Types of TCKs

Introduction

I tried not to step on the toes of my other blog post Top Ten TCK Quirks. I repeat a couple of things but I am trying to be a bit more specific and even a bit more fair to our socioeconomic status.

Third culture kids are a pretty diverse group and yes, I realize that this is an understatement. Not only do TCKs come from every country imaginable, we have also traveled different amounts. Some TCKs have only lived in one other country during their upbringing, whereas others have marked up to ten or more nations. The range of ages in which TCKs have traveled likewise varies widely. There are those who were abroad for a couple of years during elementary school before they returned to their passport country. Others spent their entire upbringing in one or more countries that are not their own.

You can also break this down by the reasons why TCKs were taken abroad. Diplomat, army, business, missionary, teacher parents, hippie parents, you name it! The reason your parents' professions are important is because they determined the length of time you would remain in any one place. If you throw in factors like homeschooling versus local schools versus international schools, then you have a whole cauldron of folk who technically fit under this umbrella label with really not much in common except for the feeling of alienation we feel upon returning "home." Even the international school experience is different when you factor in American/British/French/generic European.

There are minorities within minorities and truth be told, I really don't know much about those who didn't go through the similar tract as I did. I am a diplobrat who was born abroad and moved every one to four years of my life. Barring a four year period during the end of elementary and then middle school, I have lived overseas. It was actually that experience in the U.S. that sent me running to find any group that would "get" me. Except for a brief period in Beijing, I have gone to international schools while abroad. These were all American international schools. That is the type of TCK that I am. Even more specifically, I have lived only in East Asia and Southeast Asia. So I can't even really speak for those diplobrats that grew up in other regions of the world.

This diplobrat-international school-tract (DIST) type includes: 

1. Friends that come from all nations, including the affluent from whatever your host country is.

International schools are expensive and I could only afford to go because the government paid for my brother and I. Having lived in some pretty poverty stricken countries, only those with a lot of money or who were able to win rare scholarships got to attend alongside the other internationals.

2. International tournaments.

To give a semblance of normalcy, American international schools in certain regions have tournaments in order to foster a sense of community. While I was in New Delhi and then Chennai, we were a part of the South Asian Inter-Scholastic Association (SAISA). New Delhi has since changed their tournament affiliation. In Manila I was a part of the Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools. I was too young to be aware of anything in Calcutta, Taiwan, and Beijing.

The proud American International School of Chennai raptors! That is me second from the right. I went through a highlighting hair phase...

3. Drivers, maids, cooks, etc.

I don't think that my DIST type is unique in this but we definitely had the opportunity to hire local household help because labor is cheap in Asia. Remember, this does not mean that we as a type are wealthy or are above middle-class in any way, shape, or form. It just means that in this area of the world, a high standard of living can be achieved at a much lower price.

4. Able to get along with everyone, but most comfortable with other internationals.

We've been flung to swim in the deep end with dignitaries from all ranks and from all nations. We've rubbed shoulders with all sorts of nationalities in school. We've battled local schools and other international schools in sports. We got the whole socializing thing down. You could probably put us anywhere and we would be fine. That doesn't mean we would always be happy. While we are open minded and pride ourselves on our ease of conversation, we do have certain groups that we feel more comfortable with.

As much as DISTs travel, we feel most in tune with other displaced internationals. This doesn't even mean other TCKs necessarily. You can judge me all you want for being snobby and not mixing with local locals (and I don't mean non-English speakers. English speakers who have never left their own country/city/small town are included in this category of locals), but honestly it gets exhausting. Having to constantly make conversation with a person who does not and does not want to understand you is wearying. Sizing them up, seeing if they actually care about your back story, if so to what degree, and how much should you gloss over. These are all steps that you take when you meet a local. Sure, when I meet another international from any country who feels as displaced as I do then I will become best buds with them within five minutes. It can just feel nice to be accepted without having to try. Again, it isn't the issue of language barrier. I have lived with people who can barely speak English and I am a pro at communicating via mime. It is conveying my experiences and what they have made me that is the difficulty. 

A great example of this is a Japanese girl that I knew in Chennai. When I met her she spoke maybe a handful of words in English. We became friends through a mutual desire to communicate, since I wanted to learn Japanese. She later moved to New Delhi and then returned to Japan. I recently met her again and I was blown away by her English ability and she is even an English teacher now. Most people, if they met her, would just think of her as Japanese. However, she makes mistakes while writing Japanese since she moved to a foreign country during the pivotal years that Japanese students learn kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese script). She is not entirely accepted as a Japanese woman fulled raised in Japan. In spite of the fact that we are from two different passport countries, we get each other because we both missed out on cultural aspects that our peers experienced by living in one place.

5. Moving every one to four years

Depending on why you are abroad, you can move anywhere from every few months to years to living in just one other country prior to high school graduation. The length of time you stay in a place determines how many times you are forced to leave your best friends behind and scramble to quickly find a group when the new school year starts. Your perceptions of stability are very much related to how much you have had.

I would include in this as well how open your parents have been about your moves. My parents have always made clear to me how long we were going to live in a place before we arrive. Of course, there was always uncertainty whenever my dad had to deal with being able to extend his post for a year or two (maximum four years), but by and large I had a lot of advance warning. Some of my friends were not so lucky. They were told only a couple of weeks or months before they had to leave, sometimes in the middle of the school year.

I didn't use to deal with moving very well. I would cry and rage and hold onto old friends for way too long. While I made friends wherever I moved, they were never as close because I was convinced they couldn't live up to what I had left behind. Then I would start to loosen up and open myself up to deeper friendships, at which point the cycle would begin anew. Technology has helped this process a lot and I will definitely be writing a post about that.

