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How It All Began: The Start of My Quarter-Life Crisis

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Denizen writer Devika Ray recently spent a year traveling across the world. In this 3-part series, she documents her journey from New York City, to Argentina, to Thailand.

In 2010, I was your average 22-year old university graduate in New York.

I had my first real job after college – a corporate consulting job. I was earning a decent salary and shared a tiny Manhattan apartment with two roommates. It was the beginning of life in the real world, and it was exciting. I had joined the ranks of millions of other fast-paced New Yorkers, juggling work, parties and hobbies, and I loved it. The city was electric. It was full of energy and promises. I was thrilled to call it my new home.

Fast-forward to 2011, one year later. I was still at the same job, now promoted to a higher position with a bigger salary. I had the same great friends and continued to pack my free time with dinners, parties and social events. But one year down the road, something felt different… I felt different. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but the life that I had been so content with thus far suddenly started to feel empty.

What had changed? Why did I no longer feel satisfied?

The truth was…I was 23 years old and scared. Scared that I was turning into a corporate robot… scared that I was letting the best years of my life slip by as I sat in a cube and fiddled with Excel. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough that I had a stable job in a good city. I struggled to find more meaning in my work-hard, play-hard New York lifestyle. Was this it? I looked at my seniors and asked myself… was this going to be me 5, 10 years down the road? Was I ready to give in to the traditional U.S. corporate life, chasing the American dream?

I guess this is what people call the “quarter-life crisis,” that feeling of confusion, lack of direction and pressure to figure out what to do with the rest of your life before it’s too late.

And as a TCK, I was as confused about what I wanted to be as I was about where I wanted to be.

I am not a U.S. citizen, and my definition of home spans three continents. At the time, my parents lived in Nigeria while my brother lived in India. Just as I was unsure about what I ultimately wanted to do career-wise, I was equally conflicted about where I belonged and where I finally wanted to settle. The path I was on was stable… it ensured U.S. permanent residency and a secure life in a first-world country. But after years of moving around, was I ready for that? Or was I starting to feel stuck?

I willed the sentiments to go away and scolded myself for being ungrateful. I tried to drown out the unsettling feelings by adding more activities to my already busy schedule. I talked to friends experiencing similar emotions, read the famous TCK book by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken and convinced myself that restlessness was something I’d just have to live with. All of this provided temporary relief.

Four months later, surrounded by friends drinking, dancing and celebrating, I welcomed the year 2012. Perched on a rooftop overlooking the Hudson river, we watched fireworks light up the sky. Champagne flowed, everyone around me cheered…and I felt…happy? Indifferent? Hopeful? Numb?

That’s when I realized I needed a more drastic solution to my problem. I had to consider more options.

Should I apply to another job?
Move to another U.S. city?
Apply to grad school?

All were avenues for a change, but for some reason, none truly appealed to me.

And then, I finally allowed myself to seriously consider taking a year off to travel. A whole year off seemed so exotic, so rebellious in comparison to the conventional life I was leading. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. This was what I needed – a break for some introspection, a year devoted to me… to travel, to learn, to explore, to grow.

I broached the subject with my parents. It was hard for them, sitting in Nigeria, to understand how I could be unhappy in a place like New York. It’s not that they were against a gap year, but they wanted me to think through other possibilities.

Why couldn’t I wait until I got a green card, and then consider a year off? Why not look for another job, maybe in another city? Why not hold off for a little bit longer — maybe this was just a phase that would pass?

But I just couldn’t wait any longer.

In the end, I think being a TCK actually made it easier for me to convince them that this was the right decision for me. I was already away from home and my family wasn’t attached to the idea of me staying in the US.

My parents, like most TCK parents, were already used to a life of change and travel, and that helped them see my point of view. Taking a year off also meant that I could spend a few months with them – more time than I had spent with them in a long while. And finally, I explained to them that this didn’t have to be a permanent life change – worst case scenario… I’d hate it and come back to the U.S. for grad school.

And so, the decision was made.

I was going to take a year off to travel… A year off to pursue only those things that I was truly interested in and curious about. I was going to check things off my bucket list now, while I was still young and free of responsibilities, obligations and commitments.

I had no idea where or how to start, and I knew I couldn’t leave without some sort of plan, but for the first time in a long time, I felt liberated. I was about to embark on a journey of a lifetime and suddenly, the world was at my fingertips. No more long nights at the office, no more weekends spent asking myself if this was it. I still didn’t know if it was a good idea or a terrible mistake. But for some reason, it just didn’t matter anymore. I felt free.

Race and the TCK Identity

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About six years ago, I was changing in the men’s locker room when I overheard a younger student telling his friends a story. I don’t remember what he was talking about, but it ended with something like this:

“…and then I told that Filipino, ‘Shut up, man – I’ll have you clean my toilet for me.’”

Filipinos constitute the largest racial minority in Hong Kong, and many of them work as domestic helpers. I’m also Filipino.

In an uncharacteristic fit of rage, I wheeled around, grabbed him by the collar, and pushed him up against the wall. “What the fuck did you say?”

I don’t really ever fight, but I was taller and older than he was, and as he joked around I felt an uncontrollable anger surge through my veins. I grabbed my things and stormed out, as if I had just made my point. What just happened? I thought to myself.

That was in high school.

Fast forward to about three years later – I’m at a crowded family reunion in Manila. I was on my winter break, midway through my sophomore year of college in Portland, Oregon.

One of my cousins turned to me and asked, “So, what’s it like to go to college in the U.S. as a Filipino?”

