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I am on a journey – to integrate myself.

It includes a journey of grieving.

Now I am grieving for my memories.

Where do you get your memories from? Mine are from what’s left in my head, and photographs. My Nigerian diaries, such as they were, fell victim to luggage limitations. As did many other tactile things we could have brought away. What survived were clothes, documents, music, and some books. I guess it was quite a lot, really. And my mum did manage to fit some expensive kitchen equipment in. You know, the sort of things one buys on never-to-be-repeated journeys to Europe, and will not be able to source ‘back home’.

Today I have with me but a handful of things that are from my African childhood. Whatever was I brought away from Nigeria has, by necessity, been whittled away in successive moves.

It’s the life of an expat – or a refugee. The constant juggling of luggage priorities. Money over weight. Weight over money. Money generally wins.

A life of repetitive moving requires that one empty oneself of memories to make room for the huge learning curve around the corner.

Fortunately my father was a keen photographer. My memories would be in worse shape if it wasn’t for the hundreds of photographs that have followed our wanderings.

But I still regret the loss of those diaries.

Oh, and Whiskers. The cat with the gammy leg. Called Lucky at first because I didn’t know of any other name that a cat could be called. Lucky-Whiskers.

I think I started censoring what I wrote in my diaries when I caught my mother sneaking a peek. Poor mum, she was doing it with the best intentions. I was being bullied at school, and wasn’t forthcoming with the details – but my diary had them all. My mum made the bullying stop somehow.

I was quite insensitive to Lucky-Whiskers. He was canny and knew when meat came home from the butcher. My mum would start sharpening her knife, and Whiskers would go ballistic at the thought of meat trimmings for him. I would tease him horribly, running with those trimmings from one door of the house to the other, calling him. And from outside Whiskers would also run from one door to the other, miaowing loudly, demanding that treat. I’d stop when the guilts hit. And give him the meat.

Poor Whiskers. I don’t think I knew how to love pets. He was an outside cat. I can’t recall if we ever, in spite of my family’s fear of germs, got to the point of cuddling. I do remember him curling around my legs purring, so perhaps we did.

That memory impinges on my sense of who I am.

The only writing of mine that has survived the Nigerian years is a highly-plagiarized, full-length children’s book I wrote about five kids, a dog, and their adventures. As were many kids of my age, I was an Enid Blyton fan. I wrote the book as a birthday present for my sister. She has it now, still preserved, bless her! It’s all hand-written, with strips of sticky-tape covering the jacket in an attempt to mimic those shiny laminates that real books were covered with.

Lucky-Whiskers could never have come with us. It was a wonder that we ever had him in the first place. My parents’ maxim was that we couldn’t have pets when we were in Nigeria because, when we left, our pets would have to stay behind. But eventually, kindhearted souls, they succumbed. I can’t recall how Lucky-Whiskers came to be with us. Perhaps a kitten from a neighbour’s cat. He was white with grey patches.

Regarding those diaries. There was stuff in them that would probably make a decent conservative Sri Lankan mother’s hair curl. I convinced myself that some memories in them, like the bullying, were best forgotten. I was after a fresh start.

It’s only now I realize what’s lost.

I did ask if we could take Lucky-Whiskers home. But transporting him would have been well-nigh impossible, requiring huge resources that a poor expat family didn’t possess. Lucky-Whiskers was taken over by a neighbour.

I can’t recall saying goodbye. But I know I did.

This had to happen. I was going home to begin the life that had been interrupted by our Nigerian sojourn. I can’t recall if I cried or not. Perhaps I hadn’t learned to care. Or perhaps, even then, I’d learned some of the uselessness of caring.

I’m glad Lucky-Whiskers was a cat. They look at you with those remote eyes, and you know they’re going to be okay.

There is a single sun-kissed memory I have of the Nigerian goodbye. It happened after we left the school compound where we’d lived for eight-ish years, and drove beside it on the highway. I said to myself, ‘I’ll never see this place again’. I looked long across the sports fields at the school buildings where my classmates were hidden away, preparing for exams.

