31 Signs You’re A Third Culture Kid (TCK)

During the lunch with my lovely friend P recently, she mentioned her experience as a TCK. It reminds me that I should dedicate at least one post on TCK.

TCKThat’s the definition from Dr. Ruth Van Reken, who coined the term TCK which has become a movement since 1960s. See more from the website: http://www.tckworld.com

Lately I have come across this popular article ’31 Signs You’re A Third Culture Kid’ here. I bookmarked it for Nina’s future reference. Some personal favourites are:
8. You have a love-hate relationship with the question “Where are you from?”
17. You get nervous whenever a form needs you to enter a “permanent address.”
21. You don’t call it “home.” You call it “passport country.” (a note for Nina, she would call ‘passport countries’)

My stand-in dentist that I saw 2 weeks ago (as my dentist was on holiday) is an Australian with Thai mother and Greek father. She said she loves the confusion on the face of people when she explaines the origin of her name (first name Thai-sounding and last name Greek-sounding). It’s almost like my accent, a weird mixture of Chinese, French, and (now slightly) Australian accents. If I have to give it a name, it’s called ‘messed-up’. But I have always preferred slightly unconventional things anyway, so that works for me quite ok.

Nina is no doubt a TCK – a textbook TCK by definition. While sometimes I consider myself as a global citizen of some sort and can certainly relate to some TCK symptoms, I have become one by choice. Yet Nina was born as TCK. I wonder, when she grows up, would she wish that she would have been given the choice of not being a TCK?

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