Introduction
“Just be a rock” is my favorite quote from Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. This line expresses the simple desire of having an uncomplicated life, this sentiment is often shared by ‘third-culture kids’ when it comes to battling with who we are and who we want to be. This zine contains collages that represent every interviewee, no matter if it’s with pictures of locations, specific hobbies or concentration of images. This celebrates the complexity of factors that constructs a unique ‘thirdculture’.
“I’m armed with all the British TV shows and sitcoms so I didn’t really feel any culture shock.”
“Since I speak in both English and French, switching between the two is like second nature.”
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“It’s almost like I can read surroundings well enough so I can pick up differences easy and adapt to those because I grew up being thrown in many things at once.”
“It makes me more open to new things, because I don’t see things as existing in a mutually exclusive way, because everything in HK is a bit of everything.”
“My accessories represent my family, that always stays on me… having form is important, expresses me through a structured and logical way… I grew up in a neutral setting and when I moved here I developed it as a coping mechanism, when you stay neutral you see the fun in everything.”
“Britain is more accepting, I feel more accepted than back in Italy, I feel like I’m one of them”
“When I have to speak with English people, it’s a bit awkward because I don’t feel completely English. When I speak to Italian people, I feel like I have to justify my Italianess. When I speak to Moroccan people, I don’t feel Moroccan enough. It’s complicated and I’m trying to find a balance.”
“If I learnt Italian then they’d have to accept me.”
“I take a bit of everything with me.”
“Iʼm friends with people of different cultures, and their character rubs off of me”
“Carhartt is one of the only brands they wear in the UK and in HK, I went in-between and picked this jacket… I tend to go for something I liked on someone else.”
“There’s a lot of discourse around whether you’re too white or too Asian and it’s all about claiming your identity and about what’s valid to identify yourself as.”
“I spent my teenage years rebelling on what my mom thought looked good on me, but now that I’m an adult I’ve kind of gone back to wearing what she told me to wear before.”
“Growing up in a ‘third-culture’ it’s difficult to identify as one and it depends on the environment you’re in.”
“I was used to being in a diverse place so I never really took into account that I was a minority, when I came I was like “wow there are so many white people”
“I’m a very basic girl… I haven’t fully figured it out. I try to be extroverted, I like to try new things but sometimes it’s hard.”
“They’re sometimes like ‘omg you’re Americanized’, when I go back home, it’s very hard for me, because they’ll be like ‘you’re not from here’, even though I am.”
“I don’t feel like I fit in here, it’s very hard, I felt inferior because [we] often look up to White people and I had that ideal, but over time I’ve grown used to it, but I think it takes time.”
Whatever I wear changes with the place I go to, to fit in, because that’s what we want to do right?
I was worried that I would be too different because it would be too hard to socialize
