada (I have familly there and i wanted to get to know them better... besides that there really werent any boarding schools in Australia) to a School called Brentwood College School. I graduated from there, went back to Saudi for six months and then i decided to move back 'home' to Australia. i have lived here for a year and a half now... my sister is in Canada and the rest of my family is still in Saudi. 
anywhoo... just wated to introduce myself!
 

Hi,

I'm working on a research paper on plural nationalities for my Sociology class (Polish-Canadian myself), and I was hoping some of you might be willing to complete a survey to help me out.

The survey is meant for people who identify strongly with more than one nationality (such as immigrants, Third Culture Kids or Cross Cultural Kids).

It will take approximately 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire, and I would be very grateful if you could go have a look at it.

Click Here to take the survey

i didn't know if people were aware of this site or not, and i wanted to share it: www.tckid.com i've found it to be a very nice community.

hello all!

i got directed over here and man, it's good to be around those with similar experiences!

i'm a u.s. citizen but haven't lived there until recently.

born in stavanger, norway and moved to dhahran, saudi arabia when i was 5. went to an american school here until i was 18 and suddenly had to adapt to the states. i've been there for 2 1/2 years now and i know it will never be "home". hard part is, saudi is so strict about letting people in....once i leave i'll never be able to come back. unless something changes in my lifetime (crossing my fingers!). but yeah just wanted to introduce myself!

Hi. My name is Laura, and I am currently 19 years old and in university in America. I was born in Finland, moved to Germany when I was 1 year old, lived there until I was 2 years old, when I moved to the states, and I've been here ever since. I'm currently Bi-lingual (Finnish and English) and I'm almost trilingual (with German added to the mix, I've been studying it since high school). I've always felt out of place in the States, and mostly in Finland. Which hurt a lot when I was a "foreign exchange student" there, though I lived with family (whom I visit once a year, if I can).

I only recently found out about TCK's, and it makes me feel not so alone, you know? And it very much explained the "reverse culture shock" I experienced when I lived in Finland for a year, which has since puzzled me.

I am SO happy that I am not alone in this. :)

Hi Everyone, I'm a TCK from Canada (obviously!) you may have noticed the flag.. hehe. I've just written something about my thoughts of "where home is". The idea of home is very interesting and differs from everyone. I made a post on TCK community blog at http://tckid.com and I was hoping you could read my post, and let me know what you think. They're hosting a TCk writing contest, so if you find it interesting, please do vote. Here's my entry http://www.tckid.com/group/home-is-not-where-the-heart-is/ Let me know what you think?

'Madame Haddadin who remembers everything and everyone - even a son she never had - cannot fanthom how deeply, powerfully forgetful I have already become. Though I am only eight, I too have already had to leave behind entire countries and lifetimes. A friend is a small sacrifice in such a context.' ~ From "The Friend Who Got Away" by Diana Abu-Jaber

Me?
Germany > Tunisia > Netherlands > Israel > Spain > USA > ?

Listed in The New York Times:

MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE (Sunday) This New York-based modern-dance company will perform works by Alaine Handa, Jenny Schworm, Renee Gonzalez and Molly Campbell. At 2:30 p.m., Teatro la Tea, 107 Suffolk Street, Suite 200, between Delancey and Rivington Streets, Lower East Side; $10. (Dunning)

Press Release:

For Immediate Release
January 1, 2007
Contact: Alaine Handa
themovementcollective@gmail.com

THE MOVEMENT COLLECTIVE presents….
TANGLED!

The Movement Collective is proud to present TANGLED! -- a collaboration between dancers, choreographers, videographers, and photographers. Featured choreographers include Molly Campbell, Renee Gonzalez, Alaine Handa, and Jenny Schworm. An exciting evening of dance featuring selections from each of the choreographers, TANGLED! will take you on a rollercoaster ride of different emotions.

Alaine Handa’s Porcelain Pieces details the story of a woman distressed from the loss of her first love -- performed by two women moving together as one psyche. Ms. Handa’s solo, portrays the confused nature of growing up in an expatriate community overseas.

