Creating a brave new world?

A conversation last evening over a delightful dinner (I didn't cook!) got me to thinking: Why DO people move to other countries and become expatriates??

Is there a genetic "roaming" gene that some of us inherit, or did we move because of our upbringing and environment?

Our friends are both educators [teacher/headmaster] newly retiring, and have taught outside the UK early in their careers. They have also spent a lot of time teaching multicultural chidren at all levels of income. So we were talking and the term "third culture children" came up.

I found it fascinating. I looked it up this morning. Here's a sort of definition from the US State Department :

"Third-culture kids are those who have spent some of their growing up years in a foreign country and experience a sense of not belonging to their passport country when they return to it. In adapting to life in a 'foreign' country they have also missed learning ways of their homeland and feel most at home in the 'third-culture' which they have created."

The best quote came at the end, from a specialist affiliated with the State Department. As child psychiatrist Jack Smith said,

"The Foreign Service is what adults do. It is what our children are."

[ This Venn Diagram came from a New York Networking site for third culture kids]

Another very good article, "Third Culture Kids", by Lesley Lewis, highlighted the good and bad characteristics of these Third Culture Kids (or TCK's):

Characteristics of TCK's:

A life filled with high mobility - TCK's know an airport better than most people
Traveling is a way of life - many holidays are taken outside the home country

Politically astute - TCK's tend to read the newspaper and watch the news more often than other children. They are great debaters. They are often aware of the background of political decisions and implications for the people concerned.
Speak more than one language - often 3 or 4. English may be one language they function in, but they can think and feel in several.
Establish relationships quickly - they cut through many of the initial levels of diffidence when forming relationships.
Prefer to socialise with other TCK's as they enter adulthood - often become expatriates themselves.
Privileged lifestyle - their socio-economic lifestyle tends to be higher due to the expatriate status offered by some companies or the advantages of relocations (eg. they have access to helpers, drivers, club memberships and money).
Converse well with adults.
More mature in their social skills.
Culturally astute/cross-culturally enriched, less prejudiced.
Adapt quickly to unfamiliar countries and people.
More welcoming of newcomers into a community.
Educational achievers - a high percentage will attend university and obtain advanced degrees.
Live more in the present/live more for the moment(Pollock, 1999)
Make great culture bridges - they have multiple frames of reference.
Excellent observers of other people - often TCK's become too observant and sensitive

These are characteristics that are generally attributed to TCK's but should not be used to sterotype them. Even though the world of the TCK often appears glamorous, exotic and sometimes unreal, there are some challenging developemental issues that need to be considered:

The Challenges of being a TCK:
The elusive concept of Where is home? The sense of belonging everywhere and nowhere.
Difficulty with commitment to people, places, schools, or school systems as these constantly change.
Uncertain cultural identity.
Problems with decsion-making.
Loss of relationships, loss of community/school = loss of their world.
Feeling different from others, difficult in forming peer relationships; occurs more often at university level or when returning to "passport" country, where they are misunderstood by their fellow countrymen.
Rootlessness and restlessness. The frequent need to change countries and homes.
Powerless - A feeling that they have no control over events and that these are often taken out of their hands anyway by the inevitability of the move.
A crisis of identity - "Who am I?"

The question "Who am I?" is frequently asked by TCK's. They have accumulated a host of cultural identities, lived in many countries and have been introduced to a variety of global people. They are not the culture of their parents. TCK's position themselves by integrating a huge pool of values, norms, behaviours, beliefs, mannerisms and thoughts in order to identity self."

When we were done hashing things out over dessert, we also recognized that quite often these children came from bi-cultural families, where visits to grandparents and aunts and uncles meant trips and holiday visits to foreign countries, and often the embracing of dual nationalities and customs. Of course our conversation was circling around the education of these multilingual children and how they had to quickly adapt to new languages and cultures.

Still it got me thinking about what happens after all the schooling and living at home... where do this third culture children feel most comfortable? The Lewis article finishes with a rather lofty hope for the future that contains these children"

...they bring a deep knowledge from within and a special ability to compare international and local issues. They are the future cross-culturalists and hopefully future politicians, diplomats, multi-nationals, government employees and educators. TCK's have a deep understanding of human rights. They certainly encounter a differeing lifestyle compared to their mono-cultural peers but we can draw on their global and professional lives. So, whatever one chooses to label the international students as TCK's, Global Nomads, Expatriates or Global Souls, we will reap unbelievable rewards and a true sense of satisfaction.

Personally I think some of them just quietly decide to move to a different country and create their own personal world there. They're comfortable enough with their host culture and they have no problem living in a multi tier world with the ability to go back and forth between cultures - but now, on their own terms.

Anyway, I think that's why I'M so comfortable living in Greece!


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