“Third Culture Kid”

What was it like living abroad for most of your life?

“For me it was normal. It’s because that’s where my frame of reference is. Moving back to the United States for high school was very different. I had culture shock which is funny because I look American and I sound American. But culturally I didn’t fit in.

“I am what you call a “third culture kid,” which means my cultural identity is a mixture of my home culture which is the US, my passport country, and my host country which was China. So in that sense I can fit into both but I don’t belong in either. So I never quite fit in here in the US. And I clearly don’t fit in there.

“All my moves have been growing experiences. I have lived in China for fourteen non-consecutive years. The community I lived in was very transient. You know someone would stay for about two years, but you afterwards you can’t guarantee it. So it changes the way you look at life because you don’t take timing for granted. Here at college is the first time I know I am one place for four years. And for me that was a very, very odd idea. To be able control my life like that. It almost doesn’t feel real.

“Being a third culture kid impacts the way I view things, in terms of relationships, friendships, or whatever. I’m thinking “Oh man we only have so many years together, I am like ‘we need to be best friends now.” But for people who didn’t necessarily grow up in that context, they don’t always feel that same sense of urgency. Sometimes I’ll meet another third culture kid and I will hit it off and by day two we will be talking about our deepest fears. But for someone else we might not get to deepest fears until like year two of the friendship.  It’s just a very different way of approaching things.