The Hills and Valleys

“Were there someone in the world who feels as I feel, we would talk all night in this grass hut”

— Ryōkan

In my first piece, I introduced the term “Third Culture Kid” and related my own experience as a TCK. I outlined the shared traits of TCKs and specified what differentiates them from children of immigrants. I tried to put into picture the feelings of displacement and cultural homelessness that tend to go along with coming from such a background. I primarily focused on my personal knowledge of the subject, using my own life to relate pros and cons of being a TCK, and augmented it with some of the scholarly work that has been done.

In this second piece, I venture to dive further into the shared characteristics of TCKs, not only looking at the broad similarities as outlined in the scholarly works, but also getting personal and direct stories from TCKs themselves. To accomplish this, I had them answer these four questions:

• Can you provide a quick summary of your childhood (in terms of where you have lived and at what ages)?
• How do you feel about the question “where are you from?” What about “where is home for you?”
• Where/what do you consider ‘home’? If anywhere/anything.
• Do you feel there are any advantages or positive aspects resulting from your experience? What about hardships or negative aspects?

I tried to keep the questions fairly open-ended so that I wouldn’t be guiding the conversation too much. I wanted to see how my interviewees reacted to the questions, and thus get the most natural and honest responses I could — rather than fishing for specific answers. I wanted to know just how similar TCKs really were, and specifically wanted to know: what are the hills and valleys of being a TCK? What ups and downs make up the shared experience of this unique set of people?

I chose my interviewees based on a number of factors. Of course the basic requirement being that they were TCKs (or ATCKs, that is, former TCKs who are now adults). Furthermore, I tried to find a range of experiences, some matching almost exactly to the details of my own upbringing, and others being varying degrees of different, either by location or time-frame. In fact, to achieve this, I actually interviewed one of my siblings; I wanted to see how similar our outlooks were on our shared experience.

While one of my interviewees was able to answer in video form, the others either could not or did not wish to be seen and so gave written or audio-only answers.

Interview I : Anna Son

I chose Anna for a couple of reasons. For one thing, her specific background differs widely from my own, in that she grew up in different parts of the world than I did. I figured this would help me ascertain if TCKs really could relate over their experience, even if the locations of their international childhoods were far apart, in both geography and culture.

Interview II : Anonymous

(Since my second interviewee did not wish to be recorded, nor to have his name disclosed, I have recorded myself reading the answers he gave me; these are not my own answers)

I chose this individual, in contrast to Anna, because of their similarity to my own background. Like me they were born in America and then lived in East Africa before coming back to the States. However, they were twice the age I was when departing from America, and while I returned at the beginning of high school they did not move back until the outset of college. Additionally while my international childhood was split between East Africa and Ireland, theirs remained primarily in one region.

Interview III : Keenan Langley

(My elder brother, Keenan, replied to my questions via audio only. I could not find a way to transport the audio messages here and so have decided to provide transcriptions instead)

Q1. Can you provide a quick summary of your childhood (in terms of where you have lived and at what ages)?

“I was born in San Diego, California…lived in San Diego until the age of six. Then we moved to Tanzania…and lived in Tanzania from the age of six until about the age of eleven…then moved to Ireland and lived in Ireland from the age of twelve to about sixteen or almost sixteen…and well now still live in America in the present day.”

Q2. How do you feel about the question “where are you from?” What about “where is home for you?”

“Technically I’m from San Diego I guess…depending on who’s asking and when they’re asking, where they’re asking, you know, depending on the context of the situation, I might give a varying amount of detail in my answer. But, generally speaking, I think I would consider myself to be, like, pretty international…you know, we were raised internationally and I definitely feel that way. I feel like all of those cultures that I was raised in, everything I learned, and all the people that I knew, and the friends I had there, definitely all had a huge impact on me as a person and have helped develop me into who I am today…there’s definitely cultural, personal, individual differences and tastes and understandings and perceptions between me and other people who are just raised in America or just raised in one other country”

“What do I consider home though, man, I really want to move back to Ireland, like I love Ireland, so, location-wise, if I had to pick a home, location-wise…Ireland, I think, is the the place I would want to pick.”

