Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  The teachers who told this story commended the parents on teaching their children several languages and agreed that most children could learn them simultaneously. Their one caution, however, was to remind the parents that children need to learn in at least one language deeply enough and richly enough to think in it.

  Children who learn one language well can often go on to learn others at a very deep level. However, when learning a new language as an adult, the thinking process of our mother language often superimposes itself on the second language, which makes learning the new language more difficult. It also inhibits us from fully understanding the thinking patterns of those who use that language. When children learn languages, they instinctively pick up the nuances of how people in that culture think and relate to one another. Adults often translate word for word and never gain an understanding of how the same word may have a different implication in another language. Ironically, however, learning the nuances for certain words in their adopted language can sometimes keep TCKs from fully understanding the nuances of the translation of that same word in their mother tongue. This happened to JoAnna.

  For years, American friends of ATCK JoAnna told her that she was the most guilt-ridden person they’d ever met. No matter what happened—if a glass fell out of someone’s hand, a friend lost her notebook, or someone bit his lip—JoAnna always said “Sorry.”

  The instantaneous answer always came back. “What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything.”

  JoAnna’s equally instantaneous reply was also always the same. “I know I didn’t do anything. I’m just sorry.”

  For years this exchange was a point of significant frustration for both JoAnna and her friends. She couldn’t get out of the habit of saying sorry and her friends couldn’t get over being irritated by it. None of them understood the impasse.

  When she was in her forties, JoAnna went to live in kenya for a year. During a hike in the woods with Pamela, another American, Pamela said, “i’ll be glad when I get back to the states where everyone doesn’t say ‘Sorry’ all the time.”

  JoAnna asked why that was a problem.

  “It drives me crazy,” Pamela said. “no matter what happens, everyone rushes around and says, Pole, pole sana (which means ‘Sorry, very sorry’). But most of the time there’s nothing to apologize for.”

  For the first time, JoAnna understood her lifelong problem with the word “sorry.” for Pamela, a u.s. Citizen, “sorry” was primarily an apology. She had never realized in this african context that people were expressing sympathy and empathy rather than apologizing when they used that word. For JoAnna, in the african language she had learned as a child, and in the two she had learned as an adult, “sorry” was used as both an apology and as an expression of sympathy. It had never occurred to her that “sorry” was only an apology word to most listeners using American English. No wonder she and her American friends had misunderstood each other. They weren’t speaking the same language!

  Although the linguistic gifts for TCKs are primarily positive ones, there are a few pitfalls to be aware of. These include being limited in any one language, becoming a “creative speller,” and losing fluency and depth in the child’s native language. As we saw in chapter 4 with Ilpö, no matter how bright the child is, the specialized terminology needed for studying medicine (or fixing cars, discussing computers, studying science, etc.) may be missing if someone is working in many languages. Ultimately, he or she may never have time to learn the more specialized meanings and usage of each. JoAnna’s story demonstrates how idiomatic expressions or non-literal meanings of common words can also cause confusion in such situations.

  Interestingly enough, it’s not simply those who work or study in entirely different languages who may find themselves linguistically challenged. Perhaps for the very reason it seems so minor, TCKs who speak and write English find it very difficult to keep American and English spelling straight. Is it coloror colour? Behavioror behaviour? Pediatrician or paediatrician? Even worse, how do you remember if it’s criticise or criticize when criticismis spelled the same everywhere? While this may seem a minor irritation, it can become a major problem when, for example, a British student transfers to a school in the United States (or an American-based school in another country), where teachers may not be sensitive to this issue.

  These differences in spelling provide a special challenge to schools everywhere that have a mix of nationalities among their students. Many solve the problem by keeping both an English and American dictionary available to check on the variations that come in on assigned papers. With a sense of humor, an understanding teacher, or a spell checker appropriate for the current country, most TCKs weather this particular challenge successfully.

  The most serious problem related to learning multiple languages at an early age, however, is that some people never become proficient in their supposed mother tongue—the language of their family roots and personal history. Among TCKs, this occurs most often among those who come from non-English speaking countries but attend international schools overseas where classes are predominantly taught in English. Fortunately, schools like the International School of the Hague have begun developing some very strong programs to help students maintain fluency in their mother tongue, but many schools do not yet offer such programs. When that is a boarding school with little home (and thus language) contact for months at a time, language can become a major issue when the TCK returns to his or her parents, with the supposed mother tongue becoming almost a foreign language. Families whose members lack fluency in a common language by which they can express emotions and profound ideas lose one critical tool for developing close, intimate relationships.

