On being a third culture kid and the quest for self-identity

All third culture kids (TCK) dread that one simple question in social settings,

‘Where are you from?’

A moment of confusion arises. Do you mean where I lived most of my life? Or where my parents are from? Or my ethnicity? Or where I was born? Or what I call home?

The buzzfeed is full of humorous examples on hardships regarding self-identity that TCK face every day. But it wasn’t always all smiles and jokes.

Growing up in a small town in the Czech Republic, I knew I looked different from my peers around me. As a child of Vietnamese immigrant parents, I was taken care of by a Czech nanny who I called ‘mum’. My parents spent so much time working and trying to make a better life for us that I assumed they adopted me and my real parents were Czech. But looking in the mirror and facing a lot of racial slurs from kids at school made me realise I probably wasn’t Czech. I didn’t let racism get the best of me, however. I just felt sorry for the kids and sometimes adults who were not smart enough to see beyond race.

During the day, I would speak Czech and play with my Czech friends. In the evenings, I would come home to my Asian parents, pick up chopsticks with a bowl of rice and eat at a table as that was our only bonding time. At night, I would listen to my favourite genre — conscious hip hop about institutional racism in America. And my search for self-identity continued.

Attending Czech schools, I excelled academically and my peers assumed it must have been my Asian genes. And the rare Asian kid in class that would get B’s would be questioned. But I was better at Czech than most of my class-mates and even won Czech essay competitions and Czech poetry recitation. I couldn’t engage in deep conversations in Vietnamese beyond food as that was what I needed to get by with my busy parents. How ‘Asian’ could I be?

At the age of 16, my family moved to Vietnam and I was put into an international school as my English was better than Vietnamese. Finally I can fit in! Or so I thought…

The thing with international schools is that there were two main camps. The Asian kids and the Westernised ones. Binge watching Korean dramas at that time, I thought I would sit with the Korean kids. However, beyond the few cheesy Korean lines I learned from dramas, I wasn’t Korean enough. I could engage with any group there was but I could never say this is who I am and belong. When I was interviewed for the position of Deputy Head Girl in Sixth Form, I used my ability to engage with people from any background to my advantage and got the position. But deep inside I was struggling with my self-identity.

Now studying in the UK, at a recent flat party I overheard a guy talking with a group of friends from Nigeria. He asked,

‘Do you guys know where she’s from?’

I heard an acquaintance of mine answer,

‘I think she’s from France…or I don’t know…but basically a white girl.’

A ‘white’ girl? Since when did I become ‘white’? All that hard discipline and Asian values that my parents tried to instil in me from a young age…just to be perceived as ‘white’?

There I was, thinking that I wasn’t white but also knowing I wasn’t Asian enough either.

However, I realised where the problem lied.