That question completely threw me off because it never crossed my mind. When I thought about it some more, I realized that I could count the number of Filipinos at my college on one hand, and there were only a few more than that at my high school in Hong Kong. Despite that, I had never thought of myself as a minority before.

How do I reconcile this tension? On one hand, I rarely identify with my racial background, or even think about it on an active basis. I’m not at all involved in any international or Asian student organization at my college. On the other hand, I was willing to threaten a person who made fun of Filipinos with physical violence.

I don’t have an answer that resolves this tension for me, nor can I pin down an exact definition of how third culture kids make sense of their racial identity. But I can say this: I view my cultural identity through the lens of my current location.

When I’m in Hong Kong, I feel like a Filipino and an American. When I’m in the U.S., I feel Filipino and Chinese. And when I’m in the Philippines, I feel like an American. My self-perception constantly shifts, even if I remain ethnically Filipino regardless of where I am. The interesting thing about all three of these examples is that I never identify as a Filipino and nothing else. Sometimes, my Filipino heritage doesn’t even enter the realm of small talk; because I have comparatively lighter skin, most people assume that I’m Chinese-American.

If I were born 100 years ago – or even 50 years ago – I would have been born and raised in the Philippines. If I went to school, I would have gone to a Filipino school with Filipino friends. And if I were to encounter other cultures, I would likely view them from a Filipino perspective, no matter where I was. Instead, I was born in the United States, raised in Hong Kong, and sent to an international school with people who didn’t look like me. I have never lived in the place of my racial heritage.

As a TCK, I pride myself (sometimes excessively) on my cultural adaptability. But with race, I run into the limits of that adaptability. The way people see me, and the way society treats culture and race, defies the most basic inferences I have about the way I look and the way I’ve been brought up.

That’s the difference. I will always be Filipino, whether I spend the next ten years of my life in five countries or one country. And that sense of permanence, the feeling that this aspect of my identity will remain constant no matter how I feel about it, is unsettling. At times, I feel Filipino, and at other times, not at all. There will always be friction between how I identify myself and where I came from. I’d like to think my identity is completely under my control, but we can’t control where our family came from.

I don’t mean to say that I’m ashamed of my racial heritage or that I wish I could change it. On the contrary, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I will never feel at home in the land of my ancestors. I’d like to think that, in a totally evolved 21st century way, the fact that I didn’t grow up in the Philippines shouldn’t bother me at all. But the truth is, I’m most comfortable when I’m surrounded by either Chinese people or white people, and I feel weird when I’m surrounded by Filipinos.

So in that sense, being in the Philippines is disconcerting because I feel like I’m silently lying to everyone around me. Nobody knows I’m a foreigner unless I open my mouth and say something. As long as I don’t let anyone hear my American accent, people will think I’m one of them. And while our unique TCK backgrounds should be celebrated, sometimes I’d like to feel a part of my racial heritage. I’d like to fit in, and stop feeling like an alien in my own culture. But then I’d have to change who I am.

The Tree House: A Home For All Travelers

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In Jakarta, Indonesia, there is an obscure-looking bar and art gallery that is quietly inviting. I passed it while on my ojek (Indonesian slang for motorbikes), and after it caught my eye, I turned around and went to check out the place. It’s called the Tree House.

The interior is like walking into a friend’s living room, with couches and very little individual seating that carve a small-yet-cozy spot. Conversation starters are everywhere, from the art pieces on display from young up-and-coming Jakarta artists, to the wide variety of menu items, to the outgoing personalities of the bartenders. Then upon meeting Tree House’s founder and owner, Anton Massoni, I realized that this was both a TCK-run and TCK-friendly establishment.

Anton was born in Rome to an Italian father and Indonesian mother, and moved to Jakarta, Indonesia when he was 6 years-old. There, he attended North Jakarta International School and British International School, graduating in 2004. Afterwards, he studied Hospitality Management in New Zealand and Sydney, and worked two years in Melbourne upon graduation. He returned to Jakarta and opened the Tree House in 2011.

The Tree House has now become the weekend hangout for Third Culture Kids from the nearby international schools, and for returning denizens to come relive the glory days. It’s also a great spot for vagabonds new to Jakarta looking to meet like-minded individuals who offer a blend of both local wisdom and international outlook to help navigate the city.

What inspired you to create The Tree House?

I identified a lack of creative space in Jakarta, and wanted to make a bar whose focus was on Jakarta’s young artistic community. Before the Tree House, there was not a free art space for up-and-coming artists and creative individuals to express themselves and have the opportunity to make an exhibition. My inherent interest and fascination with “street” and “low-brow” art pushed me to create a space where I could contribute and give a platform to the new generation of creative individuals in Jakarta.

Where does the design, look, and feel of the Tree House come from? 

My inspiration was drawn from several bars I had fallen in love with during my travels. One such bar is in a small alley-way or “hu tong” in Beijing, whose cozy vibes, small intimate space, and super-friendly bar keeper inspired the approach I would take in my design. I also took many aesthetic and management cues from various bars in Melbourne, whose nightlife I grew to love while I was working there.

I also I realized that there was a large gap in Jakarta’s market for small, independently owned, concept-bars – which were ubiquitous in Melbourne. Bars that not only looked different and were smaller, but also played music not heard on local radio or at popular nightclubs and restaurants. Not knowing whether the concept would be welcomed in a city largely dominated by very serious and stiff establishments, I took a chance in bringing a piece of overseas, urban bar culture that I was passionate about to Indonesian shores.

What makes the Tree House different from other bars?