  Kwabena is a Ghanaian TCK who faced the problem of never gaining fluency in his parents’ languages. His father was from the ga tribe, his mother from the anum tribe. Kwabena was born in predominantly English-speaking Liberia, where his father worked for several years. Eventually, the family moved to mali, where french was the official language. The family could only make occasional visits back to the parents’ villages in Ghana, where his grandparents spoke only the local languages. By the time kwabena reached his teens, he sadly realized he could never talk to his grandparents and ask for the family stories all children love to hear because he couldn’t speak enough of their language and they couldn’t speak the English, french, or malian languages he knew.

  Most TCKs we know, however, count the benefits of having facility in two or more languages as another of their greatest practical blessings. What is more, it’s just plain fun to watch a group of ATCKs at an international school reunion suddenly break into the greetings or farewells of the language they all learned in some far away land during their youth. At that Moment, language becomes one more marker of all they have shared in the world that now may seem invisible to them. It reminds them of the depth of experience and life they do, in fact, share with others of their “tribe.”

  Lessons from the TCK Petri Dish

  The more we have heard from other groups of CCKs, the more we realize how frequently the practical skills learned in their interactions with many cultures during childhood have been overlooked. Often the majority culture is oblivious to the cross-cultural skills the child of a minority is using each day simply to succeed in school. Surely children in refugee camps learn great observation skills related to determining when it is safe to venture forth or not. Looking at the specifics of the TCK experience helps us to recognize similar abilities that other CCKs develop so naturally from their life experiences that they, and others, often don’t realize the assets they have. Now we move on to two challenges TCKs and other CCKs often face: rootlessness and restlessness.

  CHAPTER 9

  Rootlessness and Restlessness

  Being a TCK has given me a view of the world as my home and a confidence in facing new situations and people, particularly of other countries and cultures. However, it has its negative side [because] Americans and foreigners have a problem relating to me, for I a
m not a typical American! the hardest question still to answer is where I am from. What is my place of origin?1

  —Response to an ATCK survey

  WHILE THIS WRITER OBVIOUSLY ENJOYED THE TYPE OF confidence a TCK childhood can foster, he or she also brings up two very common characteristics TCKs often share—a deep sense of root-lessness and restlessness. These are such key aspects of the TCK Profile that they deserve a chapter of their own.

  Rootlessness

  There are several questions many TCKs have learned to dread. Among them are these two: “Where are you from?” and “Where is home?”

  WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

  Why should anyone dread such a seemingly simple question? Consider Erika again.

  Like most other TCKs, when Erika hears that question, her internal computer starts the search mode. What does this person mean by “from”? is he asking my nationality? or maybe it’s “Where were you born?” Does he mean “Where are you living now?” or “Where did you come from today?” or does he mean “Where do your parents live now?” or “Where did you grow up?” actually, does he even understand what a complicated question he asked me or care? is he simply asking a polite, “Let’s make conversation about something while we stand here with shrimp on our plates” question, or is he really interested?

  Erika decides what to answer by how she perceives the interest of the person who asked or what she does or doesn’t feel like talking about. If the new acquaintance seems more polite than interested, or if Erika doesn’t want a lengthy conversation, she gives the “safe” answer. During college she simply said, “Wisconsin.” Now she replies, “Dayton.” it’s the “where i’m living now” answer.

  If Erika does want to extend the conversation slightly or test out the questioner’s true interest, she throws out the next higher level answer: “New York”—still a fairly safe answer. It’s where she visited during each home leave and where her family’s roots are.

  If the person responds with more than a polite, “Oh,” and asks another question such as, “then when did you move to Dayton?” Erika might elevate her reply to a still higher level, “Well, i’m not really from New York, but my parents are.” now the gauntlet is thrown down. If the potential new friend picks up on this and asks, “Well, where are you from then?” the conversation begins and Erika’s fascinating life history starts to unfold. Of course, if the newcomer doesn’t follow up on that clue and lets the comment go, Erika knows for sure she or he wasn’t really interested anyway and moves the conversation on to other topics—or simply drops it altogether.

  On days when Erika feels like talking more or wants to make herself stand out from among the crowd, however, she answers the question “Where are you from?” quite differently. “What time in my life are you referring to?” she asks. At this point the other person has virtually no choice but to ask Erika where she has lived during her life and then hear all the very interesting details Erika has to tell!

  WHERE IS HOME?

  While this question at first seems to be the same as “Where are you from?” it is not. In some cases, TCKs have a great sense of “at-homeness” in their host culture. As long as Erika’s parents remained in Singapore, “Where’s your home?” was an easier question to answer than “Where are you from?” She simply said, “Singapore.” Both her emotional and physical sense of home were the same.

  Other TCKs who have lived in one city or house during each leave or furlough may have a strong sense of that place being home. In January 1987, the U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador spoke at a conference about TCKs in Quito and said, “I think every expatriate family should buy a home before going abroad so their children will have the same base for every home assignment. My kids feel very strongly that Virginia is home even though they’ve lived outside the States over half their lives.” This is undoubtedly an excellent idea, and one to be seriously considered when at all possible.