Renee Gonzalez presents two works beginning with Breaking Through, an evolution from the themes of uncertainty and confusion to life changes, acceptance, growth and unity. Ms. Gonzalez’s solo piece, Tears in the Night, she attempts to put herself in the shoes of her grandparents and understand the trials they endured during their migration from Portugal to America.

Jenny Schworm, explores the eternal matter of the heart and its efforts to heal, using the tools of yogic philosophies and practices. Through her movement, Ms. Schworm replicates the seemingly endless struggle the heart and soul has to go through after being violated. This piece details the feeling of total upheaval in one’s life, while also revealing the total strength and self-resilience of the heart.

Finally, Molly Campbell’s piece is a powerful infusion of Motown-influenced jazz and urban hip-hop. Unlike the other choreographers, Ms. Campbell brings a style very reminiscent of a West Coast dance scene. Her energy is evident as the piece brings to life the desired glamour, power, and soul women have captured and competed for throughout time. In her second piece These Last Words, she releases the intimate details of a love story, lingering on the last page for answers.

Tickets are available for $10 at the door at Teatro la TEA, 107 Suffolk Street (between Delancey and Rivington), Suite 200, New York, NY 10002; 2:30 pm, February 18, 2007.

We hope to see you there!

Alaine Handa
Renee Gonzalez
Molly Campbell
Co-Artistic Directors
The Movement Collective
http://www.geocities.com/themovementcollective

Its been two years since I've tackled the "Where is home?" solo. The aftermath. I find myself here again asking the same question. WHERE IS HOME? Then, I said home is where I park my belongings, which later evolved into being the place where I'm currently residing. To ask this question again today, I will answer, Home is where I feel most comfortable and belong on top of the two previous statements. However, "home" is also a few different places I've connected to at a point in my life. In retrospect, I am torn between homes that I've lived in, even for a brief period and homes that I spent a number of years but not with much recollection. How can this simple question be so difficult to answer. I am tackling this solo again because I did not feel completely satisfied with it the last time I created this piece. (oh how I hate choreographing solos) I keep tearing apart the draft and re-doing the original. But every time I come to a movement decision, it is a layering of the previous material that was there. Much like the way an individual develops and matures.

As I rewind the tape to view the video over and over again, my mind captures the essence of the feeling I felt when creating that piece. It was pure frustration of this mind boggling theme in my head and frustration in the creative process. I've been putting this solo off for a while now due to pure laziness and feeling uninspired to work on such a daunting task. I think I am now ready to tackle it again. Who knows, maybe in another two years, I will re-create yet another version of this short solo.

My inspiration to start on it again came from that very same question. A fellow dancer I had recently just met asked me that question on my way out from a holiday party. I was stuck. My two second answer (a lousy one): Right now, its here but I will tell you another time. What kind of a reply was that? I don't have a 2 second answer. I was stumped. So now I am here again working on that solo I abandoned and hoped to pick up again.

Hi guys,

I've been wondering about something lately, and hopefully you guys can give your opinions on the issue. I've mostly lived in Asia and California. I spent all 4 years of high school in the States, and am now a college student at Berkeley.
Now I've been wondering whether TCKs are necessarily more rebellious than most ppl or not? I've read somewhere that TCKs tend to have a later stage of rebellion, but is that necessarily true? I mean, I'm a college student and I could care less about partying or clubbing. I've had several opportunities at smoking, doing drugs, drinking etc. since high school, and I haven't done any (okay skeptics, some drinking perhaps =P). My girlfriend who's also a TCK is similar, but her sister goes off the charts with parties and have perhaps tried all the things I've mentioned before many times over.
Now I know that part of this is attributed to each person's personality and perhaps upbringing, but I'm not sure if I'm seeing a trend because most of my TCK friends (which covers about a good half of ppl I know) do seem to have quite a wild social life. These are great ppl, but most of their fun are quite far away from what I consider fun.
So what are your takes on this?

