By Catherine Li-Lin I’ll never forget my first university experience. All the new arrivals in the department were asked to attend a barbecue wearing their high school uniforms. So there I was in a sea of green and blue and white and yellow, and I was the only one wearing black. “Where are you from?” everyone kept asking me. Since they went to the same schools they all seemed to know each other already. But I, even though I am Taiwanese too, just felt like I didn’t belong.
My dad is a diplomat so I had the privilege of growing up in another country and going to an international school. My mother-tongue is Chinese, but it is the least efficient language I speak. So what is my identity? Sure, I can always say: “I’m Taiwanese, but I grew up in Japan,” but there is something more, too. I could always provide details about how long I lived somewhere else. Other people’s curiosity didn’t bother me either. It’s just that I began to wonder where I really belonged. Most people are rooted by place, but in my case the place where I grew up doesn’t really represent “me.” I am a Third Culture Kid, someone who is not brought up in his or her parent’s culture. Like me, many Third Culture Kids struggle to give themselves an identity, not because others see Third Culture Kids as lost citizens of the world, but more because of an inner struggle to find an identity defined by place. Yet while I was in search for my identity, I started to see the positive aspects of being a Third Culture Kid. As a child, I was introduced to multiple cultures in one environment. In international schools, I met people from all over the world, but at a small age I saw little difference between me and say a kid who was half Indian and half Japanese. To me we were all kids going to school, we were friends, and that was it. Having people of different colors and different languages around me was normal, in other words, so I didn’t even realize that difference existed. Now that I am older, my multicultural environment has offered me a broader world view. I seldom find perspectives hard to grasp when they are different from mine. The experience I had made me a more accepting person of pretty much anything in any realm. Some say it has to do with my nature of being a generally open-minded person, but I credit this advantage to the fact that I was a Third Culture Kid. Being a Third Culture Kid also meant I moved a lot, and by that I don’t mean just moving from different places, but transferring school multiple times. Sure it was hard at first, but after a little practice I got used to it and became a pro at coping with change. Meeting new people, making new friends, and being the first one to make a gesture in a new relationship is not easy for me. On the other hand, I am also good with goodbyes. Perhaps one might view this as being cold, but I really do not put too much emotion in moving on and transitioning to unknown places. Thus even with the little things in life, I move on easily. It is because of these constant transitions that enabled me to appreciate one of the most important things about being a Third Culture Kid, which is to understand connections. Yes, I said goodbye to a lot of friends, but these connections were not cut off when I made new friends and new connections. It’s like a growing spider web, where sometimes different webs interact. For instance, my friend from elementary school in Taiwan might coincidentally know my friend from high school in Japan. I have friends in different continents and I can proudly say that they are all close to me. No matter how big the world is, my connections are also constantly expanding. After acknowledging the benefits of being a Third Culture Kid, I came to realize that I was completely wrong. Wrong in the sense that I should not even have had the need to search for an identity in the first place. I am not defined by where I grew up. I may have stories to share that not many people around me have, but they also form the person I am now. My identity was there all along, I just needed to change my mentality to see it. What I am trying to say is that even if you are not a Third Culture Kid, the sense of not belonging and not knowing your identity is universal. The source of the struggle may be different but it is not a feeling only Third Culture Kids experience. But just as I was able to escape my misconceptions, you might be able to think of your own advantages and this would be a better way to find out your identity. ”Place” surely shapes people to a certain extent, but it should not really dictate who they are. a
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May 2024
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