5 Things Third Culture Kids Will Never Understand We think we know everything, but we can't learn it all. Elizabeth Syson for Monday, 21 March 2016

Image Credit: Elizabeth Syson
5 Things Third Culture Kids Will Never Understand
We think we know everything, but we can't learn it all.
Elizabeth Syson for Monday, 21 March 2016
Growing up between cultures teaches third culture kids (TCKs) to understand a lot that other people don’t get. We understand things like converting currency, figuring out time zones and learning social customs automatically. Other things, though, we will never figure out.

1. Having only one home
The “home” we grew up in is not the “home” that issued our passport. Most of us have moved at least a few times, and even if haven’t, we’ve probably done a lot of traveling. Is “home” the place we grew up? Is it our passport country, like Mom and Dad probably think? This uncertainty plays out in our language; we may choose not to call any place “home,” since we can’t decide how to pick one, or we may use the word for any place we’ve spent a night. At either extreme or anywhere in between, you can bet we’ll never understand that complicated little word.
2. Seeing relatives regularly
Since we’ve spent our whole lives moving from place to place or settled across the globe from most of our extended family, we’re not used to relatives. They may have come to visit us once or twice, and we may have gone back to our passport country to see them from time to time, but we’re not used to frequent contact. We may have relatives we’ve never met; we may consider other people to be our family, since we don’t see our biological relatives often. Whatever our quirks, you can be sure that we’re confused by—and maybe a bit jealous of—your super-close relationship with your cousin or the aunt you spent every summer visiting.
3. Not wanting to travel
Maybe we have itchy feet, or maybe we just want to visit friends who are scattered around the globe, but either way, we are travel addicts. We want to see the world. We want to taste new food, walk new streets and experience new cultures. We can’t imagine wanting to stay in one place forever, and, to be honest, the thought makes us feel a little claustrophobic. Sure, packing and unpacking can be a pain, airport security takes ages and jetlag is the worst, but those minor inconveniences are a small price to pay for the thrill of a semi-nomadic lifestyle.
4. Not having a passport
When you want to travel the world, you feel lost without a passport. It’s the key that unlocks the globe, and being without it is like being in a cage. Most of us got our first passports when we were toddlers. Going every few years to have a new photo snapped has been a lifelong ritual, and getting our first ten-year passport felt like being handed the world. We’ve never been without one, and we can’t understand people who don’t have theirs stashed somewhere safe and convenient in case they need to leave the country.
5. Speaking only one language
Some of us grew up speaking three or four languages regularly and some of us grew up speaking one, but whatever our situation, we know at least a few useful phrases of a second language. If our host country’s trade language was English, perhaps we bartered in a local language while shopping. Or maybe we attended national school but spoke something else entirely at home. Even if we just picked up jumbled phrases from our friends at an international school, we’ve got a broad base of linguistic context. We can’t imagine not knowing a few words of this and a few words of that.

In the end, though, no matter how much confuses us, we'd never trade our scrambled third culture for anything.

Elizabeth Syson
Stories are the truest way to see the world.
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