The Kids Are All Right

Sports tournament in Bangkok. Not so much partying because of the exhausting games!

I recently read (and highly recommend you read) a wonderful post about a recent video titled Hong Kong Kids: the TCK Life I Remember

I embedded the video above in case you don't have the time to read the article above: Hong Kong Kids

Recently there has a been a huge controversy among the Hong Kong international school system because of this video. It basically shows a bunch of high school Third Culture Kids living up the expat life in Hong Kong with drinking and drugs. They are proud of their largesse and very cocky about their privilege.

It is funny and a little unfortunate that this might very well be one of the major vehicles that propel the label of TCK out into the world. This video, the lyrics, the lifestyle it espouses shows the very best and the very worst of us all in one go. 

We are spoiled and we are very aware of just how lucky we were in the lottery of life. Combine regular teenage arrogance with being able to globe trot and get into the fanciest clubs and you have the roots of a superiority complex. That feeling of being untouchable is definitely a hallmark of the teen years and it is reinforced in TCKs by the freedom our parents gave us. We danced on bar tops and did shots poured by bartenders while the rest of our cohorts in our home countries stayed in basements and drank watery beer. 

The video is immature and it is full of smug self-satisfaction but it also shows an awareness that this lifestyle is temporary. You are seeing them at the height of their self-assurance. It will only last as long as these kids remain expats and as soon as they are off to college, so too disappears the glamor. Then they become displaced teens who struggle to find a stable identity to hold onto. Forgive them their arrogance, it will all come crashing down at some point in the future.

I want to echo the words of the post that led me here and reiterate to all of those who are filled with indignation: don't worry, they are going to be alright. To all of the teachers, administrators and parents out there, they will grow out of it. Also, be grateful that their shenanigans are happening in Hong Kong, which is seriously one of the safest places on the planet.

There was a time when I think my parents were worried that I thought of life as one big party and that I wouldn't be able to take responsibility for myself/career/future. I started going out when I was fifteen years old in Chennai, India. I have friends who started as early as thirteen. If you were foreign, you weren't carded and you could get in anywhere. I thought I knew what it was to be an adult dancing in clubs and putting on make up and dressing "sexily" because I honestly couldn't wait to grow up. I chafed at being treated like a child and to my parents' infinite credit, they never did. 

I reveled in my freedom and then I was taught a lesson. The first time (and one of two times) that I ever blacked out and got really sick I was fifteen. I went to this event called German night and I drank way too much wine and schnapps and I don't remember the rest of the night. Luckily my friends had drivers who took me home where my parents stayed up all night caring for me. The next day I felt so miserable and awful that they didn't even lecture me (much). I will forever be grateful to them for taking care of me. I am so glad that if I had to go through that experience, I did so at a time when I had a home and a family to protect me.

I repeat that those who are panicking in Hong Kong shouldn't because, honestly, if I could survive India doing what they were doing, then they are fine. 

College is the time where people primarily reserve for experimentation. They are supposed to be the best four years of your life because you are given the freedom to explore academics, alcohol, and sexuality. All of those came in high school for me and my friends. By the time I even got to my senior year of high school and went to Manila, I was already well aware of my limits. This was in direct contrast to this girl who also moved her senior year, but this time from the US. She had not idea how to handle her sudden introduction into the world of liquor and parties and ended up in a very bad state by the second week of school. I ended up taking her home and my family and I took care of her. Had this happened in college then it would have been other inexperienced first years (freshmen) trying to handle a situation that they have never encountered, if there were even enough people to care about her. 

This girl is now working for a very successful company. I have multiple jobs and am able to continue traveling the world. There are a few TCKs that crashed and burned after they left the lifestyle, but by and large, we are a successful bunch. We attended private schools with classes that went no larger than fifteen (sometimes as little as three) and we formed connections with people from countries all around the world. Just because you see a snapshot of a single time period doesn't mean that that is the sum of who that person is or will be.  

One of the hallmark qualities of a TCK is that we tend to be more mature than the rest of our age group (or even several age groups above us) and the reason for that is because we went through all the regular phases of development, just younger. As a 24 year old, I will admit that I have a lot more respect for my own teachers and parents for what they must have endured looking in from the outside. As one of my former teachers put it, "It is scary to watch when you're close to the kids, the seemingly unlimited access and speed at which they are experiencing life," and I am starting to get that now. I kind of want to be a hypocrite and shake those kids and tell them they have so much time to go crazy in the future, but then I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through my own period of crazy.

As a closing, I do ask the world to look kindly on this video and on its contents. Wouldn't you have done the same when you were that age, given the same opportunity?