And told myself I was being melodramatic.

I feel sorry for my parents. We, and the other expats with us, had minimum knowledge of the intricacies of the TCK dance, and very little support in it. I think we acted authentically and to the best that we could out of that limited knowledge.

If only I’d understood then that the Nigerian time was not a mere interruption in life.

If only…

If only I’d kept my diaries.

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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.

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Just linking to Widsith’s article on abuse and TCKs. You can find it at http://widsith.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/all-gods-children-writing-and-watching/.

It should be stressed that this is not what happened to all children at all boarding schools. Perhaps not even to the majority. My understanding is that it is difficult to collect statistics on this. But it did happen to many.

Bottom line: it cannot be ’swept under the carpet’.

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Memories, you say? Well, I have plenty. But they are mixed up and out of focus.

Besides, they aren’t all for public viewing. Like the one of the verandah bordered by leafy trees where the teachers used to gossip. This was the scene of a childhood misdemeanor, and one of the few times my father punished me in public. Nothing traumatic, you understand, but quite embarrassing. I, of course, still hold to the view that I didn’t deserve it!

Memories are necessary. I have learned from mine. There’s the memory of the man who found I was home alone when my school broke up earlier than my parents’. He came twice and I gave him a cool drink each time. I told my parents about him, and they told me not to let him in. So I crouched and flattened myself under a window when he next came knocking, and prayed my limbs wouldn’t show if he peeked in. He went away and never came again when I was by myself. Did he see me hiding, and realise the game was up?

Ah, memories…

Perhaps we could begin with paper boats. Now there’s a memory that won’t jerk a tear or cause a litigation. It all began with an expatriate teacher who knew the art of origami. She gave me an instruction book with a little pack of papers. I wish I still had it. It showed one how to make a purse, a boat, a box, and several other things that I now can’t recall – all wonderful. My mother suggested that I not waste the precious coloured papers supplied, but use ordinary writing paper from my desk. You must understand that my favourite past-times were already to draw, write… and imagine.

The origami boat was the open kind, like a rowing boat. It was fun to make, but I preferred the paper sailing-ship that my mother taught me to fold, a child’s trick, the kind that could also be modified into a hat. I used to make both types of boats. When the rains came, fitfully but finally in the dry sub-Saharan climate, it caused the sandy lane in front of our house to run with hundreds of tiny streams. When the rainbow appeared, signalling the end of a down-pour, I would run outside and sail my boats.

I had read Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Paper Boats‘, and it fired my imagination. He was from India, which was close enough to home for me. The poem appeared in a book of literature from around the globe, suitable for children. It was meant to be used for an English syllabus somewhere – but for me, it was a book of stories to find pleasure in. In the poem, Tagore captures dreams, especially the kind that a wannabe writer has, in his evocative description of paper boats, filled with flowers, floating far away.

My boats never went far, which disappointed me. If they were sound enough to float, there was the inevitable sand-bank, or if they encountered no obstacle, they would themselves soak up the tiny medium that carried them, and sink. But perhaps Tagore had a real stream filled with currents to float his imaginations in.

I recently encountered paper boats again. Adelaide’s River Torrens is home to a visual arts display called ‘Talking Our Way Home’ by Shaun Kirby. Several glass forms have been erected along the river, representing paper boats made of letters written by South Australian migrants.

The sense of using paper – so fragile and yet versatile – to send a part of oneself floating along somewhere, anywhere, seeking something, perhaps never to land – well, something of that resonates with me. Memories and imagination, floating together somewhere forever.

Note: The ‘paper boat’ in this website’s header is from ‘Talking Our Way Home’ above.

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I thought I had all the puzzle pieces, and then I went ‘home‘.

That place is one of many I call, to some extent, by that name.

When I went to that home, I discovered that perhaps not all of who I am, what I think, and how I feel, are because I am a TCK.

I am part of a wonderful family. But my quirks, and even my family’s quirks – endearing and otherwise – might always have made me a little different, even in my birth country.

