Third Culture Kids (TCK), also known as Global Nomads, are individuals who have lived in one or more cultures for a significant period of time, other than (or in addition to) their own culture. This means that they combine their birth culture with aspects of the cultures in which they have lived to create a "third culture".
Read this article! Can you relate?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/news/26iht-rkid_ed3_.html
Having grown up in Korea, South Africa, and now the US, I can't really pick one and say, "Yeah, I feel more comfortable with this country/culture than the others." A lot of it has to do with the interactions you have with other people. For example, I speak fluent Korean and so most Korean people I meet assume I know everything about the culture, but I really don't. And most people wouldn't assume I know a lot about South Africa because I look asian, but I do.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I don't think I really have a single place I can call "home". But maybe all the TCKs who feel the same way can create a home for ourselves? :)
"Home" - a word I have never been able to accurately define for myself. I was lucky enough to grow up in one country, among the same group of friends and in the same house, for 18 years, but even then I was always on the move between cultures. I'm too Dutch to be Costa Rican and I'm too Costa Rican to be Dutch, and I don't quite know where to place my American education as a culture. But surely, home is all of these places(Holland, Costa Rica and America). If only we could create countries and homes... a Costa Rican beach, the Dutch bike lanes and American colleges?
ReplyDeleteHome is where my parents are, home is found in my childhood friends, home is made up of the places I have traveled, home is....I'm not sure yet.