  When, for various reasons, buying a house in the home country isn’t a viable option, some TCKs still develop a strong sense of “home” in other ways. Often TCKs whose parents move every two years rarely consider geography as the determining factor in what they consider home. Instead, home is defined by relationships.

  When Dave Pollock asked Ben, a TCK from the diplomatic community, “Where’s your home?” Ben replied, “Egypt.” Dave was somewhat surprised as he’d not previously heard Ben talk about Egypt, so Dave asked how long he had lived there.

  “Well,” Ben replied, “actually, I haven’t been to Egypt yet, but that’s where my parents are posted now. They moved there from brazil right after I left for university, so when I go home for christmas vacation, that’s where I’ll go.”

  For some TCKS, however, “Where is home?” is the hardest question of all. Home connotes an emotional place—somewhere you truly belong. There simply is no real answer to that question for many TCKs. They may have moved so many times, lived in so many different residences, and attended so many different schools that they never had time to become attached to any. Their parents may be divorced and living in two different countries. Denis tells his story.

  When someone asks me, “Where is your home?” I tell them I don’t know and that I don’t really have a home. The reason is my parents got divorced when I was one year old and I was a TCK with my mother. My mother is originally from Taiwan but she now lives in London. “home” should be where my Mom is, but she moved to a new country after I stopped living with her. London isn’t home. My father has lived in Switzerland for about thirty years now; I could call that home but I can’t because I’ve lived with him for about one year total. My conclusion is that home is where I currently am. So now my home is Luzern, Switzerland, even though I don’t speak a word of German and I’ve only been here for eight months.

  Some TCKs have spent years in boarding schools and no longer feel a close attachment to their parents. In fact, they may feel more emotionally at home at boarding school than when thinking of their parents’ home. Paul Seaman writes,

  “Home” might refer to the school dormitory or to the house where we stayed during the summer, to our family’s home where our parents worked, or, more broadly, to the country of our citizenship. And while we might have some sense of belonging to all of these places, we felt fully at home in none of them. Boarding life seemed to have the most consistency, but there we were separated from our siblings and shared one “parent” with other kids. As it grew colder, we could look forward to going home for the holidays. We were always eager to be reunited with our families, but after three months of separation from our friends, we were just as eager to go back. Every time we got on the train, we experienced both abandonment and communion.2

  No matter how home is defined in terms of a physical place, the day comes for many TCKs when they realize it is irretrievably gone. For whatever reasons, they, like Erika, can never “go home.” Now when someone asks Erika where her home is, she simply says, “Everywhere and nowhere.” She has no other answer.

  Restlessness—The Migratory Instinct

  In the end, many TCKs develop a migratory instinctthat controls their lives. Along with their chronic rootlessness is a feeling of restlessness: “Here, where I am today, is temporary. But as soon as I finish my schooling, get a job, or purchase a home, I’ll settle down.” Somehow the settling down never quite happens. The present is never enough—something always seems lacking. An unrealistic attachment to the past, or a persistent expectation that the next place will finally be home, can lead to this inner restlessness that keeps the TCK always moving.

  Inika had waited for what seemed like forever to return to her host country, Guatemala. She finally found a job that offered her the prospect of staying there for many years, possibly even until she retired. Two weeks after arriving, however, inika felt a wave of panic. For the first time in her life, there was no defined end point. Now she had to be involved with the good and bad of whatever happened in this community. She wondered why she felt like this so soon after reaching her go
al. Then she realized that throughout her life, no matter where she had lived, any time things got messy (relationships with a neighbor, zoning fights in the town, conflicts at church), internally she had leapfrogged over them. There was always an end point ahead when she knew she would be gone—the end of school, the end of home leave, or something. Suddenly, that safety net had disappeared. For the first time in her life inika either had to engage completely in the world around her or start forming another plan to leave.

  Obviously, it is good to be ready to move when a career choice mandates it, but to move simply from restlessness alone can have disastrous effects on an ATCK’s academic life, career, and family.

  Without question, there are legitimate reasons to change colleges or universities. Sometimes TCKs who live a continent away must enroll in a university without having the opportunity to visit beforehand. After arriving, they discover that this school doesn’t offer the particular courses or majors they want. Perhaps they change their interest in what career they want to pursue and this school doesn’t offer concentrated studies in that field. In such situations, there is no choice but to change. Some TCKs, however, switch schools just because of their inner migratory instinct. Their roommates aren’t quite right; the professors are boring; the weather in this place is too hot or too cold. They keep moving on, chronically hoping to find the ideal experience. Unfortunately, frequent transfers can limit what TCKs learn and inhibit the development of their social relationships.