The conversation and vibe are noticeably different. Customers interact openly with the bartenders and make it a point to sit at the bar and converse with the staff – this is very rare elsewhere in Jakarta. Customers also talk openly and join in each others’ conversation which, in a city where the social scene is very cliquey and people are apprehensive to strike up conversations with strangers, is a welcome change. TCKs including myself seem to be much more open and receptive to random conversation and encounters, and that’s what I’m trying to encourage – people to be more open and friendly around each other.

Additionally, we are also quite possibly the only pet-friendly indoor venue, who openly welcomes all animals. We’ve had corn and garter snakes, all sorts of dogs and cats as well.

What’s in the future for The Tree House?

I’d like to continue making Tree House a destination for good conversation, a place for like-minded individuals to congregate, and to help push the local art scene forward with new exhibitions and fun, alternative music events. I’d also like to set up a website where prints from previous art exhibitions are made available for purchase to overseas customers who may not have the opportunity to travel out here, so maybe they can feel like a part of the “tree house family.”

 The Tree House is that unusual a spot where customers have shared stories of heartbreak with the bar staff, played pranks on each other, and struck up conversations with new people they have met. There’s a regular group on Tuesday for philosophical debates, and those discussions have lead to an ever-changing and expanding circle of strong friendships – folks who now meet up outside of the Tree House, have traveled together, and remain in contact account the world. It’s the global nomad loneliness and “what the hell” kind of openness that Tree House encourages, which helps build these relationships between customers and staff alike.

The idea that “strangers are only friends you haven’t met yet” vibrates through every inch of Tree House. Visiting during my third week in Indonesia, it was the first time I felt “at home” because of the people and the environment. If you’re the kind of person who wants to make friends, and find a home away from home, Tree House is waiting for you.

More information about The Tree House can be found at https://www.facebook.com/treehousekemang

Opting In: Struggles with U.S. Immigration

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There comes a time in every third culture kid’s life when trouble arises with immigration.

For me, this moment arrived in the middle of my sophomore year at NYU. I had been accepted for study abroad in London, and decided to notify my school’s International Office since I was a Canadian on a U.S. student visa. Would there be any special protocol I’d have to follow for study abroad? Would I have to maintain a U.S. mailing address while I was gone? I thought I was being proactive; staying one step ahead of the game. I was wrong.

After patiently explaining how to maintain my F-1 status abroad, the advisor asked to see my passport, which I dutifully handed over. Immediately, her eyebrows furrowed. “Where is your I-94?”

Funny that she should mention that. The I-94 is a travel document for visitors arriving into the United States. But thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement, Canadian citizens don’t need to fill one out when entering the country. But the last time I entered the United States, I filled one out anyway. Since I was on a student visa, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Much to my surprise, the immigration officer waved my form away and coolly informed me that I didn’t need an I-94. Even when I’d clarified that I was entering the U.S. as a student, he’d maintained that it wasn’t necessary and promptly dismissed me. It had struck me as odd at the time, but I wasn’t about to challenge an immigration officer.

As I finished telling the advisor my story, I noticed that her smile began to dip. “Oh no. Oh no.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed.

“You need to go to JFK and get this fixed as soon as possible.” Seeing the confused look on my face, she elaborated. “You may just have entered the country illegally.”

Needless to say, that threw me into a panic. Even though she calmly walked me through the steps I’d have to take to fix this error, I felt my head spinning the entire time. She told me that worst case scenario was that my current visa would be rendered null and void and that I’d have to apply for a new one. Given that this process can often drag on for months, I might have to take a leave of absence from school. And, there would be a mountain of paperwork, to say the least.

Damning as the prospect of temporary deportation was, however, it wasn’t my most pressing concern. In fact, I was more distressed at the thought of my future home slipping out of my grasp. At 16, I had spent a summer at Columbia University and decided that New York was where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. To my close friends and family, this was a strange decision. Apart from a few vacations and summer camps, I’d never actually spent an extended period of time in the United States. I had no official ties to the country. How was I so sure that I’d be happy in a place that was, to myself and most of my friends and family, foreign?

As a Canadian, I love my passport nation fiercely, yet I don’t dare to claim that I know it. I was born in Toronto, but left after six months and spent the bulk of my life in Hong Kong. I love Hong Kong to bits, but my international school upbringing had erased my Chineseness over the years, making me incapable of truly fitting in there. At the core, I had always suspected I was too Westernized to live as an adult in the city I’d always called home.

On the other hand, the eclectic vibe of New York was like a siren call to me. There, I could go from bohemian artist to bourgeois citizen to Central Park tree-hugger, all in one day. There, I could switch from English to Cantonese to (broken) French without anyone batting an eyelid. There, I could be whomever I wanted to be.

But, there was the tricky issue of my non-U.S. citizenship. And now this I-94 mess.

“Don’t be surprised if I get sent ‘home’ to Canada this weekend,” I told my roommate that night. I hadn’t been back to my passport country in more than five years.

Fortunately, the I-94 problem was solved, and I didn’t get deported. But, the incident made me realize that my ability to live the life I want is entirely contingent on the whims of the American government. But perversely, this episode has only intensified my desire to stay in New York.

I say perversely, because now I am all too aware of how highly the odds are stacked against me. I recently attended a workshop at school about “The Realities of Finding Work in the U.S.” To my understanding, in order for non-US citizens to stay in the U.S. long-term, we have to be sponsored by a company to receive an H-1B visa, which eventually enables us to become permanent residents or green card holders after a certain amount of time. Mexican and Canadian citizens can apply for a Treaty National (TN) visa, but only if their jobs are part of a small list of approved professions. Either way, the paperwork is intensive, and there’s no guarantee that the visa will actually be granted, barring the magical appearance of an American spouse.

