Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  CHALLENGE: IGNORANCE OF HOME CULTURE

  The irony of collecting cross-cultural practices and skills, however, is that TCKs may know all sorts of fascinating things about other countries but little about their own.

  Tamara attended school in England for the first time when she was ten. Until then she had attended a small American-oriented school in Africa. In early November, she asked her mother, “Mom, who is this guy fawkes everybody’s talking about?”

  Tamara’s Mom, Elizabeth, a born and bred English-woman, tried to hide her shock at her daughter’s ignorance. Tamara seemed so knowledgeable about countless global matters—how could she not know a simple fact about a major figure in British history? And particularly one whose wicked deed of trying to blow up the Parliament was decried each year as people throughout the country burned him in effigy? Elizabeth hadn’t realized that while Tamara had seen the world, she had missed learning about this common tradition in her own country.

  TCKs are often sadly ignorant of national, local, and even family history. How many rides to various relatives’ homes are filled with parents coaching TCKs about who is related to whom? Many kids simply haven’t been around the normal chatter that keeps family members connected.

  One major advantage TCKs have in today’s world of the Internet, Skype, blogging, Facebook, and YouTube compared to previous generations of TCKs is a better means of keeping up with pop culture, including current movie stars, politicians, musicians, and other public figures, as well as fads and trends. Many older ATCKs remember all too well when reentering their passport culture after being away for years the reactions from their peers to an innocent question such as, “Who’s Elvis?” Such questions could lock them forever into the “Camp of Inner Shame.” These TCKs, along with their friends, wondered how they could be so stupid—not realizing that ignorance is not the same as stupidity. They were definitely not in cultural balance.

  There is, however, an important point to make here. In recent years, personnel directors, parents, and even some educators from international schools have stated that with all the new technological changes, TCKs no longer have any cultural adjustment “problems.” In fact, some have seemed almost dismissive. One principal from an international school in the United States said emphatically that his students had none of these TCK challenges because they went online every morning to read the newspapers from their passport countries. What he and others forget, however, is that while media is one place of cultural learning, knowledge of facts alone isn’t enough to put someone in cultural balance. Cultural cues and nuances are picked up unknowingly from our environment.

  Take humor, for example. When people switch cultures, humor is another unknown. Jokes often are based on a surprise, an indirect reference to something current, or a play on words that have a double meaning specific to that culture or language. Few things make people, including TCKs, feel more left out than seeing everyone else laughing at something they can’t understand as funny. Or, conversely, they try to tell a joke that was hilarious in their boarding school, but nobody laughs in this new environment.

  Probably most TCKs have some story about getting caught in an embarrassing situation because they didn’t know some everyday rule of their passport culture that is different from their host culture. One TCK couldn’t pay her bill because she had forgotten to mentally add the tax to the amount listed on the menu. Another was shamed by his visiting relatives because he came into the room and sat down before making sure that all the oldest guests had found their places. Not knowing cultural rules can also be dangerous.

  In the village in Mali where Sophie had grown up, passing anyone—male or female—on the street and not saying hello created instant social disfavor. In London the rules were different, as she learned in a police seminar on rape prevention during her first semester at university. “Never look a stranger in the eye,” the policeman said. “After attacking someone, a man often accuses the woman of having invited him with her look.” And sophie had been smiling at strange men all over the city!

  Lessons from the TCK Petri Dish

  All these benefits and challenges are a mere beginning of the TCK Profile, but they are characteristics many other CCKs tell us are familiar to them as well. Which “home country” does the child of a binational couple support in the World Cup series? How does an immigrant child exlpain to grandparents in the country of origin that she never had to bargain in market before when they acccuse her of paying an exorbitant price for vegetables at market? What happens when an educational CCK wants to further explore new ideas learned at school and parents fear he will forget his roots? For these and other reasons, different goups of CCKs can all resonate with these descriptions. We continue our dicussion by looking at common personal strengths and struggles many TCKs and other CCKs often seem to share.

  CHAPTER 7

  Personal Characteristics

  The benefits of this upbringing need to be underscored: in an era when global vision is an imperative, when skills in intercultural communication, linguistic ability, mediation, diplomacy, and the management of diversity are critical, global nomads are better equipped in these areas by the age of eighteen than are many adults. . . . These intercultural and linguistic skills are the markings of the cultural chameleon— the young participant-observer who takes note of verbal and nonverbal cues and readjusts accordingly, taking on enough of the coloration of the social surroundings to gain acceptance while maintaining some vestige of identity as a different animal, an “other.”1

  —Norma M. Mccaig

  Founder, Global Nomads International

  NORMA M. MCCAIG, one of the true pioneers in raising global awareness of the issues facing TCKs, was a business ATCK herself and worked extensively with international companies preparing employees and their families for overseas assignments before her death in 2008. In this chapter and the next we will discuss many of the characteristics and skills (their benefits and their corresponding challenges) of the TCKs that she mentions.