I think that there are differences between those who have been uprooted more and who have spent more significant lengths abroad. I most noticed this change when I moved to Manila. The International School of Manila has a large population of students that have attended the school together since they were young. I don't know why but for some reason that school seemed to attract mostly students whose parents had really long postings. Going to International School Manila (ISM) reminded me a bit of what it was like to go to a school in the U.S. There were long-standing cliques and people with years of history, a novelty to most TCKs. There was a larger population of local students than I was used to and it made it a little difficult to fit in at first. 

6. Having a security network. 

If nothing else, the last two years that I have been moving around the world on my own without a state department safety net has taught me how valuable it was. Granted, my parents were the ones overseeing the boxes, etc. but the state department always provided housing, a welcoming host family, and lots of activities to foster a sense of community. I have had to do without all of that. My apartment here in Alanya was the easiest (relatively) to find since I went onto an Alanya expat forum and asked for available flats. Hong Kong was an absolute nightmare and I am so incredibly grateful that I had family there to ease the transition (Moving to Hong Kong Advice). Lhasa, Xining, and Dharamsala were also not picnics... Never underestimate the importance of having an institution who is there to support you as you go through the exhaustion that comes with each move.

7. Early parties

When you are a teenager abroad and the legal drinking age is not enforced at all, chances are that you are going to go out clubbing. That means that by the time you get to college, you've pretty much already been the craziest that you will ever be. That's not to say some TCKs don't continue to go all out during university, but I would say most have either toned it down a bit or at least learned how to manage their alcohol. I had little to no patience for my fellow first years when they were in the thick of letting loose. I also had no tolerance for ridiculously disappointing frat parties with watery beer.

I don't care what Playboy says, there is no way we are the number one ranked party school in the US (don't worry, the link goes to a Huffpost page so you don't need to worry about clicking on it at work).  

8. Independent

As I listed in this post Travel Safety, I have traveled extensively. A lot of it was only with friends and some of it was completely alone. I started from an early age and I have always enjoyed my freedom. While other diplomat parents may not have been as lenient as mine, there were still always trips abroad or even locally in whatever foreign city you lived in. It is pretty difficult to stay sheltered when you live this sort of lifestyle and you just tend to become a bit more independent.

9. Resourceful

DISTs, and TCKs in general, are a resourceful bunch. It comes from years of watching and participating in the next moving/traveling crisis. By the time you graduate from high school, you will know what to do when a plane/train/automobile is canceled. You will be able to haggle. You will be able to find a cheap and safe place to crash. You will also likely have a network of friends that extends through the entire world that can be tapped for information. I backpacked my way through Europe based completely on the places that I had friends. We have a community that has been facilitated by technology and we have utilized it successfully.

10. Tolerant

Compared to most teenagers who have only lived in developed nations and never moved away from that, DISTs tend to be more mature from an early age. Suburban ennui doesn't exist when you are surrounded by begging children, cow manure, and unpredictable electricity. Having school canceled because of an attempted coup or a monsoon or a typhoon is normal. We are raised to deal with extremes and because of that we tend to be a bit more flexible in our comfort. This is not to say that everyone every time will act like a peach when a flight is canceled for the third day in a row and you are suffering from sleep deprivation. That's also not to say that all DISTs and all TCKs are able to handle sitting in between two toilets on a third class train car in India for eight hours (true story, it was from Chennai to Kodaikanal. I was fifteen and I quickly discovered that it didn't smell as long as the train was moving, and that I could use AXE body spray to mask whatever leaked through).

No matter how spoiled we are (and I fully admit we are spoiled), we have always understood what poverty meant. It wasn't hidden away from us and it wasn't even a minority. We have also been forced to constantly interact and be around people that do not look like us. I actually didn't understand racism until I moved to the U.S. and then I could feel the palpable tension. I was suddenly aware that I looked WAY more Asian than I did white and that all of a sudden that mattered.

11. Attention

I know I should have left off this list at a clean 10, but I recently read a critical commentary on TCKs and attention. The thing is that we love being unique. As much as we complain and moan about how no one gets us, we are very aware of how lucky we are to have been raised as we were. Yeah, you won't make a ton of friends if you go around rubbing it in people's faces but why shouldn't we be allowed to take a certain amount of pride in the ridiculous overseas antics we've gotten up to? Just as people who have never left their home town can boast of the tree houses that they built, the solid lifelong friendships that they made, their big status in a small town, we too have our own areas that we stand out. And that's okay.

Not everyone identifies with the TCK identity. Some expat kids use a coping mechanism of cutting ties and moving on, never dwelling on the past. And that's okay. If you don't think that your upbringing differentiates you or that you think the rest of the group is trapped in the "glory days," then you are allowed to never mention how you were brought up. I think it is a valid criticism that using a TCK identity to make up the whole of your personality might not be the healthiest choice. You are more than your travels. You are your music, your books, your movies, your interests, your goals. If you can find connections with people that don't require delving into your traveling past, great! Just don't judge the rest of us for emphasizing our well-traveledness. Everyone has their own conceits, this just happens to be mine.

I have adapted all of my life and at a certain point, I am exhausted. I am tired of having to pretend to be something I am not. To invent a history that I don't have. To focus on one tiny part of my history in order to get along with those around me. To bolster aspects of my personality at the detriment of others. I am not saying that I think my best years are behind me or that no one can ever understand me enough to build up a deep connection.

I think that we have our whole lives ahead of us to make what we will of it. I just like knowing that there is a part of me that was created out of the thrilling chaos that was my childhood and adolescence.