Extracts from two blog articles of mine have been published in the online magazine i-studentadvisor.com. I am deeply grateful to its editor, Felicity Pont.
You can view the extracts online at http://www.i-studentadvisor.com/isa/2010/usa/10/usa-2010.html?startpage=72.
i-studentadvisor.com | Guide to studying in the USA Region X | Volume 6
The original articles are ‘How I became a Third Culture Kid’ and ‘A faux-pas by any other name’.
i-studentadvisor.com has published a few articles on the topic of Third Culture Kids. One such article is by Ruth E. Van Reken, “The ‘Hidden Diversity’ of Third Culture Kids”. As most of my readers may know, Ruth is co-author of THE TCK book ‘Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds’.
As the name implies, i-studentadvisor.com is set up for the support of the tertiary international student community. I’ve come across many thought-provoking articles while browsing through their various publications, and would encourage you to have a read for yourself.
On a related note: if you do use any of my articles, or link back to them, please let me know. Apart from the obvious ego-boost to myself, I’m curious to know how useful the ’stuff’ I write is.
Tags: publishing
For over a year now I’ve been struggling to keep posting on this blog.
I convinced myself this was because I’d moved on from the need to post here. That I’d integrated myself to a point where navel-gazing at my TCKness was not required.
The truth is I’ve been struggling because I feel I can’t write positively about my TCK experiences. I have several unfinished drafts that I feel I cannot publish because they don’t have happy endings.
I’ve been grieving for my losses. Grief is messy. It takes time. And grief is definitely not the sort of stuff that I’ve been brought up to write about publicly. Perhaps grief over someone who died. Or a lost job. But not something as vague and… inward-looking as being a TCK. Also, one must endeavour to write up-beat, up-lifting ’stuff’ that, if one is a Christian, chirpily points others to God.
But it’s time to be honest. So… I’ve decided that I will publish depressing blog posts when I feel like doing so. Because perhaps, when the grieving is done – and I’m back chirpily writing that up-beat, up-lifting ’stuff’ – people can read my journey, from start to finish, and find hope. Because, inescapably, I believe that even down-at-mouth posts contain heavenly whispers.
Because I’m real, and God’s real, and He doesn’t run from honesty.
I have finally signed up for Twitter! My Twitter persona is TCKMusing.
I was looking for a way to publish short, inane, unconsidered thoughts which weren’t suitable for a blog post. Twitter seems ideal.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to put more Twitter-y integrations into this blog – and vice-versa.
But for now, to read those inane thoughts, you must follow me on Twitter by clicking here 
Tags: Twitter
77 Bombay Street are now on iTunes!
Download their albums here:
47 Millionaires – 77 Bombay Street (Swiss store only)
Dead Bird – 77 Bombay Street
Usa – 77 Bombay Street
You can also find 77 Bombay Street on Youtube and MySpace.
77 Bombay Street is a band of four brothers from Switzerland with a sound that reminds people of The Beatles – but, as they point out themselves – with a fresh touch.
Check out their music and their story either at http://www.77bombaystreet.com or on their Facebook page.
Press image - 77 Bombay Street
The brothers come from an amazingly musical family who spent a couple of years in Australia, during which time I got to know them a little. I also got to collaborate musically with them a little – quite a privilege.
They have named their band after the address of where they lived in Adelaide.
And of course, being Swiss, and having spent some of their formative years in Australia, they are Third Culture Kids!
I have the privilege of posting this article by my father-in-law who also happens to be a parent of Third Culture Kids. He asked if he could contribute a post here, and I’m grateful for his input:
Thanks, Susie, for the opportunity to contribute to these discussions.
I greatly admire Susie for a number of reasons. In the present context, I admire her for the contribution she has made to the discussion of this topic. Secondly, I admire her for the way in which she has handled the transitions in her life – a child in Sri Lanka, growing years in Nigeria, mid-teens in Sri Lanka, the move as a young adult to Australia and, perhaps the most remarkable of all, becoming a part of the peculiar culture of the Haydon family. She is well qualified to write on this topic.
(My comment: I really wanted to – and did, for a while – take the previous paragraph out, as praise like this makes me uncomfortable. But I’ve been asked by my husband to pay my father-in-law a compliment and leave it in – so I have.)
I want to contribute as a maker of TCKs, a Third Culture Parent. When my wife Ruth and I were first called to missionary service in Zambia, on the one hand we were excited and aware of the privilege that the Lord was giving us. On the other hand it was not an easy move to make. We had grown up in a small country district and had travelled very little even within Australia. How would we get on travelling half way across the world to a strange country with four kids in tow? All we could do was trust that the God who was enabling some of our friends to do a similar thing would enable us to do it too.
And then there was the matter of our children’s education. Our two eldest kids, then 8 and 6, would have to go to a boarding school 700 kilometres from where we would be living. They would do two semesters of 15 weeks with a mid year break of 10 weeks. I recall many sleepless nights working through the mixed emotions as I wrestled with this situation. How well I can remember the build up of emotion as the time came to make the long journey, on often difficult roads, to bring them home at the end of term. There was an even worse build up as the time to take them back to school drew near.
Eventually all our children attended boarding school. We made sure that we took our annual holidays during the mid year break so that we were available to our kids for a whole month. We have great memories of times spent in a special place at Mkushi and on safaris in game parks.
An up side to the boarding school situation was the friendships we formed with the teachers and other parents. There was a real sense that the children’s education was a co-operative effort.
