All posts filed under: community

Faces at FIGT – Reiko: “I’m a reverse TCK”

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Have you ever heard of a “reverse TCK?” I hadn’t either, but after meeting Reiko Baumgarten, 24, at the FIGT conference, I’ve decided that I am one, too. A reverse TCK is someone who has grown up with the expat community, even though he or she has not moved a lot. Hit me. “Where are you from?” I was born and raised in Japan for 19 years. I’m actually the reverse role of most TCKs. I didn’t move around, everybody else around me moved around. My experience was everybody moving. Why was everyone moving around you? My father is retired military, and we went to a military school [in Japan]. Everybody else was in military school — all the military brats that moved around to different places. So… do you “get” what it means to be a TCK? Oh yeah, definitely. Coming to FIGT, everything opened my eyes. …I feel what most TCKs feel, just from my experience coming abroad as well — since I lived in Japan, coming here [to the U.S.], the culture …

Faces at FIGT – Adam: “TCKs can change the world”

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This week I’m attending the Families in Global Transitions (FIGT) Conference, which is a wonderful resource for anyone trying to learn more about Third Culture Kids. At this morning’s workshop I met Adam Browning, 21, and pulled him aside for a quick TCK chat. This self-proclaimed “airforce kid” recently discovered the language of Third Culture Kids and has fully embraced it as a way to change the world. Currently in college, Browning has lived in Germany, Thailand and five different U.S. states. He sees TCKs as model citizens of the future. What do you say when someone asks you, “Where are you from?” I say, “Funny question.” At this point my family lives in Portugal, I’m going to Abilene [Christian University in Texas], and I moved from San Antonio to go to school. How did you discover the term “TCK”? I learned the lingo my sophomore year in college… Dr. Carley Dodd, a professor of mine, was instrumental in this epiphany for me. Up until that point I was under the impression that I was …

What TCKs can learn from ‘Mean Girls’

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Mean Girls won’t win any Oscars, but peel away the glossy angst, and it is sociologically brilliant. The movie follows Cady Heron (played by Lindsay Lohan) as she starts her first day at an American high school. We quickly learn that Cady, a child of research zoologists, spent 12 years growing up in Africa. “P.S., Cady is a TCK” should have gone into the credits. “I had a great life [in Africa]” Cady narrates. “And then… my mom was offered tenure at Northwestern University. And it was goodbye Africa, hello high school.” Sound familiar? The sudden move from one culture to another provides a slew of Third Culture Kid moments, visible from just the first 10 minutes of the movie. On her first day of school in Illinois, Cady’s American parents are thoroughly unaware of how difficult the cultural transition could be for her. Walking up to the African-American students, Cady says “Jambo” in Swahili. She also deals with comments like, “So, if you’re from Africa – why are you white?” (“Oh my god Karen,” …

When humor crosses borders

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One evening shortly after my sister returned from college, the family was sitting around the dinner table. “I think I’m getting all A’s this quarter”, said my sister. “Oh, wow, you have an A-girl”, said my mom to my father. “Well so long as she’s not Z-girl…” I added, which provoked overall laughter around the table. What was so funny about that last line? Well, it was delivered with a profoundly authentic French accent. I’m a TCK, like many others, but I’m also from a bilingual family. My father always spoke English – well, he would correct me and say “I speak American” – and my mother never strayed a sentence from Molière’s language. Our family’s communication is bilingual. Trilingual now, since my sister and I have learned Japanese in college. And there are many out there, who, like my sister and I, have jokes that just can’t be shared with many people. We have tons of funny things to say – but we’ll be laughing only with a few people about it. Humor styles …