Third Culture Kids

By now I’m able to perfectly recite my answer to the inevitable question of ‘Where are you from?’. I’m English, born in Watford, and raised anywhere but. By the time I started university I had lived in my home country, Germany, Cyprus, Colombia and South Africa. My experience in each place was incredibly different and equally definitive for who I am today. I’ve got a British passport, I support England in sports and I grew up with distinctly ‘English’ mannerisms. But these have inevitably been diluted and adapted to the varied cultures I have lived in. Even though I claim this home identity, when I arrived back in the UK in 2018, I quickly felt like a pretender as flatmates, new friends and even extended family members made my own experience of my ‘original’ culture seem like a tourist’s rose-tinted view.

There are some clear benefits to growing up abroad. I learnt two new languages, experienced daily life in vastly different cultures and got to travel to places I never could have if I had just stayed in one place. 15 years of living outside my home country gave me a multi-faceted view of the world and allowed me to forge strong connections with friends from so many different backgrounds, some of them similarly considered ‘third culture kids’ whose friendship groups span multiple countries. Living abroad means foreign culture will shape part of your identity and when you embrace it in each country you live in it’s hard to consider any one place ‘home’.

As a third culture kid, I don’t really subscribe to one specific culture or set of traditions. I have adopted different customs from the countries I have lived in and each experience contributes to a kind of global identity. This is probably the main benefit of being considered a third culture kid, as each new place I go allows me to start with a clean slate, ready to absorb fresh ideas and mix them with what I already have. With globalisation, this form of adaptation to new cultures is something that I believe we’ll all develop naturally, as it has become so much easier to encounter different cultures. Nonetheless, living abroad definitely accelerated this mindset and by the time I arrived in South Africa I was finding it easy to take in the new landscape and add it to what I had learned from everywhere else I lived.

Naturally, there are negatives. When I finally settled back in the UK in 2018, I realised when speaking with new friends that I knew about as much of my home culture as I did of Colombia’s, or Cyprus’. Abroad, I was always ‘the English boy’. In an international school setting where nationalities were the most distinguishing trait in a person, that meant something. At ‘home’ in the UK, I received the same quizzing on my hometown, accent and travels. Questions I had become used to but hadn’t expected in my home country. In a group of British people, I still often feel foreign because it can be difficult to relate to their childhood experiences. I’m not as in-tune with British culture and the daily goings-on as I’d like to be. I found myself relating more to foreign students, as I realised that I can understand their stories of coming to the UK and delving into a new culture.

On the whole, I can’t say that being considered a third culture kid is a bad thing. I enjoy having knowledge and experience with so many different cultures. Living abroad has given me friends across the world and I’m able to feel at home in a multitude of foreign environments. I’m thankful I had such experiences early in my life. I’ll never not have a convoluted answer to ‘where are you from?’, but it’s a conversation starter and I’m getting used to being an ‘outsider’.

words by: Marcus Yeatman-Crouch artwork by: Shubhangi Dua

Third Culture Kids

I can confidently say that I am a third culture kid and I think it’s important for me to break down what exactly that means for me. To me, being a third culture kid means that I have grown up surrounded by a plethora of cultures, whether that be from moving countries, studying in international schools or even just being exposed to many different types of people. I don’t think that this definition is set in stone by any means because I feel like the whole point of being a third culture kid is to be open to this idea changing due to the multiple experiences that are yet to come. Our connection to the world usually stems from our connection with others and I will be exploring my experience as a third culture kid through a social lens.

I feel like a third culture kid’s social life is a fascination that should be explored because most third culture kids end up creating friendships that consider distance as a variable from the very beginning even though the two people involved might initially be in the same place. I grew up in Qatar, but I am not originally from there. I spent my whole life in international schools, exposed to many other students of the same expatriate status as me, which meant that we weren’t ever sure whether Qatar is where we would settle. Qatar’s summers would get really lonely because all of the international students went home, but this also meant that distance never really bothered me because I had to face it in some way every year.

Another element to a third culture kid’s social life that may seem surprising it that it can be really lonely depending on the context. I am originally Palestinian but hold a Jordanian citizenship and as every expat does, I visit Jordan every summer to get to spend time with my extended family. Since I never went to school in Jordan or spent more than two months there in any given year, I never had the opportunity to make friends. This varies depending on a person’s situation - I’m fortunate enough to have cousins that are my age that could change that - but it’s important to understand that it’s something that can be the root cause of loneliness; this usually comes through in places where your purpose may not feel so clear. I’ve moved to the UK recently to study in Cardiff University as my main purpose, so fitting in and trying to find my social footing just comes naturally because I’ve experienced similar situations due to my upbringing. Moreover, after some time feeling lost will render into a profound understanding of your own third culture and all the attachments that come along with it.

As a third culture kid it pains me to feel like I have to categorise us all in this article, but this is just a personal commentary and opinion. Whether it be willingly or not, a third culture kid must be more open minded than the average kid. The main reason for this is that we are constantly exposed to new cultures that we don’t know a lot about out. The biggest misconception about being open minded is thinking that you have to change what you believe in, but I think that being open minded means you’re willing to accept differences and even learn from them.

words by: Lafan Hasan design by: Sebastian Jose