I don’t want to write a book, but I could give many more examples to show that TCK-makers do not take on that role without a great deal of thought and a fair amount of pain.
Of course, there are up sides to being a ‘TCP’. One is that you move into the international community. We worked and networked with people from Canada, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, the US and Zimbabwe. Our experience of the world was enlarged by rubbing shoulders with people from so many cultures.
Our move to another country opened the door to world travel and a valuable spin off from knowing people in so many countries is that they take care of our accommodation when we visit them!
Another up side is the great privilege of entering into the culture/s of people among whom you go to live. There was a great day when we were introduced by one of my Bible School students when we visited his church. He said, “We no longer regard them as Europeans. They are Lambas.” We knew that we had been accepted into the Lamba tribe. Some twenty years later I was the coordinator/secretary of the Lenje Bible Translation Project. On the day that we launched the first Lenje New Testament, the Administrative Committee of the project arranged a naming ceremony in which I was given my Lenje name. We had been accepted into another tribe. Two years after this we handed the work over to the local church association and left the country. The eldest son of a prominent family in the Lamba tribe, whom we had known for nearly 30 years, came to farewell us. He said, “Missionaries have come and gone, but this is different. You are family.” What a privilege to be accepted like that.
TCK-makers become Third Culture People themselves. Just as TCKs have difficulty in working out where they belong, so do Third Culture Parents. Where do I belong? My passport says that I am an Australian. I enjoy the easy living in this wonderful country where we have been given so much. When I hear the song, “I still call Australia home,” I resonate with the sentiments expressed. Then I see a film based in Africa, or watch a documentary on something in that great continent, and immediately I feel homesick. While I am at home in many ways in the culture of the country of my birth, which itself has changed a great deal during my lifetime, is there not a part of me that is Lamba and a part of me that is Lenje? Why is it that while enjoying many things Australian, I hanker after a culture where relationships, especially family relationships, are more important than making money, possessing things and becoming a celebrity?
One thing that has happened is that I now have an affinity and an empathy with those who migrate to our country, those who spend significant amounts of time in our country in the course of their employment and those who serve here in their countries’ embassies. I have a greater understanding of the transitions of life and I try to use this knowledge in helping the new ones settle in.
Tags: Africa, parents, TCK-makers
Brice Royer (of TCKID fame) posted this one on Facebook yesterday. It makes for interesting reading, and I like it. What do you think?
http://www.tckid.com/group/what-strengths-might-tcks-possess-and-how-can-we-develop-them
Tags: David Pollock, Michael Gerner, tckid.com
Teacher. Photographer. Champion athlete. Father.
A year ago today, he walked into eternity.
Here’s one for the kids – nothing to do with being a TCK, but just ‘cos it’s fun and I feel like posting it!
Monster-Man
Last night, when I went to bed,
I really did try
to tell my Dad the awful truth –
I hoped he wouldn’t cry.
‘Dad,’ I said, ‘A monster lives
underneath my bed!’
‘Oh!’ he said, and flicked the switch,
‘It’s all inside your head!’
I waited for what seemed like hours;
finally, he came –
that hairy, scary, horrible beast –
I still don’t know his name.
His hungry mouth and yellow teeth
glinted in the dark.
‘Hey, Monster-man!’ I said to him,
‘Let’s snack before we start!’
He gibble-gobbled down a treat
and turned the music on.
We jumped and rapped and boogie-woogied
almost until dawn.
Now, how do I explain to Dad
that TWO pairs of his shoes
are squeezed inside a monster’s tum –
can you give me some clues?
© 2008 S D Haydon. Acknowledgment is made of the assistance received as an Adelaide Centre for the Arts TAFE SA student in developing this poem.
Tags: kids
What is it that drives us, at the end of each year, to either take stock or hide in insensibility? However far I run from clichés, I simply find myself entangled in a whole other bunch of them. So here I am, trying to formulate a suitable summary of The Year That Was…
First of all, I’d like to wish every one of this blog’s readers a safe and fantastic 2010. Thank you for reading and commenting over the last two years!
As a family, 2009 turned out to be a roller-coaster. We had an inkling of this when, early in the year, my father passed away and my partner’s job became a casualty of the GFC.
Since then we’ve been in a state of flux. My partner and I swapped roles at home, something that put considerable pressure on our family. A source of further pressure was the processing of my TCK childhood – which appeared to take on a life of its own. And the year continued to be eventful in other ways.
All these have made it quite apparent to us that we have, in the past, stinted in some of the things we have been paying into our relationship. The results have shown whenever the rubber hit the road this year.
2009 does finish on many positive notes. We have some clear direction for the future. We have also been able to take time out for respite before diving into the new year. And we have 2010 to look forward to.
2010 is a year of new beginnings. Our oldest child starts school – a significant step for all of us! Then, as alluded to in a previous post, the first step in a radical career change for my partner begins. And we want 2010 to be a year when we do pay generously into that significant relationship – our marriage – so there are few cracks to mar the ride.
Brice and the team from TCKID have unveiled the fantastic new My.TCKID site at http://my.tckid.com.
It functions a bit like Facebook, and is really a Ning Network. The team have created some excellent groups which, IMHO, is a great way in which the growing Third Culture Kid community can network.
I’ve just joined the group ‘TCKid Writers’, and I’m excited about connecting with other TCKs who are also writers.
So if you are a Third Culture Kid, a Cross-Cultural Kid, or the parent of one, why not head over there and sign up?
Thanks Brice and the TCKID team!
Tags: tckid.com