Q3. Where/what do you consider ‘home’? If anywhere/anything.

“I think then, kinda classic, cliche phrase, ‘home is where the heart is’ is pretty accurate. I mean, the place where you feel comfortable and safe, the place where you can rest, just generally speaking, and, you know, you can take that to different degrees either literally and physically, or metaphorically and figuratively. And I think that both have their significance. ’Cause, on the one hand, it’s good to have a place — practically speaking — where you can safely sleep, and have temperature-control, and keep yourself healthy, and warm and cozy, and you know, protected…but then, even on the emotional, social standpoint, I think it’s important to have a place to call home in the sense of having a people there or a person there, a family, you know, that concept of family and just having someone.”

Q4. Do you feel there are any advantages or positive aspects resulting from your experience? What about hardships or negative aspects?

“I definitely feel like there are advantages to having lived in other places, experienced other cultures. You definitely gain a wider understanding of perspective and how people view things from different places based on the way they’re raised and the morals they hold — the morals their…ancestors have held, the traditions they have and, regardless of whether or not you personally practice those things, you gain an understanding, you develop…a real life, you know, a living understanding of how…they live and how they think, and talk, and act, and behave, and their gestures.

And you gain an ability to understand people from other places better, you can pick up on languages quicker, it improves your pattern recognition, I feel like, and I think there’s a lot of general skills and talents and, and just knowledge that comes with the experience of living elsewhere — especially if you take advantage of it…Actually having, like, gone to those places and mingled with the people, made friends, gone out and done things, and gotten to know those places, and really made those places our homes at different points in our lives, like, it really has added to our character — our knowledge-base.

We’ve gotten to learn history in different countries, we’ve gotten to learn science and math in different countries, at different education levels, different systems, different teachers, and like, it’s really a whole mixed bag of like, experience, and knowledge, and wisdom that is — it’s cool that we’ve gotten to have that opportunity. I’m definitely grateful for that.”

“To be fair and to be somewhat realistic, I think on the hardship-side of it, it was — I do remember it being difficult at times to miss family, to miss like, Grammy and Grandpa and our cousins and friends that we had over here that we would only get to see, you know, once every couple of years, basically, when we would visit…that would probably be the hardest thing, just kinda like missing the people who you’re obviously gonna miss…I feel like it goes without saying unless you’re like a sociopath or something. But, obviously you and I also have gained the skill of being able to go longer periods of time without really desperately missing people, ’cause we’re used to it, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have that feeling and that emotion.”

I chose my brother Keenan because he is the sibling closest to me in age, and throughout early childhood we were the closest, personally. We shared rooms in all of our various homes and generally our experiences are probably the two closest out of all our siblings. This gave me a chance to compare with someone with almost exactly the same background.

Interview IV : Myself

I decided to ‘interview’ myself as well so that I could have a chance to organize my own thoughts in the same manner as those of the interviewees, as well as in order to somewhat respond to and connect with their comments.

Final Thoughts

Going in, my main hope was to ascertain a clear picture off the “hills and valleys” of growing up a TCK. As far as that goes, I feel like I’ve succeeded to some degree. None of the responses were exactly the same — on either point — but they all overlapped or connected in one way or another. In a sense, I feel like they contribute together toward a kind of story.

So what are the Hills? Through the various perspectives we see a picture of someone who is culturally savvy — someone who can remain open to and adopt other worldviews and ways of life, someone who can pick up on another people’s habits and social cues, and ultimately someone who can come at issues with a global perspective, considering how something may affect the world at large, and not just one single nation. It’s someone who has had the opportunity to travel and see the world.

And the Valleys? Here we’re shown a picture of someone who has had to undergo cultural adjustments — and being a child, this was not necessarily with their consent. Someone who has had to go expansive lengths of time away from their friends and kin, and perhaps even lost friendships along the way. Someone who has found themself different from their peers — having a distance between them, even in their supposed ‘home country.’ Someone who has no geographical place they can call home.

Bibliography

Kazuaki Tanahashi. Sky Above, Great Wind : The Life and Poetry of Zen Master Ryokan. Boston, Shambhala, 2012.