Were you raised in a country not the home country of your parents, or lived abroad long enough to feel culture shock when you return to your home country? http://tckid.com/what-is-a-tck.html Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer. - You’ve said that you’re from foreign country "X," and (if you live in America) your audience has asked you which US state "X" is in. - You flew before you could walk. - - You feel odd being in the ethnic majority. - You have three passports. - You have a passport but no driver’s license. - You go into culture shock upon returning to your “home” country.- Your life story uses the phrase “Then we moved to…” three (or four, or five…) times. - You wince when people mispronounce foreign words. - You don’t know whether to write the date as day/month/year, month/day/year, or some variation thereof. - The best word for something is the word you learned first, regardless of the language. - You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a trasnsformer isn’t always enough to make your appliances work. - You fried a number of appliances during the learning process. - Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you. - You believe vehemently that football is played with a round, spotted ball. -
Hmm..I guess not many world travelers here. Or they are cool with it! I get culture shock everytime I change locations, but I LOVE it, for some reason. I guess if you travel when young it becomes addictive
I'm not getting what you are trying to say with your post, but I am a world traveller and cool with it!
People who grow up abroad can have many issues unique to them http://tckid.com/what-is-a-tck.html [SIZE=+0]What are the Characteristics of TCKs?[/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]There are different characteristics that impact the typical Third Culture Kid:[/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]TCKs are 4 times as likely as non-TCKs to earn a bachelor's degree (81% vs 21%) [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]40% earn an advanced degree (as compared to 5% of the non-TCK population.) [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]45% of TCKs attended 3 universities before earning a degree. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]44% earned undergraduate degree after the age of 22. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Educators, medicine, professional positions, and self employment are the most common professions for TCKs. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]TCKs are unlikely to work for big business, government, or follow their parents' career choices. "One won't find many TCKs in large corporations. Nor are there many in government ... they have not followed in parental footsteps". [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]90% feel "out of sync" with their peers. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]90% report feeling as if they understand other cultures/peoples better than the average American. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]80% believe they can get along with anybody. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Divorce rates among TCKs are lower than the general population, but they marry older (25+). [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Military brats, however, tend to marry earlier. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Linguistically adept (not as true for military ATCKs.) [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]A study whose subjects were all "career military brats"—those who had a parent in the military from birth through high school—shows that brats are linguistically adept. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Teenage TCKs are more mature than non-TCKs, but ironically take longer to "grow up" in their 20s. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]More welcoming of others into their community. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Lack a sense of "where home is" but often nationalistic. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Depression and suicide are more prominent among TCK's. [/SIZE] [SIZE=+0]Some studies show a desire to "settle down" others a "restlessness to move". [/SIZE]
Sounds like I'm a TCK, but I'm not. I did move around a lot though and more-so as I got older. I always have trouble answering "where are you from". I have a problem speaking in English all the time, I adapt to other cultures and languages really quickly and there are some of those other odd things that I have issues with. I think my kids will be partially TCK's they will likely spend about 5-8 of their developmental years out of the country of their birth. I think of those at the top and bottom I fit a lot of those and my kids fit the others.
I have a very strong sense of direction..useful for new places, especially someplace like Thailand where roads tend to spiral. I learned to note the sun's position when I park my motorbike in a strange area, then when I want to return after hours of birding through the jungle, I calculate hours since I left and account for the sun's movement and walk in that direction until I see the motorbike. Sometimes I have a scare that I missed it, but so far, I've always found it. Last month I met a Thai in the jungle and asked him directions for a trail to the top of a certain mountain. He pointed and said it was the next trail over, so I cut across a valley, climbed a vertical bank by hanging onto tree roots, crawled through a fence, and intersected the trail. But I noted the location and came straight to it next time.
My boyfriend and I recently moved to South Korea, his country of birth, but he hasn't lived here for 7-8 years. He is finding it strange talking Korean again and the people notice he has an accent. I have been living all over the countryside (world) for the past 4 years and am adjusting a bit more quickly than him, even though it's his country.
Lot of north americans here. One could spend thier entire lives traveling N.America and only hit three countries. Making the jump from here to the rest of the world is a pricey plane ticket.
Yeah, I love the US..it's so huge and beautiful. I've lived in CA, IA, IN, OH, Kentucky the longest-24-25 years, Colorado 4 years (where my two kids were born in the early 1980s). My favorite part of the US is the southwest, and I loved living in Durango, CO. We used to casually drive to the Grand Canyon to go camping and even to CA by taking turns driving all night! I lived on the big family Kentuckyfarm for the longest, and it was the last place I lived before coming to Thailand in 2010 But I've already lived four places in Thailand since 2010.
I am, born I think. Born in UK, moved couple times while there, moved to Netherlands, moved couple times while there, moved to USA, moved three times since living here, I do feel some culture shock when I go back to England, but at the same time, I feel comfortable there, like i have a sense of belonging there. I dont even know what im typing lol.
being lost is fun; i enjoy the challenge of finding my way back. of course, i don't think moving counts as being lost. unless you somehow don't know where you moved to.
Third Culture Kids are those raised in a country other than the home country of their parents, but I've been on forums for "expats" who lived abroad long enough..sometimes only a few years..that when they return home, they no longer feel like they fit in. Their typical comments were that "nobody wants to hear about my experiences" so they come to the forums to find a place where they can tell their (often funny, usually hair-raising) overseas tales. My brother lives in Bethel, Alaska and he's had close encounters with wild grizzlies, falling through ice with his snow mobile, etc...but he and his family were also missionaries in Haiti during the big US embargo debacle. I imagine he doesn't mention those things to his US friends much. I also noticed that MKs (missionary kids) often marry other MKs (I sure did) since they often don't know how to relate to others in their culture..especially if they were abroad during early puberty. I was in Haiti when I hit that mark, and began crushing on fit, gorgeous Europeans in spandex thongs. In college I only hung with my old MK gang from Haiti who had also come to that college. My younger sister was in the US when she was 13 years old, and effortlessly "went American" that year, complete with boyfriends, US clothes, mentality, and still is that way today-seldom mentions growing up in Haiti. But I did as my MK friends did..hanging with them, marrying one, and all of us speaking Cringish amoung ourselves (a blend of Creole, French, Spanish, and English). In the US I enjoyed living around the sharp-shooter eastern Kentuckian hill people where I lived on my family farm for 24 years. They saw me as "city folk," but they were like me in their fanatic horse culture and close links to nature. When the US government seized the Cherokee lands (they had discovered gold there) many Caucasian people in the south had already intermarried with Cherokees, so they hid their Native American relatives from the soldiers arresting people to send on the Trail of Tears genocide march. Could be why the Kentucky hill people keep huge tracts of land in a wild forest state to be used for hunting, live happily in little trailers, have their amazing racking and Walking Horse mixed breeds that everyone rides..three generations riding together all night over the hills, from "Mamaw" to the 8-year old grandkids. My kids had their own horses at four and five years old and our whole family typically rode over the mountains at dusk to the next county and came back, racking (a rack is a four-beat gait where each foot hits the ground separately so is VERY smooth and fast) uphill and down under the moon. My daughter at 8 yrs old riding Black Jack, pulling my son at 10 yrs old on toy skis, on our Kentucky farm in 1990