The workshop panelists repeatedly stressed that it’s pretty much impossible to get sponsored for an H-1B visa by non-finance firms. Most companies simply don’t have the financial resources or know-how to sponsor visas. The law wants companies to say: why bother going through all this trouble to hire a foreigner when we could just hire an American, never mind the diversity of perspective TCKs bring to the table?

And even if you’re willing to make the effort, your employer may not feel the same way. I’ve heard horror stories from friends who were rejected for internships the minute their employers found out they’d need to file paperwork. “Are you a foreign student?” the interviewer asked, to which the candidate replied in the affirmative. “Well then, this interview is over. You’re not getting the job.”

If getting an internship is so difficult, imagine how nightmarish finding an actual job will be. “Come prepared with your own lawyer to guide you through the process,” one of the panelists advised. “It’s going to cost you maybe $500 an hour, but it’ll be worth it.”

Despite all this, I’m still determined to build my future in New York. The freedom to embrace my identities – all of my identities – is simply too valuable to me to give up. I’ll work harder and do whatever it takes to show American employers that I have something unique to contribute. By fighting to stay in the States, I’ve chosen the rockier path. But I’m opting in, simply because I must.

Why I Vote

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Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was an election. This land was so far away that I would struggle to call it home, even though my voter registration card claimed my last residence was a Houston suburb. And even though Texan culture is as familiar to me as walking on the moon, I will eagerly cast my ballot. I can thank my experiences as a Third Culture Kid for that.

The story starts many years ago, in an apartment on a quiet street in the Ma’adi suburb of Cairo. At the time, most of what I was interested in was the dusty, yet peaceful surroundings of green and brown that surrounded me, the usual petty gripes I held against my younger sister, and of course, my birthday party which was coming up in a few weeks. We were supposed to go on a faluuca ride on the Nile. How cool was that, I thought.

One of the other things that struck me, as a kid, was our lack of TV channels. In the US, we had about 80 channels with a basic cable package. Here, the antenna brought us only 3 or 4, depending on the weather and time of day. Egyptian state TV was one of them. On a fuzzy old TV we watched pictures of military parades, comedies, and news presenters talking about the upcoming election.

Photo courtesy of Uriel 1998 on Flickr

The TV channels were just one of many wild differences I experienced those first few years, but what struck me was the post-election results. Hosni Mubarak won with 96 percent of the vote. Even at the tender age of eleven, this struck me as odd. I came from a country where George Bush and Al Gore had basically tied, and Supreme Court Justices had to step in and decide who had won. It seemed odd. In my innocence, I wondered why Egypt’s president was so well liked, compared with the contempt with which we held American politicians.

However, as I read through the Egyptian English newspaper, I began to question this assumption. The allegations of corruption were comically rampant at times. Just as common were the pictures of Mubarak on the front page. He was always up to something, it seemed. I wondered why he didn’t fire a few of his ministers, or fix the part of my street that had been dug up for new electrical lines (when I returned to visit my old house, the unpaved ditch was still there, 10 years later).

Gradually, I realized: I was being fooled. These elections were little more than show business. Another term passed before I left Egypt, and Mubarak won again with 93 percent of the vote. I noted the absence of any candidate other than Mubarak.

A few years later, I experienced my first election in the United States while at university. I was determined to vote, not because of the hysteria surrounding Obama’s nomination by the Democrats, but because I had experienced what lack of power meant. With a mere piece of paper, I had candidates making speeches, promising agendas, giving town hall meetings. They wanted me to write their names in on this piece of paper. Whatever I wrote down, it mattered.

I got the inspiration for this article this year as I was doing my research about the upcoming US election. I stumbled across the census numbers for the 2008 election year, a year which I thought had produced high voter turnout. Only 61 percent of eligible voters turned up in November of 2008, only 1 percent more than in 2004. I can’t understand why — I will never be one of those who didn’t show up. In that land far, far away, I’m thankful that I can have my voice heard.

Why do you vote?

Me: Translated

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I was not a popular person at my first Super Bowl party.

My boyfriend at the time brought me to his friends’ house over my rather loud objections. He promised I’d enjoy myself, that we’d eat chili and drink beer, and that even if the game was boring, there would be funny commercials.

The group split in what I know now is a fairly traditional way – most of the guys in the living room, watching the game, and most of the girls were in the kitchen chatting and eating the snacks they’d prepared. Not knowing what to do, I stayed near my boyfriend.

Being a Third Culture Kid, I know it can take years before the rituals and minutiae of social events normalize. Having grown up in Thailand, I remember being mystified the first time Songkran came around just as much as I remember gleefully joining in on the water fight by the time our third year rolled around. Festivals and traditions, like humour, seem to be some of the hardest things to translate.

Photo courtesy of Alyssa L. Photography

By the time I got to this Super Bowl party, I had been living in the United States for a year and a half, and had hit the point where I was expected to know things. My first few months in the States, it was accepted that I was only semi-American, and people were patient. I was taught about jaywalking and how to drink cheap liquor. I learned about team rivalries, and to never say anything nice about the Dallas Cowboys in D.C.  But I was also constantly running into new situations I didn’t know how to navigate, and this Super Bowl party was one of them.

I found a corner on the couch and stayed put, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things I did not understand. There was a whole vocabulary that I was expected to know for a sport I’d only seen a handful of times. There were white lines and blue lines and yellow lines on the field, and more numbers floating around than I could keep track of.

“Why did they stop there? The yellow line was right in front of him! Why couldn’t he just keep going another foot?” I asked at one point. I was proud of myself for even knowing he had to cross the yellow line.