  Cultural Chameleon: Adaptability versus Lack of True Cultural Balance

  BENEFIT: ADAPTABILITY

  TCKs usually develop some degree of cultural adaptability as a primary tool for surviving the frequent change of cultures. Over and over TCKs use the term chameleon to describe how, after spending a little time observing what is going on, they can easily switch language, style of relating, appearance, and cultural practices to take on the characteristics needed to blend better into the current scene. Often their behavior becomes almost indistinguishable from longtime members of this group and they feel protected from the scorn or rejection of others (and their own ensuing sense of shame) that often comes with being different from others. A quote from the Financial Times after the inauguration of President Ba-rack Obama talks of how he “benefited from his chameleon power to make a lot of different people feel he represents them . . .”

  Cultural adaptability may begin as a survival tool, but it also has immensely practical benefits. TCKs usually learn to adjust with relative calm to life where meetings may start the exact minute for which they have been scheduled or two hours later, depending on which country they’re in. Partly because of the frequency with which they travel and move, TCKs can often “roll with the punches” even in unusual circumstances.

  Nona and her ATCK friend, Joy, waited in vain for a bus to carry them from Arusha to Nairobi. They finally found a taxi driver who would take them to the Tanzanian/Kenyan border and promised to find them a ride the rest of the way. At the border, however, the driver disappeared. Night was approaching, when travel would no longer be safe.

  As Nona watched in amazement, Joy walked across the border to find another taxi. She soon returned to the Tanzanian side, got Nona and the bags, and returned to a waiting driver who took them to Nairobi. Later, Nona complimented Joy, “If it was me by myself, I’ d still be sitting at the border, waiting for that first driver to come back.”

  Joy replied, “Well, there are times when all I c
an think is, ‘This is going to make a great story in three months, but right now it’s the pits.’ But I always know there’s a way out if I can just think of all the options. I’ve been in these kinds of situations too many times to just wait.”

  CHALLENGE: LACK OF TRUE CULTURAL BALANCE

  Becoming a cultural chameleon, however, brings special challenges as well. For one thing, although in the short term the ability to “change colors” helps them fit in with their peers day-by-day, TCK chameleons may never develop true cultural balance anywhere. While appearing to be one of the crowd, inside they may still be the cautious observer, the wallflower described in chapter 4—always a bit withdrawn and checking to see how they are doing. In addition, those around them may notice how the TCK’s behavior changes in various circumstances and begin to wonder if they can trust anything the TCK does or says. It looks to them as if he or she has no real convictions about much of anything.

  Some TCKs who flip-flop back and forth between various behavioral patterns have trouble figuring out their own value system from the multicultural mix they have been exposed to. It can be very difficult for them to decide if there are, after all, some absolutes in life they can hold onto and live by no matter which culture they are in. In the end, TCKs may adopt so many personas as cultural chameleons that they themselves don’t know who they really are. Even when they try to be “themselves,” they are often simply exchanging being chameleons in one group rather than another.

  Ginny returned to Minnesota for university after many years in New Zealand and Thailand. She looked with disdain on the majority of her fellow students who seemed to be clones of one another and decided she didn’t want to be anything like them. She struck up an acquaintance with another student, Jessica, who was a member of the prevailing counterculture. Whatever Jessica did, Ginny did. Both wore clothing that was outlandish enough to be an obvious statement that they weren’t going to be swayed by any current fads.

  Only years later did Ginny realize that she too had been a chameleon—copying Jessica—and had no idea of what she herself liked or wanted to be. She had rejected one group to make a statement about her “unique” identity, but she had never realized that among their styles of dress or behavior might be some things she did, in fact, like. Since she had totally aligned herself with Jessica, Ginny never stopped to think that some of Jessica’s choices might not work for her. Was it all right for her to like jazz when Jessica didn’t? What types of clothes did she, Ginny, really want to wear? it was some time before she was able to sort out and identify what her own gifts, talents, and preferences were in contrast to those she had borrowed from Jessica.

  Hidden Immigrants: Blending In versus Defining the Differences

  While virtually all TCKs make cultural adaptations to survive wherever they live, traditionally most TCKs—such as the children of early colonialists in the United States—were physically distinct from members of the host culture and easily recognizable as foreigners when living there. Even today, the child of the Norwegian ambassador in China would likely not be mistaken for a citizen of the host culture. As mentioned earlier in our discussion on identity, when TCKs are obvious foreigners, they are often excused—both by others and by themselves—if their behavior doesn’t exactly match the local cultural norms or practices. No one expects them to be the same based on their appearance alone. Only when these TCKs, who are clearly foreigners in their host culture, reenter their home culture do they face the prospect of being the hidden immigrants we discussed in chapter 4.

