Time to uproot...

So I met up with Hayley (a friend I haven't seen for 7 flippin' years) and we talked about all sortsa things. It's cool, 'cause I think we can relate much better to each other, having similar experiences.

We established that we were both TCKs (Third Culture Kids), after she mentioned that she was reading a book about TCKs. Okay, I was actually going to talk about uprooting and stuff as a TCK, but I found a "You know you're a TCK when..." thing which I want to respond to. I think I'm already in the facebook group as well. Haha. TCK pride...

- “Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer.

Yup.

- You’ve said that you’re from foreign country X, and (if you live in America) your audience has asked you which US state X is in.

No.

- You flew before you could walk.

Yup.

- You speak two languages, but can’t spell in either.

Yes. o_o I phail Chinese.

- You feel odd being in the ethnic majority.

Suprisingly, no. All the schools I went to had an Asian majority. Haha.

- You have three passports.

Nope.

- You have a passport but no driver’s license.

Yes, if you don't count a learner's permit as a license. Haha.

- You go into culture shock upon returning to your “home” country.- Your life story uses the phrase “Then we moved to…” three (or four, or five…) times.

Yes >.< - You wince when people mispronounce foreign words.

Yes, depending on the word.

- You don’t know whether to write the date as day/month/year, month/day/year, or some variation thereof.

Haha, used to, not so much anymore, but occasionally. xD

- The best word for something is the word you learned first, regardless of the language.

Yes. es-tu-wuh-diss is Air stewardess. Not even a language, but an accent. xD

- You get confused because US money isn’t colour-coded.

Yes! >.< - You think VISA is a document that’s stamped in your passport, not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.

Nope.

- You own personal appliances with 3 types of plugs, know the difference between 110 and 220 volts, 50 and 60 cycle current, and realize that a trasnsformer isn’t always enough to make your appliances work.

Yes =.=

- You fried a number of appliances during the learning process.

Yes... oh precious dreamcast...

- You think the Pledge of Allegiance might possibly begin with “Four-score and seven years ago….”

Err.... I can actually recite the Pledge of Allegiance, 'cause I was a boy scout...

- Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you.

Don't think so... but they can be if I needed them to be.

- You believe vehemently that football is played with a round, spotted ball.

Err... no.

- You consider a city 500 miles away “very close.”

Yes...

- You get homesick reading National Geographic.

That's just weird. XD

- You cruise the Internet looking for fonts that can support foreign alphabets.

I have before, but I don't do it regularly ._.;;

- You think in the metric system and Celsius.

Um... I use everything depending on how I'm feeling. Although I always use Celsius....

- You may have learned to think in feet and miles as well, after a few years of living (and driving) in the US. (But not Fahrenheit. You will *never* learn to think in Fahrenheit).

N/A

- You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.

Haha... not really.

- Your minor is a foreign language you already speak.

I WANT IT TO BE!

- When asked a question in a certain language, you’ve absentmindedly respond in a different one.

If it's not English, yes, very likely.

- You miss the subtitles when you see the latest movie.

No, I don't think I like subtitles...

- You’ve gotten out of school because of monsoons, bomb threats, and/or popular demonstrations.

Haha, yes. People thought my school was "international soil" like an ambassy or something and were seeking asylum. Haha.

- You speak with authority on the subject of airline travel.

I guess...

- You have frequent flyer accounts on multiple airlines.

Yup, I think so.

- You constantly want to use said frequent flyer accounts to travel to new places.

Sometimes.

- You know how to pack.

Ugh, no I phail at packing. I always overpack.

- You have the urge to move to a new country every couple of years.

Yes, and thats what this blog was SUPPOSED to be about.

- The thought of sending your (hypothetical) kids to public school scares you, while the thought of letting them fly alone doesn’t at all.

Don't want kids, but I would rather send my hypothetical kids to an international school if I could afford it. And flying alone was a big deal for me... Haha.

- You think that high school reunions are all but impossible.

Yes, until I came here.

- You have friends from 29 different countries.

Yup.

- You sort your friends by continent.

By country.

- You have a time zone map next to your telephone.

Haha, no, but I have 3 or 4 different time zones saved on my phone clock for easy access.

- You realize what a small world it is, after all.

Very small indeed.


Err... that's 20ish out of... I don't know how many. But yes... Interesting. Hehe.

The thing about being a TCK is that if you talk about you're experiences with non-TCKs (not to discriminate, 'cause I love all you non-TCKs), it feels like bragging. So... that's why I blog about it rather than talk about it.

But with the uproot thing, I feel like its time for me to MOOOVE. I want to get out of Melbourne... Maybe it's a phase or something, but I wanna go somewhere new. I want a fresh start in a new place. =) And the exploration!

I think this is long enough already. I'll leave it there.

-jmah-


EDIT: Oh yeah, a sidenote, I think it's natural for TCKs to talk about TCK experiences, because I had a similar conversation about TCK experiences with another friend who I havent seen for more than a year and who I met in Beijing.

Shout-out to HAYLEY and CAMMIE! <3