“Sarah, they can’t see those lines,” my then-boyfriend explained with the kind of patience reserved for small children. “Those are only on TV.”

“Oh.”

The weight of expectations washed over me all at once. I was the one asking the silly questions. I was the one failing to conform. I was the one that needed to try harder to rediscover the Americanness that everybody else seemed sure I had stored away somewhere in the back of my mind. I had to translate who I was and every experience I’d had overseas to make it acceptable to my peers. To make it American. I was a translation of myself, and a poor one.

A few months ago, I moved to Denmark for the summer as part of a work rotation. I got off of the plane knowing nothing about my new home except the city I lived in and the date and time I was supposed to report to work. When I landed in Copenhagen, I couldn’t even say hello. Honestly, I do more research for a 2-week vacation than I did for my four months here.

My first night out, I was amazed at how generous everybody was with drinks. Round after round showed up before I even had to think about it. As a girl living in the South, I have become accustomed to having drinks bought for me and I thought nothing of it. After a few weeks, my coworker gently suggested that I should go to the bar with him and buy a round for everybody.

“It’s just a lot easier to do rounds. That way everybody doesn’t have to go to the bar at once.” There was no finger pointing or accusation about not doing my part, or an assumption that I should know better. Having seen several people make the same work rotation into our hybrid Danish/international environment before, they were used to seeing how new people behaved and acting as their cultural translators. He explained that at the bar, we used a round system, and that if I ever didn’t want to be a part of it, to just buy my own drink and it would be fine.

On a daily basis I interact with not only Danes, but South Africans, Brits, Kiwis, Filipinos, and people whose cultural background is as varied and confusing as mine. Every night out involves more acts of cultural translation than people attempted with me in 8 years living in the States, and I find myself more grateful for this experience than I thought possible. Not for the networking, or the potential for career advancement, though those certainly help sweeten the deal. I was given 4 months to feel like myself again and to have people accept who I am and understand that I am neither bragging about nor putting down the life I have lead when I talk about it.

Here, I have no fear of saying, “Translation, please!” when I’m invited to an event, or a coworker references an event from back home. Here, in my group of South Africans, Brits, Aussies, Danes, and a random smattering of more nationalities than I have fingers and toes, it is accepted that, at any time while telling a story, somebody will chime in asking for clarification. I’m not expected to just “get it.”

We are all translators here, not translations. I explain what I know of American culture or Thai culture or Panamanian culture when it comes up in the office, and my coworkers do the same when we run into cultural confusion with other countries. Without the assumption that we should all be alike, communication is an active thing. We listen to one another and translate events into our own experiences, or drop small explanations into our stories when we can tell our audience is getting lost.

It is a small change, but an important one. Here I can translate my experiences without needing to translate myself. I don’t need to alter parts of my life story to make my friends more comfortable, and I can ask questions without feeling like I’m breaking a rule I didn’t know existed. Home is not a physical place for me. Home is translation.

Inventing the Perfect Country

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People always ask me: “You’ve lived everywhere! Where’s your favourite place to live?”

Being a Third Culture Kid, you probably feel the same predicament I do in trying to find a suitable answer to this question. It is absolutely impossible. There are far too many people and places that you love, and too many memories that flood your brain the moment the question is posed, to be able to pick just one.

If anything, I have been wonderfully spoiled by all the places I have lived. There are little facets in each of the different countries that I wholly adore, and I always wonder if I can find a single place in the world that has all of these benefits. Might I finally be able to settle down somewhere, for once? It’s doubtful that such a place exists, but if it did, it would look a little something like a place with:

1. The architecture and culture of London

Let’s face it, who doesn’t enjoy living in a world that makes you feel like Harry Potter? Strolling by the Thames, visiting the Queen’s Summer Palace, heading to the Globe Theatre, having tea in the Caramel Room… engaging in these London activities helps you feel cultured, educated, and finessed. Doing these things elsewhere generally makes you feel like an affected and pretentious idiot.

There’s something beautiful about the quaint, Old World style that epitomizes London. Perhaps it’s the time-worn street names – Guilford Street, or Elgin Avenue – or the fact that the architects are designing their new buildings to look like old buildings. My only complaint? Those large old stone walls make it awfully difficult to get a wireless signal most of the time. First world problems, eh?

Photograph by Melissa Boey

2. The weather and beaches of California

As we speak, the sun is shining outside, and it shines for folks in California 350 days a year. Perpetually summer, but with a cool evening breeze, California weather gives you absolutely nothing to complain about. It is nothing like Singapore’s dire, sweaty heat or London’s “Why-isn’t-summer-here-yet?” chill. It’s one-jacket weather, and the coolness of the evening helps you fall to sleep beautifully without the need for air conditioning or a heater.

The soft, sandy beaches and the beautiful sights (palm trees, waves or surfers), is a glimpse of natural magic that is only a short drive away from the hustle and bustle of the city. As one of the few places you can think, read, and play all at the same time, it hosts the best show on Earth – the endlessly beautiful sunsets – completely free. Perfect for photography, family picnics, dating; what more could you ask for?

Photograph by Melissa Boey

3. The shopping of the United States

Have you seen America? It is the quintessential consumer society, and they have everything. I have seen Rubik’s Cube salt and pepper shakers. I have seen bagel slicers – a small contraption just to slice your bagels! At this rate, they probably have automatic fruit peelers and self-arranging billiard tables that I do not know about… (though China does have self-shuffling mah-jong tables, I must admit.)

