Third Culture Kid to Third Culture Adult

I'm a Third Culture Kid (TCK). If you don't know what that means, it's a term coined by an antropologist/sociologist  "to refer to the children who accompany their parents into another society". Wikipedia it, if you want. And before you ask, it's not quite the same thing as being a second-generation American or an Asian-American. While Asian Americans may face a cultural conflict between their family and their home, the biggest difference is that they HAVE a home. They identify themselves as Americans (or whichever nationality they were born into). A TCK doesn't identify themselves with one particular home country, simply because they don't really have one.

One of the toughest questions for me to answer is "Where are you from?". It's a simple enough question for most people, but for me, I have to really think about it. Are you trying to ask me where I was born? Which country's passport do I hold? Where I have lived the longest? Where my parents are? The answer to each of those questions is different.

And here's why. I was born in India. We moved to Singapore when I was an impressionable 6 year old. So, I'm a Singapore citizen. But then, we moved again when I was an even more impressionable 14-year old; this time to Texas, USA. Then, my parents moved back to Singapore when I was at UT Austin for undergrad. But now they're back in Houston. But I don't live in Texas anymore because I've moved to North Carolina for grad school. So how the hell am I supposed to tell you where I'm from? 

As a kid (and by kid, I mean teenager), I think I used to resent the fact that I didn't have a sense of belonging to one place or country. Singapore wasn't too bad because unless you were born there, pretty much no one felt like they belonged. I'm not quite sure how that affected us as kids but my guess is we were just too young to care. The TCK syndrome really hit me hard when my family moved to Houston. It was in the middle of 9th grade for me, and I was not the least bit happy about this development. I might not have felt a sense of belonging in Singapore, but I was comfortable in my all-girls Methodist school (you can see why the transition to a public high school would be tough). The first couple of months were the hardest because I was just so confused in life. To put things into perspective, imagine moving to Africa back in high school. Just take a minute here and imagine what that would have been like. In high school. I'm aware that it's not quite the same situation but I was honestly so lost during that initial period, I might as well have moved to Africa.

Of course, things became better pretty quickly, as they always do. As I made friends, I started to become comfortable with my new life again. I consider myself pretty lucky in that respect because some of my best friends today are people that I met in high school. But I was still a nomad, and I wasn't thrilled about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I actively tried to avoid any conversations about my background because I simply wasn't comfortable with it.

But then, things slowly began to change. And by then, I mean 6-7 years later. I honestly could not tell you what triggered this transformation, but I think it probably had to do with all the different types of people I met in college. When I saw how interested people were in hearing about my childhood adventures, I began to appreciate the truly unique experiences I had as a kid. With time, I realized that my nomadic background wasn't necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, it was pretty awesome! 

Accepting my nomadic TCK background was the most liberating thing to happen to me. Sure, I still didn't have a home like everyone else did. But somehow, it didn't matter so much anymore. Instead, I had the experience of living in 3 different countries (4 if you count my study-abroad semester in France. Hey, it WAS 6 months.). I had friends from all over the globe. I had great, exotic experiences to share. From a very young age, I had an awareness about different cultures, languages and races. And I firmly believe that my love for traveling stems from my nomadic upbringing as well. Having gained so much from being a TCK, it was difficult to not be grateful for it. 

Of course, life is still not perfect. I still struggle greatly when someone tries to ask me where I'm from. But now, it's no longer because of a sense of dis-comfort or dis-belonging (Is that even a word? Probably not). It's simply because I haven't quite figured out how to describe my awesomely nomadic life in a way that doesn't take up the rest of the night.