I am who I am because I am a TCK. I am also who I am because I am the daughter of my parents, and the granddaughter of my grandparents. I am also who I am because of where I fit into my immediate family. I am who I am because…

The list seems endless. We are very complex beings! Just when we think we have ourselves worked out, another piece appears.

Wikipedia says: A puzzle is a problem or enigma that challenges ingenuity.

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I have been re-reading the TCK book. Tonight, this bit of the TCK definition from Interaction International’s ‘The TCK Profile’ struck me afresh:

‘The TCK builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any.’

‘Nuff said.

For those who didn’t know, the TCK book is ‘Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds‘ by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken, published by Nicholas Brealey Publishing. Mine is the second revised edition, bought from Amazon.com.

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Edit 2010-jul-03: I have just stumbled upon the fact that there really is a documented Sleeping Beauty Syndrome (also called Kleine-Levin Syndrome). My article, of course, has nothing to do with this known medical phenomenon, and everything to do with the fairy-tale – of sorts.

Did you ever wonder how that young lady with the damaged finger dealt with waking from her hundred-year sleep? Did she wander out of her castle’s demesne and feel there was a lot of catching up to do?

If she did, apart from her being a beauty, I can relate to her. I felt like I was asleep in my years in Nigeria. I spun my own reality as a child. My awaking upon returning to my birth-country was both pleasant and unpleasant. I feel like I know many cultures, yet none intimately.

This was brought home recently when my creative writing lecturer noted that the premises of some of my submissions were flawed. He added, ‘…anyone who has lived in Australia for the last twenty years, would know that…’ etc. I have lived here for over fifteen, but that is not the point. I don’t know the culture intimately. Will I ever?

‘Write about what you know.’ Sometimes I think the only culture I know is the culture of being transitory.

Of course, my Sleeping Beauty analogy is not fool-proof. She didn’t move across cultures. She moved across time. Culture does change with time – but in whatever hazy long-ago time she lived, how much did it really change? Also she and her family were not alone. All beings in the castle had been asleep – from her parents, past the scullery maid, to the kitchen cat. There was a whole tribe of them feeling out of – er – time.

But… but… the balance of power and the landscape must have changed. A kingdom with a ruler asleep on the job (pardon the pun), would have been taken over by neighbours. New roads, farms, and houses would have appeared. Which raises interesting questions like: how did her parents deal with finding their roles usurped? Perhaps the usurper was the new son-in-law – a win-win situation, let us say. But that is a whole different kettle of fish that I don’t propose to fry.

At the very least, Sleeping Beauty must have struggled to relate to her beloved. Some perspectives must have changed, no matter how ancient the century.

Fairy-tales: clichéd, illogical, but still full of charm.

Back to my lecturer. Amazingly, while I was writing this, he called me. In the course of the conversation, it dawned on me that despite the unimpressive grades, he is genuinely impressed with my persistence this semester – and equally impressed with the language skills of this obviously non-native speaker of it! Perhaps there is something to be said, after all, for being an out-of-touch Sri-Lankan-Nigerian-Australian ATCK!

It’s just nice to feel validated.

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I just had an experience where I probably annoyed someone. You see, I behaved in a possibly culturally inappropriate way. What I did, in a Sri Lankan setting, would have been friendly. In Australia however, it could have been interpreted as being pushy.

If what I did was culturally inappropriate, the victim of my faux pas would probably have forgiven me if I was obviously someone from another culture. However, I have spent the last fifteen years painstakingly learning to blend into the Australian scene. And so my cultural standing is rather ambiguous, and chances are, I was viewed as a local during the above-mentioned incident.

I didn’t realize that I’d possibly put my foot in my mouth, until a few minutes afterwards, when I tried to strike up a conversation, and said person walked away from me with the group ‘they’ were with. Now it’s highly likely that the person was simply distracted by the group. There is also a tiny chance that the person was, in a culturally appropriate way, intimating that I’d been annoying/hurtful before.

