Susan LaffertyFitting in when you enter a new culture can be a challenge.
My parents grew up in America and moved to Asia. Learned language and culture to fit in.
I grew up in Indonesia and loved the place of my childhood and teenage years. I spoke the language, played their games, knew how to bargain with the best. Had dear Indonesian friends.
But I wasn’t Indonesian.
Every four years we came and spent a year in the country of my passport. America.
I wasn’t sure I was American either.
In the early 1980s, I was invited to a strategic gathering.
Large group. All different ages. Raised in countries on every continent. Brought together on purpose.
Why? To gain understanding of a term coined by Ruth Hill Useem in the 1950s.
And now found in Webster’s dictionary.
Third culture kid. TCK.
Back in the day we studied our stress by listing losses. Marking life experiences.
All the cross-cultural moves. Illnesses. Births. Deaths. Evacuations.
Added up, the numbers were telling.
Stress levels confirmed.