You don’t even need to leave your chair to reach the New World of shopping. One word: Amazon. You can order everything from cereal to sunscreen from Amazon, and have it delivered right to your doorstep. No crowds, no one to rush you, and there is no need to go to multiple hardware stores just to find the right kind of epoxy – the only limit exists on your bank account. Ah, capitalism.

4. The low prices of China

An hour-long taxi ride in Shanghai, the economic capital of China, only costs around 50 RMB, the equivalent of around 8 dollars or 5 pounds. The same holds true for food, goods, services, and much more. I miss the 2 RMB noodles and being able to pay for everything in coins. The largest coin denomination in England (2 pounds) would probably be enough to pay for a filling breakfast, lunch, and dinner in China, but barely enough for a coffee in England. Expatriates who end up there are inevitably spoiled, being able to afford every luxury they have ever dreamed of.

I always have a hard time explaining to people why my “driver” comes to pick me up at the airport. I’m certainly not wealthy enough to afford a chauffeur in most countries in the world, but foreigners in China find it awfully hard to obtain favour with the authorities in regards to licenses and particularly in regards to accident liability. As a result, most foreigners find themselves with pleasant drivers to take them around everywhere if public transportation is not too accessible. Yet this has caused me to be license-less at age 21 in the United States (a shameful experience, considering most of my peers have been driving for 5 years now), and I have never even learned how to fill up a petrol tank…

5. The safety and cleanliness of Singapore

Cleanliness is something that Singapore has managed to perfect. Tourists arrive and are in awe of the brilliantly green, manicured grass and the perfectly painted public housing – filled with bright blues, yellows, and plenty of pinks. The streets are constantly swept, the trees planted along the highway are equally spaced apart (down to the last inch!) and I believe the cleaner in my law firm comes (not once, not twice, but) three times a day to empty each individual rubbish bin. If you’re an obsessive-compulsive like me, move to Singapore.

Singapore is also probably also the only country where the government has propaganda posters that say “Low crime doesn’t mean no crime! Watch your bags at the train station!” Singapore is probably one of the few countries in the world where it is just as safe at 3 a.m. in the morning as compared to 3 p.m. in the afternoon. Parents can let their kids loose and can worry a lot less, and not have to constantly fear the possibility of their belongings being stolen in the crowded shopping malls. The Singapore Police Force, with their motto “Be Extraordinary,” will surely be there to help you out.

6. The efficiency of Asia (with the customer service of the United States)

Americans are just so friendly. You know what I’m talking about. They’ll talk to you when you’re in the elevator, they’ll ask you how your day was at the supermarket. Coming from Britain, this certainly was something that needed something to get used to. I looked suspiciously at the man from UPS who actually commented on my clothing in an elevator one day, and the old lady who began talking to me at the bus stop about the weather – were they crazy? Did they have some sort of hidden agenda? Should I hold my purse closer so they could not steal my cell phone? Little did I know that the barista at the coffee shop was merely being friendly.

Asian customer service, however, will ask you what is wrong with your computer, not caring the least bit about why you spilled coffee on it. Both of you will stay there, in almost complete silence, as he fixes your laptop and you watch him fix your laptop. There isn’t even time to pull out your smartphone and browse to make the silence a little less awkward. The job will be done, and then it’s on to the next customer!

So, if you ever find a place with all of these qualities, email me immediately, please.

(Additionally, it would not hurt if the place had access to those amazing mincemeat noodles by my house, waffles from the bakery I went to growing up, rich and creamy European pastries, excellent British roast, warm Cantonese soups, and American burgers…).

What characteristics would make up your “Perfect Country?” Let Melissa know in the comments.

Our Quarter-Life Cultural Crisis

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Yamazaki in Neither Here Nor There

Until recently, my life followed a predetermined roadmap. It began with a comfortable, chronicled progression of attending an international K-12 school in Japan, and each year followed a definitive pattern of learning new things, strengthening friendships and cultivating my identity. These were all done within the nurturing (and protective) environment that a school provides, and life’s variables, while bountiful, were managed within these confines.

In college, that roadmap ended. It was a new start, and I was suddenly thrust into unprecedented ground as a Japanese national living in the United States. Having been educated at the American School in Japan, I thought that my edifice of life in the U.S. would mesh with the reality of living there. Yet, these dual realities coincided less often than I had imagined they would. Why did I feel disconnected from the collective American experience? Why wasn’t I forging stronger ties with my American peers?

It wasn’t until I watched Neither Here Nor There that I was able to make better sense of this strange quarter-life cultural crisis.

Released in March, Neither Here Nor There examines the minds of six people who grew up as Third Culture Kids. The filmmaker, Ema Ryan Yamazaki, weaves her own journey of traversing between Japanese, English and American cultures as the backbone of the short documentary. Produced as her senior thesis film at NYU, Yamazaki endeavors to make sense of perennial TCK questions: Who am I?

Growing up, Yamazaki never really felt conflicted by her multicultural identity. Born to a Japanese mother and a British father, Yamazaki attended both Japanese and international schools and spent summers visiting family in the U.K.

“I was a baseball fan, and I listened to music from the States,” Yamazaki told me Skype, as she explained that she felt that her upbringing—immersing in Japanese, British and international school realms—prepared her for college in the United States. “I don’t really consider my first two years as different from anyone else’s. Every freshman has to deal with moving away from home and going to college.”

But when Thanksgiving came, Yamazaki recalled feeling unexpectedly unfamiliar with the American holiday. Like attending Catholic mass for the first time, Thanksgiving was beset with foreign traditions and customs. Was it appropriate for her to accept an invitation from her roommate to spend the holiday with her considering she had only known her for a short amount of time? Was she expected to cook something? Resisting to admit the cultural unfamiliarity associated with the holiday, Yamazaki politely declined the invitation.

