Pollock, David C., and Ruth E. Van Reken - Third Culture Kids

[oyceter]

(subtitled The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds, but it wouldn't fit in the subject field)

ETA: rachelmanija, this is the book I was talking about in the food post before. Offer to lend it still stands.

I liked this book more for what it wanted to say than for how it said it, if that makes any sense at all. Mostly I liked that little moment of revelation in which I went "Oh! There's a term for people like me." The premise is basically that third culture kids (TCKs) and ATCKs (adult third culture kids... er, you know what they mean) have more in common with each other, despite completely different cultural backgrounds, than they might have with people from cultural backgrounds that they partially share. Of course I generalize horribly when I say that I feel this is true, but in my own experience, having moved around to a different country is something that people have in common. Whether it's a closer bond than that shared by people who read the same books or watch the same TV shows is an entirely different matter.

My main problem with the book was just how anecdotal it all was. It's all good and fine to say that people's stories have similar threads to them, but I really wanted something much more substantive than aforementioned anecdotes. And then they took the anecdotes and began with common character traits of TCKs, and while that was sort of fun, part of me (most likely the bit still left over from AP Psychology in high school) kept thinking that the definitions were so vague and so flip-floppy that they could apply to anyone, not just TCKs. And once the authors began dispensing advice as to how to deal with TCKs (finding schools, etc.), it did get a little better. Well, mostly just the finding schools section, because it was more specific to the entire situation in which one is moving around. The others mostly just sounded like good overall family advice (aka. communicate with your kids. Duh).

Also, I kept getting confused by trying to find myself in the examples. Pollock defines a TCK as "a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents' culture" and adds that what distinguishes a TCK from an immigrant is the fact that there is the expectation that the TCK and family will eventually re-locate to the original home culture. I probably shouldn't be trying to make it so specific to fit me, but since I bought the book mostly for that reason, I did anyway. So I had a rather hard time figuring out what was supposed to be my home culture and what was the host culture. America should technically be the home culture, because that's where I first lived, and I have sort of adopted the host culture of Taiwan in a way that many of the other TCKs do. But according to the definition, it doesn't quite work, because America isn't my parents' culture. Whenever I try to figure out culture and nationality in context of my own life, I just end up with a giant mess on my hands. Pollock does briefly say something about children born in the host culture while their parents are staying there, but doesn't go into detail, and thereby skips the entire section I'm interested in for navel-gazing purposes.

I also wanted a large, fat study on if TCKs did have a sort of signature worldview, and what were common problems and benefits and etc, with lots of statistics and graphs that I would probably end up skimming over anyway. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't really want some giant psychology text. I want some giant treatise on culture and authenticity and liminality and the imagined communities of nation and ethnicity and the problems thereof. Of course, that's pretty much what I always want....

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (You guys are so sweet!) I'm getting slammed with work right now, so I might well have missed this if you hadn't pointed it out on my LJ.

I would like to borrow the book at some point, but not right now, because of the work stuff. But I enjoyed your notes on it.

My feeling is that the key difference between regular immigrants and third culture kids is that immigrants tend to feel that they have a home culture and an adopted culture, while third culture kids tend to feel that their parents' culture is as foreign/not foreign to them as whichever other culture they experienced. And I think this often occurs because kids are bounced back and forth at least once, rather than being born somewhere and then moving elsewhere and not moving again. So I would say that there is a difference, but it's psychological and based on a varied set of circumstances rather on a single rule.

And there may have been an expectation that my mother would some day leave India, but in fact, she's still there.

[oyceter]

No worries! The book will still be there if you are ever inclined to read it.

Am nodding emphatically about your point on the differences between immigrants' kids and TCKs. I think the weirdest part about being a TCK is going back to the first culture -- you get all nice and settled and accustomed to the "foreign" place and then suddenly, wham, back where you started, except you don't fit where you used to.

Yeah, somehow, I doubt my parents are going to move away from Taiwan unless something drastic happens with the politics or the Taiwan Strait. Of course, given the current weirdness, you never know. But they do travel over here a fair amount, and there are assorted friends scattered all over the place.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Yeah-- the unkindest cut of all for me was when I returned to America thinking "This will be great! I'll fit in!" only to discover that my years in India had turned me into a weird foreigner by the time I returned.

Incidentally, I'm amazed that the post you're replying to made any sense at all, as I wrote it after drinking quite a lot of sake and beer since we'd all gone to the izakaya two blocks, so I could park my car, walk there, and walk home. Which I did, at about half-past midnight.

Well, the first time I was Japan (a country notorious for hard drinking) I was complimented on my ability to hold my liquor, so I guess that also extends to writing coherent posts while sozzled. Not that I intend to make a habit of it.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Two blocks from my house. No, I'm not still drunk. ;)

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Well, the first time I was Japan (a country notorious for hard drinking) I was complimented on my ability to hold my liquor, so I guess that also extends to writing coherent posts while sozzled. Not that I intend to make a habit of it.

((is impressed)) Wow. I forget the expression for what that is -- hollow leg? Maybe you've got two of them!

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joys of re-entry shock as well. yuneicorn's essay Odyssey: Abroad and Back (http://www.cityofveils.com/ykl/tck.phtml) discusses some of this, with references, some of which I've skimmed. ^_^

[oyceter]

Yeah.. I'm rather scared to go back to Taiwan because I'm pretty sure I won't fit, and then that will somehow affect all my old, happy memories (rose-tinted to begin with).

I'm also amazed at your drunken posting abilities! Wow. Put half a beer in me and watch me get completely incoherent (not that I'm that coherent to begin with).