Guidelines for Talking to a TCK

*This post is mostly facetious and with a bit of venting. Please don't get all up in arms about this.

This is a pretty good show of what my TCK life was like. Girl Scouts in New Delhi!

  If you meet a TCK and want to know what to say to actually get us to open up, here is how to do it:

1. Understand what you are getting into when you ask, "Where are you from?"

In fact, it would be helpful if maybe you specified your question:

     - Where were you born?
     - Where did you grow up?
     - Where did you go to university?
     - How do you identify yourself?
     - What is your passport country?

Stuff along those lines will work a bit better. If I judge that you don't really care about my response, I will lie and I will simplify. I am actually teaching the Boy how to do this. Here in Turkey we keep getting asked where he is from (he apparently looks Turkish, who knew!) and then where I am from. He keeps wanting to explain I am American/mixed when everyone here thinks I am Japanese or Chinese. He doesn't get when I shush him and then smile politely and nod along with the guesser. It just makes the conversation easier.

2. Do NOT say something like, "So what? Doesn't that just mean you lived in another country?" 

I actually had a person say this to me and then had to explain the whole shebang of identity issues, language issues, not fitting in, etc. She finally got it and even related it to her own niece who is Swedish but grew up in the Netherlands and is constantly teased for her odd accent and mannerisms.

I don't think people really understand how much of the way you act is informed by the culture that surrounds you. Just being born Swedish or an American doesn't immediately imbue a person with the necessary norms to have you fit in.

3. Try not to be offended with what appears to be arrogance or a braggart mentality.

TCKs can't help but sound douchey when sharing life stories.

4. Do NOT lead off with how fulfilled your life was after one trip abroad volunteering.

Good for you for having done something meaningful with your life. Proud of you! But, realize that we have grown up with a lot of the knowledge that you picked up during your stint abroad. This is not news to us and is especially not the case when you were on drugs half the time.

5. Do NOT preach to us about a country that you visited but we lived in.

Cannot stress how irritating it is. We lived there for more than a few weeks or even a month! Feel free to ask, "Have you been here?" or "Did you know about this?" If we don't know, THEN feel free to preach.

6. Do NOT say something like, "So you lived in Seoul, what's South Africa like?" 

While we know the areas we lived in, we don't know everywhere in the world. Being an expert in a few places doesn't make you an expert in every place. Experience doesn't work that way.

7. Along the lines of #1, please actually listen when we identify ourselves a certain way.

This is pretty frustrating for a mix like me. I feel the need to constantly defend my own identity. Not fun.

However I think this is more of an issue for those friends of mine who look nothing like the countries they have lived in. One of my buddies is whiter than white but she has grown up all around Asia and she faces some issues whenever she explains this and people calmly place her into the "white-American" category.

8. Ask questions.

This applies to people in general, not just talking to TCKs. This is something I have noticed about the U.S. Americans don't ask questions. They talk about themselves and then they expect you to talk about yourself. That is a conversation. Clearly this trait isn't shared by all Americans but it's fairly common. I have literally gone entire meals (this was around the DC area) where people just babbled about how important they were and that was that. 

This list turned more into things not to do, but these are such pet peeves to me, cannot stress this enough!