“I wanted to pretend like I knew everything,” Yamazaki conceded. “But it really hit me when I was walking down Broadway and nobody was on campus. Everyone had gone home and I was alone in my dorm.”

It wasn’t until the summer going into her junior year that Yamazaki began confronting her cultural discomfort. Until then, Yamazaki never really approached TCK-dome as an affinity beset with obstacles and disadvantages. She lived a culturally rich, jet-setting lifestyle. Where then, did the discomfort come from?

Neither Here Nor There takes this question and illuminates different facets of TCK life through interviews with TCKs in all different stages of their multicultural reckoning.

One of the most compelling facets the film examines is the feeling of being part of everything, but never really entirely a part of one thing.

“It was really weird meeting people because they just didn’t get it,” explains Michelle Sammons in the film, a TCK who spent most of her life traversing cultures completely unrelated to those of her family’s.

Having hopscotched from Tehran to California, and then to Colorado for college, Sammons found it difficult to find a core group of friends in the U.S. who truly embraced or understood her background. While she didn’t entirely mesh with her American peers at college, she also resisted being tokenized as the “international kid.”

Yamazaki compared Sammons’s observation with her own sentiment: “I’m part of four worlds now (Japan, U.K., America, international schools)… I relate to all of them, but not quite fully to any of them.”

Teresa Ardhana Hinds, a community organizer, also describes this confusion of cultural loyalty in the film. Born in Trinidad, educated in the United Kingdom, and currently working in New York City, Hinds described how at university, the administration and her peers were confused by how to categorize her enrollment status.

“My parents actually had to bring in my birth certificate to prove that I was a national! But even then they were just kind of like, ‘You’re West Indian but you’re not West Indian.’ So there was always that confusion of what was expected of me.”

But both Hinds and Sammons have embraced their multiculturalism as part of their identity, which doesn’t necessarily have to be defined or narrowly articulated.

“A lot of people struggle with identity at that time and in college,” Sammons said. “And a lot of my friends…also had horrible experiences in college. And they grew up in one place… For me, this is who I am and this is where I come from, and I don’t need to put a label on it.”

The film closes with Yamazaki’s introspections of all her interview subjects’ stories. Like Hinds and Sammons, Yamazaki approaches her multiculturalism now not as forces that compromise her identity, but as an evolving impetus that drives Yamazaki’s undulating identity.

“It’s okay to not know everything in each culture,” Yamazaki observes as I conclude my Skype interview with her. It reminded me of some of the last few lines Yamazaki delivers to close the film.

“If people asked me, ‘Who are you today? Who are you in this moment?’ Who I am is that I’m an evolving person depending on culture.”

In the midst of my strange quarter-life cultural crisis, that made sense.

Learn more about Neither Here Nor There at their website, Facebook or Twitter page.

Ever had a quarter-life cultural crisis? Share with Yumi your experiences below.

A Teacher, A Cultural Translator

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Artwork from Cassie Vergel’s classroom

I surveyed the classroom, doing a visual, auditory, and mental check of each student I saw – what they were doing, what were the social dynamics. As a first time kindergarten teacher, I was honing my skills of multi sensory check-ins to keep track of my 18 students.

As I watched a pair of girls plug in glue guns, I heard a scuffle behind me between two boys. I kept my eyes on the girls but my ears zeroed in on the boys’ voices, choosing not to turn my head knowing that the sudden gaze of a teacher could break the boys’ conversation.

“I want to go first.”

“No, I want to go first.”

I turned around casually to watch this typical kindergarten conversation unfold.

“I know!” exclaims Ben, one of the boys. “Let’s do Roshambo!”

Matthew, the other boy, looked at him with a blank expression that quickly turned into confusion. There was a pause and neither boy moved.

Without knowing what I was going to say, I walked over to Matthew, knelt down next to him and the words poured out of my mouth.

“Matthew, he means Jan Ken Po,” I said. “Roshambo is the same as Jan Ken Po.”

Matthew turned his head to me with wide eyes, smiled at me, and turned back to Ben with his hands ready for Roshambo/Jan Ken Po.

Without thinking, I continued. “Matthew wakatta?” asking him, in my other native tongue, Japanese, if he understood what I meant.

He responded without hesitation, “Hai!”

This was the moment I realized that I had something valuable to offer to this classroom that no one else could provide. I could navigate through nuanced cultural differences between students, particularly because of my Third Culture Kid background.

Matthew was not loud or rambunctious like the students, but rather quite the opposite: reserved and easily missed. He was observant, academically inclined, and followed rules impeccably. I shared this observation with my co-teacher in the class and she suggested that I pay particular attention to him because he had moved to the U.S. from Japan.

Ah.

This was why he felt familiar to me. Matthew reminded me of myself — an Asian Third Culture Kid who attended an international school in Japan and was then relocated to California. Not only that, he attended the same international school that I had as a child.


Artwork from Cassie Vergel’s classroom

After this short interaction, I naturally felt compelled to reflect on my own adjustments when I moved to the U.S. to start my undergraduate studies in California. First of all, I had to adjust to speaking only English with my new college friends. The hodge podge Japanglish that I spoke between my friends from home was now met with blank looks and I suddenly found myself having to search for English equivalents to the Japanese interjections I used regularly. But wait, I said those words in Japanese in the first place because there are no English equivalents…

Furthermore, my freshman year of college was full of surprising realizations. I was no longer average height and build, and my American friends referred to me as “tiny and cute.” I didn’t understand the American college students’ unhealthy obsession with alcohol and the need to black out every weekend since most of my TCK friends were out clubbing and drinking since they were 16.