Hi guys,

I've revamped the article on Wikipedia about Military Brats.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_brat

I would love your thoughts/comments on this subject. Please note, that things on Wikipedia need to be verifiable. Thus, personal experiences are not considered valid sources. Feel free to leave me comments here or on the talk page for the article.

Quick background: To me, both the US and Europe are homes. However, sometimes I think I apply cultural norms from one to the other unfairly because neither feels foreign and doesn't have that 'careful-they think differently, so don't judge until you understand' marker to me. Recently, I got an American boyfriend, whose family's lack of class was a rather rude awakening to me, and I'm still feeling embarrassed on their behalf, and then guilty about feeling embarassed on their behalf.

Is it classist or culturally insensitive of me to think that Americans are crude when they eat all the time? Or when they don't clean to my standards? I would judge an European who had a dirty or disorderly home as lower class, can I do the same to an American? Is it classist to an objectionable degree of me to consider some Americans' technically gramatically incorrect English as a marker of low class? (I'm considering white Amiercan culture only here, as Black American culture seems to follow other rules that don't overlap the European ones I know I also apply) Or a completely lacking fashion sense as a marker of lower class? Or not following some 'protocol' for how to treat other people, specifically greeting people correctly, making some small talk, etc? Or that it's embarrassing when Americans get loud and in your face about something that they're objectively wrong about, and that it's rude when they don't apologize when they realize they're wrong? That they lose face when they do that and don't even have the good sense to be ashamed? Are they ashamed but don't show it?

Even more judgementally, I feel very strongly that in order to present yourself as a grown-up, you eat and drink different things than children, especially when it comes to sweet things. To me, a big part of being a grown-up with good taste you develop a taste for things like wine, beer and fine cheese - you lose the love for sugar that many children in the West have. With meals you drink non-sweet drinks because you prefer them, and you start enjoying fine cheeses and their flavors. I find it offensive when Americans say things like "Brie tastes like shoelaces" (actually heard from exchange student in Europe) and puzzling when they say things like "Just because I don't like fine cheese doesn't mean that I don't have class." To me, these things are personal preference, in the sense that different people have different favorite wines and beers and cheeses, but also go beyond that in that that not appreciating and liking any of them indicates declining to be part of a social community - a social community that one must be part of to have class. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Can anyone here explain how 'plain' Americans see this?

In fact, has anyone figured out how on Earth Americans judge each other with respect to class? I know that they do - and I think I replicate that pattern at least in part - but why do the lower classes get so mad when they are characterized as such? Americans clearly don't agree with each others' assessments of class markers taken as a whole - does anyone have suggestions for why? It makes me feel a little unsure when class seems to depend on whom you talk to. Am I just taking European systems of judging, belonging to, and displaying class and applying them to a society I emotionally feel should also conform to them, but in fact does not do so? Or is my reaction that of a higher-class American to other parts of the same country? I can think of support for both cases, and someone else's thoughts might help. (Although - and this may just be caution from previous experiences I'm hoping won't be necessary in this community - replies to the extent of "America is great!!! I love my country because it's the best!! Go home if you don't like it!!11oneone" aren't going to help me figure this out, so please don't post them if that's how you feel. I'm not saying America sucks or that everyone here is of low class, nor that everyone in Europe is of high class. Relax.)

Hi, I'm Nicole. I'm half Chinese and half French Canadian. I was born in HK and spent alot of my childhood there. I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year when i was going to preschool and since we bought a home there but then moved back to HK, i continued to return every summer for most of my childhood. In HK i attended school within the English Schools Foundation (International Schools). When I finished Grade 7 my family decided the kids needed some fresh air and we moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada. So i spent most of my highschool years in Vancouver. My family valued travel and culture alot so im lucky to have seen and experienced many places around the world, we travel every holiday we get and its awesome! After highschool i spent a year living in the Southern UK, dividing my time between Hailsham (where my university was, close to eastbourne), Brighton, and London. I'm now back in Vancouver to finish my degree at UBC. and after this it's back to HK for a little bit and then to either the States or Australia for a PhD!

