Third Culture Adults in Global Transition

How about this life?

Today, I reminisced about different experiences of living overseas. But as many of us who have lived this expatriate lifestyle know, some of these experiences are not easy to explain to local friends and acquaintances. Often, telling our strories just causes their eyes to glaze over. What is even more likely is that this line of conversation just does not interest them. It is just not part of their daily existence. When we do find people who are genuinely interested in hearing our story, then we are allowed a few moments of being just who we are -- folks who have had a variety of interesting experiences in different parts of the world.

Affectionately, I thought about living in China and not looking like most of the people I encountered (Pollack & Van Reken Foreigner Box). I recalled being amused, as I watched a little old lady observing my very blonde-haired coworker, as we rode bicycles through the market. This old lady sat down on a curb and laughed uproariously while slapping her thigh at the sheer thought of my friend’s physical appearance. If I could have read her mind, I would bet that her thoughts went something like this: “In all of my life, I never thought that I would see with my own eyes, some one who looks like her!”

My thoughts moved on to my memories of living in a Muslim country and wearing outfits that were conservative, yet did not look like any of the clothing worn by most of the women around me. What’s more memorable was encountering some of these women in the course of doing my job and pleasantly having that “inner knowing” that they were optimistic and encouraged!

My career choices brought me to places on the opposite side of the world and provided me experiences that I could never imagined when I was a child growing up in New Orleans. Although I grew up around a lot of local diversity, my overseas sojourns introduced to new people from very different backgrounds. From them, I learned all kinds of new things. I visited places that most people in the US read about in books, and most important of all, I learned things about myself every step of the way. My TCK children were lucky enough experienced all of these things along with us, but I suspect that imagining these things as children was not quite the same as my childhood imagining, because, after all, they” lived” them as children!

There’s no denying the power of these experience and the impact that these, and many others, have had on my life. My question for my readers: What kind of effects did living an international lifestyle have on you?

I know what my identity WAS! But when I moved overseas and then returned to my home culture, “I think it changed?”

Over the years, I have engaged in serious dialogs with those who believe that identity formation is set during our developmental and adolescent years, and therefore, cannot change. I am convinced, however, that with each repatriation experience upon returning from an overseas assignment, I experienced a perceptible shift in my identity – my sense of self. Don’t get me wrong, my “core” me is still there and intact.

Having formed a core identity under fairly “normative” developmental circumstances is what makes the experiences of TCAs distinctly different from the experiences of TCKs who spend their developmental years outside of their home or primary culture. Unlike the majority of their home culture peers, TCKs find themselves having the dual challenge of simultaneously living in a host culture environment, while mastering critical life cycle stages, especially their identity formation stage. I have certainly witnessed the joys and complications that a TCK lifestyle presented my children, as they experienced changing cultural milieus during their developmental stages of adolescence and pre-adolescence.

But what about Mom and Dad? Are they possibly dealing with similar dual challenges, while attempting to settle into their new environments? Can adults who have grown up in one primary cultural world before beginning international pilgrimages for the first time as adults go through an identity metamorphosis in conjunction with having lived in a cultural environment that is different from their primary culture? As a marriage and family therapist, I cannot help but ponder the effects of swirling change that exists around and within families during these international sojourns. I think that I will revisit these ponderations in a future post. Yep, I know that I also promised to continue the discussion on added factors for TCKs who are multiracial and/or are from a minority background. I haven’t forgotten!

There were times, in my sojourn between cultures, when that I felt as though I might be going through a second adolescence, as I tried to make sense of all of the new rules, struggled to figure out the “culture codes” of our host culture, and, at times, I acknowledged that I did not know the rules. On more than one occasion, I felt afraid that I might not ever learn or “get” the rules, especially in cultures that were vastly different from my traditional world. On the other hand, I loved being overseas, experiencing the differences and being challenged regarding my own paradigms regarding worldview. Each time, I came home a little different… a little changed… more informed…. and, I believe, better off through these experiences.

Although challenging, the process of identity changes as a result of overseas assignments, can also be a time of experimenting with these changes, as I choose to have a positive outlook and mindset about these inner changes that have taken place. Once I return to my home culture and settle into my new routine, I have the opportunity to survey those internal shifts, I can choose to embrace those shifts that I perceive to be conducive to my developing more of a global citizen mindset, or I can choose to integrate new patterns of being into my daily existence. “I still take my shoes off when I enter my home.” I love that I have chosen to hold close this adopted Asian custom!! I like it even more, since I recently discovered that this is a good practice if you, like me, are allergy challenged. Apparently, in that case “taking off your shoes before entering the house is a good thing!”

In what other ways might the challenges of transition into a new culture or reintegrating into your home culture might be an opportunity to embrace the benefits that comes with your expanded view of self?

Writing to Change the World

My intention when I first decided to start this blog on global transitions, was to provide a place to capture my thoughts on the Third Culture Adult/ Third Culture Kid experience, and to provide a place for others to share their stories related to cultural crossings. I do believe that those of us whom have had these experiences are a true refection of the world that we are becoming -- Ted Ward's Prototype Citizens of the Future prophesy, and that we have a unique opportunity to offer information to others that is relevant and timely.

This afternoon, I was browsing through the Amazon.com website to look up information on a recommended book by Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World. Through the courtesy of one of the reader reviews on the site, I encountered a quote from Pipher’s book, written by novelist James Baldwin:

"You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. ... The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it."

As I read this quote, I reflected upon some of the posts from readers on this blog, and recognized that in their sharing about their experiences, they had, in their own way, used the power of the pen (or in this case the keystroke) and their written words to embrace altering and changing the world, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality.

In our process of engaging in an ongoing conversation about our lived experiences we have an opportunity to see the world in different ways and to discover new ways of interpreting the world around us …. and in some small way, contribute to changing it.