It seemed that at every turn, a different hyphenated-American was telling me something different about what it mean to be American. Growing up, my life revolved around navigating between cultures and yet, now that I was immersed in a country frantically searching for a tangible identity, I suddenly missed not having one unified culture with clear expectations and rules.

I didn’t have anyone guiding me during my “roshambo” moments. How different would my adjustments and experiences have been had someone aided the transition?

In the last two years of teaching, I’ve often found myself wondering what could I possibly offer in the realm of education, to a classroom, to one student. How do I speak to each unique experience when I am only one person living one life?

Every individual, TCK or not, will experience a cultural transition as they switch educational and professional institutions. I cannot be present for every transition and adjustment, but perhaps by sharing my reflections, I can help raise awareness and help other educators better facilitate an environment where cultures mix, blend, and collide.

In an increasingly globalized world, multicultural, multiethnic, and TCK students will fill classrooms. I think teachers will have to embrace a new role – as a cultural translator. I am hoping that graduate school will both deconstruct and unify my identities as a TCK, educator, and learner and ultimately help me lead existing cultural translators and teach others.

I will start my graduate studies in the fall. I want to learn to use my experiences for good, both as a student, a teacher, and a contributing member of world. This is my calling.

How have you used your Third Culture Kid experiences to help others?

Under the Influence

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Wikipedia

“Four!” says the Swede, showing the card to the crowd.

I point to the floor, watching a Scotsman, Frenchman, Irishman, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Chinese, and Ghanian follow suit. Incidentally, the Swede, bearer of the card, is the last to point. We all laugh as he drinks his Tsingtao beer.

Sitting back and taking a look at my group of friends, I can only shake my head at the veritable United Nations assembly of drinking taking place. We’re all playing Kings in my friend’s apartment in Shanghai, throwing Mandarin around with dramatically differing degrees of proficiency — only one of us is a native Chinese speaker. English is used as a close second, but it falters even more often than the Mandarin. It doesn’t really matter though, any lulls in conversation are immediately shattered by brokered agreements to drink more.

I pick a card but as I do the ring of carefully arranged cards around a cup breaks. The crowd oohs and ahhs as I pick up the cup — as per the rules, I have to down the whole thing.

Players have been pouring odd tidbits of booze in the cup the entire game. The resultant concoction is the bastard child of Chinese beer, Korean soju, Mexican tequila, and a New Zealand feijoa cocktail mix. This shit is nasty.

And I’m supposed to chug it.

“Under no repeat no circumstances should the President actually drink from his glass in response to banquet toasts.”

These were the instructions given to President Nixon during his milestone trip to China in 1972. It’s sage advice, the contents of Chinese banquet cups bearing the notoriously potent baijiu.

I stare into my cup, contents writhing, wondering if I should heed the decades-old words of Nixon’s attaché. If it applied to old China perhaps it applies to the new one too?

A few years ago I wouldn’t have considered drinking it at all – I’d always been a late bloomer, forays into booze included. But when I was finally 18 and at home from my first semester of college I told my parents I wanted to try alcohol. It wasn’t planned, it just came out – it was time. All my friends were fairly deep into their drinking careers having started much earlier, 14 to 16 being about the norm for most Third Culture Kids. I’d had opportunities around that age to drink as well but had turned them down repeatedly, partially out of fear of the unknown and partially by rationalizing that I’d do it eventually. But in the college scene, caught in the craziness of freshman year, it caught up to me – people (girls) treated me like I was a little boy, and I finally cracked. I felt stunted.

First step was a quick run to the grocery. Perusing choices, my dad and I just shrugged as he took a couple of Budweisers, one for each of us. We got home, popped them open, clinked cans, and I sipped, deliberately, my approach akin to conducting a science experiment. Beer tasted funny. Not unpleasant, just different.

“It’s an acquired taste,” says my dad. I sat on the couch until I finished the can, all the while in a heightened state of self-awareness, overanalyzing every homeostatic process, wondering if every slight deviation was an effect of the alcohol.

Sitting there I was reassured I had waited to drink. Despite there not being much of a buzz from my first can of Bud, I honestly don’t know how I would’ve reacted to alcohol when I was younger. Going out around Shanghai, I run into expat teens no older than 14 or so, many seemingly handling drinking with aplomb. Sometimes I do second-guess myself, wondering if I gained anything from holding out so long. How many parties did I miss? How many friends or girlfriends did I never meet? If these teens can do it, why couldn’t I?

I’m somewhat hopeful for those jumping in now, justifying to myself that they’ll be wiser sooner, having built up their tolerance and learned from their misadventures. But mostly I can’t help but feel that that they should be home, engaging in the type of pure, unadulterated harmless activities I stuck to in middle school and high school – namely fiddling with Microsoft Paint and playing Madden on my Playstation 2. There is plenty of time for drinking later.

As it stands for me, that later is now, the crowd egging me on to drink from the cup I grip in my hands.

“Under no repeat no circumstances should the President actually drink from his glass in response to banquet toasts.”

The words echo but I disregard it, just as Nixon did in ’72. My eyes are shut tight, I raise the glass as my head is thrown back, the nasty concoction wriggling down. Wincing, my ears hear the rowdy cheers of the international community until my eyes finally burn open. The soju-beer-tequila induced grimace morphed into a goofy victorious grin.

What was drinking your first alcoholic beverage like? What country were you in?