Sometimes I forget that my little quirks (like taking 3 weeks to go to France, getting stranded in France, go to the US, freaking out over messy visa issues, and forgetting to acknowledge jetlag through it all) can probably be traced back to my cultural heritage.
I just found a webzine for TCKs called Denizen. There are a couple of TCK web-communities, but I like this one because they require writers to have something more to their articles than ranting. I really like their letter to people who befriend/start dating/hire TCKs. They review famous TCKs, athletes (like one I went to middle school with woohoo), and write about how TCKs are using their experience now that they are older (Third Culture Adults?). Not exclusively American, the writers address issues of patriotism, dating non-TCKs, and those little white lies we tell.
I spent a unexpected hour and a half browsing through articles that reminded me a little of who I am. This is a good thing, because I tend to forget every 3-4 days. For better or worse, I'm a TCK (and whoever marries me is going to get a lot of frequent flier miles in the package). I forget to put that into the equation a lot of the time, maybe even because I spent so much time in university discussing the finer points of TCK subcultures.
With regards to one of the the linked articles above, I must say that I never got the "Your English is so good!" comment until I moved to Russia. Is it because I'm white? I'm just saying...
4 comments:
yesyesyes, hooray for us!!! reading these things is so good for my TCK soul...thanks for reminding me...
um...your live traffic feed is so fascinating...the person who visited your site just before me, arrived 15 min. before me (in NJ), is from Kodaikanal, India, which is where my school/home is there! wonder who's checking you out from there... probably a curious TCK :) peace to whoever you are! and to you, dear amy ;)
No, I know who it is. It's my friend Denton who I met studying abroad in Russia! He teaches there. I thought I told you about him because we made the connection a while ago (you don't really forget a name as sweet as Kodaikanal)
aaah! that's awesome. somehow i didn't remember hearing that connection...so cool, though! i just went and browsed around on the KIS website for homesickness' sake, and stumbled on a story about your friend, on a page about volunteer teachers. that's great, i hope he likes it as much as the story says he does!
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