  As we also mentioned there, a frequently overlooked, but important, factor is that in our increasingly internationalizing world, many TCKs are becoming hidden immigrants in the host culture as well. Asian American children may look like the majority of others when they are in Kunming, China; a Ugandan diplomat’s child may be mistaken for an African American in his classroom in Washington, D.C. So why is this hidden diversity an important issue?

  For one thing, being a hidden immigrant gives those TCKs who desire it the choice to be total chameleons in their host culture in a way other non-look alike TCKs can’t do. Once they adapt culturally, people around them have no idea they are actually foreigners, and the TCK may like this type of relative anonymity. A second reason to be aware of the potential for a hidden immigrant experience in the host culture is to recognize that some TCKS who prefer notto adapt to the surrounding scene will often find a way to proclaim that they are different from those around them, as other TCKs do upon reentry to their passport culture. This can result in some interesting behavior! Here are three different responses from TCKs who were hidden immigrants in their host culture.

  BENEFIT: BLENDING IN

  The first is Paul, an international business TCK who was born in Alaska and then lived in California and Illinois until he was nine. At that time, his family moved to Australia, where his father worked for an oil company. Paul tells us his story.

  My first year of school in Australia was horrible. I learned that Americans weren’t very popular because of a nuclear base they’d set up near Sydney. People protested against the “ugly Americans” all the time. I felt other students assigned me guilt by association just because I was a U.S. Citizen. Looking back, I realize the only kids who were good to me didn’t fit in either.

  By the end of the first year, I’d developed an Australian accent and learned to dress and act like my Australian counterparts. Then I changed schools so I could start over and no one knew I was American. I was a chameleon.

  As a hidden immigrant in his host culture, Paul made a choice an obviously foreign TCK could never make. Until he chose to reveal his true identity, no one had to know that he was not Australian. Theoretically, some might argue that he made a poor choice, but from Paul’s perspective as a child, blending in to this degree gave him the opportunity not only to be accepted by others, but also to more fully participate in school and social events while he remained in Australia. On the other hand, TCKs who choose this route also say they live with a fear of others discovering who they really are and sometimes feel as if they are living a double life.

  CHALLENGE: DEFINING THE DIFFERENCES

  While Paul chose to hide his identity by becoming a chameleon, Nicola and Krista are TCKs who reacted in an opposite way. They became the screamers we mentioned before. Because they looked like those around them, they felt they would lose their true identity if they didn’t find some way to shout, “But I’m not like you.” This is how each of them coped.

  Nicola, a British TCK, was born in Malaysia while her father served with the royal air force. He retired from the service when Nicola was four years old. The family moved to Scotland, where Nicola’s father took a job flying airplanes off the coast of Scotland for a major oil company.

  At first, Nicola tried to hide her English roots, even adopting a thick Scottish brogue. In spite of that, by secondary school she realized something inside her would never fit in with these classmates who had never left this small town. She looked like them, but when she didn’t act like them they teased her unmercifully for every small transgression. It seemed the more she tried to be like them, the more she was having to deny who she really was inside.

  Finally, Nicola decided to openly—rather defiantly, in fact—espouse her English identity. She changed her accent to a proper British one and talked of England as home. She informed her classmates that she couldn’t wait to leave scot-land to attend university in England. When Nicola arrived in Southampton on her way to the university, she literally kissed the ground when she alighted from the train.

  Krista is an American business TCK raised in England from age six to sixteen. She attended a British school for six months before attending the local American school. We were surprised to hear her tell of how fiercely anti-British she and her fellow classmates in the American school became. In spite of the prevailing culture, they steadfastly refused to speak “British.” they decried britain for not having American-style shopping malls and bought all their cloth
es at American stores like The Gap and Old Navy during their summer leave in the United States. And why did everyone insist on queuing so carefully anyway? it looked so prim and silly. She couldn’t wait to return to the U.S. Permanently where everything would be “normal.”

  The difficulty for Nicola and Krista, however, was that in trying to proclaim what they consider their true identity, they ultimately formed an “anti” identity—be that in clothes, speech, or behavior. Unfortunately, when TCKs make this choice, they also cut themselves off from many benefits they could experience in friendships and cultural exchange with those around them from the local community. In addition, as TCKs scream to others, “I’m not like you,” people around soon avoid them and they are left with a deep loneliness—although it might take them a long time to admit such a thing.

  Prejudice: Less versus More