( a sample of travel pictures from recent trips )

looking at all those memories i realize that I always want to be somewhere else. HK will always be my home because it is where i grew up, but even then my sense of home is not as clear as most people. Sometimes i miss Bangkok, sometimes i miss London. and i have, in the past, missed vancouver.

Geesh, only after a coincidence of adding a friend who happened to be on the Facebook "international students" group, did I realize hey! There's a term for this!

TCK for life!

*and if you're interested - the Facbook group is called "i went to an international school and i'm wordly bitch!"

Anyway, a big HI! To everybody else that has dual citizenship, and has more stamps in their passport than you can shake a stick at ... spells words containing Z's with S's instead (analyse vs. analyze) and speaks at least 2 languages fluently and about 4 others here and there!

I myself was born in Dallas, Texas, but lived in Bangkok for about 7 years, approximately 3 summers in Salamanca, Spain and random vacations here and there.

I was just wondering, what's life after college for a TCK? This is my 5th university that I've transferred to and I'm thinking about moving again for my master's.

Does your acceptance dictate your location and what about taking *some more time* off school to just go... *bum around* in a country you miss?

(I'm obviously having a tck, confused, half-queer, quarterlife crisis here.)

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Greetings, I don't know how active this journal is, but thought I'd give it a go.

I'm a 38 year old military brat who has lived in Tainan Taiwan (ca 1972-74), Stuttgart Germany (84-87), and Brindisi Italy (Summers of 87 and 88.)

I currently live in Denver Colorado with my wife and son. I'll post more later, but wanted to say hi.

my name is stephen and i happened to stumble on this group by accident and was really impressed with some of the posts and comments here. i grew up in 4 different countries, costa rica, venezuela, usa and primarily colombia, before going to college and graduate school here in the usa.

i know its a long shot, but i am looking for people in south carolina to hang out with, i live in charleston. the other thing i wanted to bring up to you guys as a group is the idea of really attempting to create a solid network of tck's: some website or network that could link us all together, that would be the first thing you saw on google when you typed in tck and would really unite us... where you could click on a world map, on any country, and find people in that country who were registered... (or does this already exist? is there some sort of directory?). i once attended a tck reunion in colorado and it was by far the time in my life that i felt most connected with a group of people, even though we could usually only speak english with eachother... there is some natural interpersonal fluidity born from the breadth of experiences shared by tck's that is nearly unattainable with people who havent lived it.

anyway, take care and i hope to hear from all of you, my own msn space is http://stephenwinchell.spaces.live.com/

saludos a todos, un un abrazo grande,

stephen

I'm 31 and have been raised most of my life in the United States. However, I was born in South Africa and my first memories are of living in Scotland. My first language was Afrikaans and I learned English with a Scots accent. I have lived in six different states in the US, but have retained a lot of British and South African culture through my parents. In two weeks, I'm marrying an American woman of primarily Italian decent from the American Midwest. My soon to be five year old stepdaughter will have Texan, Midwestern and British/South African cultural influences.

I've sort of developed my own circle of "adopted" family over here and have cobbled together my own cultural identity, but am experiencing a new stage of cultural assimilation in marrying my fiancee. My parents and I are the only family we have in the States, but my fiancee comes from a very large family with some different cultural values.

So it's not always just moving to a new place that causes a need for adaptation.

ok i just joined this community and i decided i'd tell you guys about my self. my name is rose, i'm 13 years old and i live in vietnam. i am half new zealand half british but i spent the first four years of my life in new zealand. then i moved to jakarta, indonesia where i stayed for five years!! as you know already i now live in vietnam and i've been living here for over four years. unfortunatly, i'll soon be leaving vietnam to go back to new zealand in december. i'm excited but i'm really going to miss my friends.
well, ttfn