Because the person isn’t a close friend, I am not sure how, in a culturally appropriate way, to communicate to that person that I am sorry, if I had acted in a culturally inappropriate way before.

In the end, obsessing over whether I was culturally inappropriate, and if so how badly, is going to take a lot of energy. It just isn’t worth it. I will have to chalk up this incident as a possible ‘thing’ to be aware of in the future, and get on with life.

What a confusing post with a lot of ambiguity. If you have read through it to this point, I congratulate you! Of course, the confusion is intentional, to illustrate some of the cultural confusion I – and I suspect a lot of other cross-cultural people – grapple with.

Does any of this matter? Knowing how trivial the incident was, I think probably not. Ultimately it illustrates my tendency to try to be Ms Perfect, with never a social misstep – yet another TCK/CCK legacy.

In reading up on the TCK phenomenon, I keep coming across the term ‘Cross-Cultural Kids’.

Ruth Van Reken and Paulette Bethel found people who said: ‘I feel like a third culture kid, but I don’t fit the model!’.

These people, who were not traditional TCKs, felt similar issues of loss and grief. Bethel and Van Reken called them ‘Cross-Cultural Kids’, because, as children, these people had lived across cultures (or sub-cultures):

• Traditional TCKs —Children who move into another culture with parents due to a parent’s career choice,
• Bi/multi-cultural and bi/multi-racial children —Children born to parents from at least two cultures or races,
• Children of immigrants —Children whose parents have made a permanent move to a new country where they were not originally citizens,
• Children of refugees —Children whose parents are living outside their original country or place due to un-chosen circumstances such as war, violence, famine, or other natural disasters,
• Children of minorities —Children whose parents are from a racial or ethnic group which is not part of the majority race or ethnicity of the country in which they live,
• International adoptees —Children adopted by parents from another country other than the one of that child’s birth,
• “Domestic” TCKs —Children whose parents have moved in or among various subcultures within that child’s home country,

Bethel and Van Reken note that these children are often in more than one of these circles at the same time. For example, a traditional TCK may be also from a minority group, and a child of immigrants may have parents from two different cultures.

I find it interesting that many of my close friends fall into one of the categories above.

References

Paulette M. Bethel & Ruth E. Van Reken: Third Culture Kids: Prototypes for Understanding Other Cross-Cultural Kids, http://www.crossculturalkid.org/cck.htm (web-site under renovation as of 29 Dec 2008)

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Self-doubt hit me after writing this blog’s first post.

How much of my life has really been impacted by being a third culture kid? How would my limited view-point be relevant to other TCKs out there? How can I write about the experiences of returning to one’s birth-culture, when I only spent four years back there, before jetting off to the Wonderful Land of Oz? And in Oz, whatever cultural dissonance I face is surely more akin to a migrant’s experience, rather than a third culture kid’s?

And the big one: am I really a third culture kid? Aren’t TCKs meant to closely identify with their ’second’, formative culture? I don’t.

The preceding paragraphs illustrate one of the costs of being a TCK. I am often not sure of… well, many things. Like a leaf, I am tossed from one way of thinking to another.

Ruth E. Van Reken is an adult third culture kid herself, who has researched and written widely on the Third Culture Kids and Cross-Cultural Kids phenomena. I have read articles on her web-site (site under renovation as of 29 Dec 2008), and her book ‘Letters Never Sent’. Reading the latter requires a box of tissues on the side. Non-TCKs may think it unhealthily introspective.

She says in her article ‘The Paradox of Pain and Faith’ (found by scrolling down a couple of pages at http://www.crossculturalkid.org/blog/excerpts/:

The first reality TCKs share is that they have been reared among and in more than one culture.

I am a third culture kid.

Recommended Reading:

Have a browse through Ruth Van Reken’s articles at http://www.crossculturalkid.org

‘Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds‘ by David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken is a highly recommended book on this topic. I’ve ordered it from Amazon.com. It is also available at Borders.com. In Australia, Word Bookstore lists this as out-of-stock, but available on special order.

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