The Displaced Nation

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TCK TALENT: The “Where are you from?” question evokes poetic sentiments in this third group of TCKs

Leave a comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on March 2, 2018

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a third round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello again, fellow Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! As March comes in like a lion (here on the U.S. East Coast, where Winter Storm Riley has become a strong nor’easter, hitting us with wind, snow and rain), I’d like to present the third post in my series of TCK poetry. If you missed the first two, be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2.

The poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Before we leave the topic of the weather: We in the Western Hemisphere may be growing tired of winter at this point (the so-called Beast from the East has just swept across Europe). But it’s interesting to note that although all three of the young people featured below are from colder countries than Malta, which enjoys mild winters and warm-to-hot summers, two of them recall the winter season in their poetry. Hm, does absence make the heart grow fonder?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Yoana Tsekova

I’m from the Southeast,
from the Black Sea,
from aromatic rose oil and healing rivers
From weddings and divorces
surrounded by cave paintings.

I’m from movement to fill space,
from applauses and projectors and sleepless nights.
From the ashes of the campfire,
from shaking heads for ‘yes’,
and nodding for ‘no’.

I’m from here and from there
From water balloon gaffes
From white lies to protect friends,
From moments and laughs.

There is a small country that no one knows about.
And there is a small girl that everyone teaches how.
I’m from there—
from gold and rust
And easy trust.

Yoana is Bulgarian and she lived in Malta from 2015 to 2017.

Where I’m From
By Ivan Orlav

I can see a lot of cars
but few people from the window
I can smell the kitchen scents
mixed with the paint from my porch—
Sweet and chemical.

I feel the heat inside the house
and the cold outside the door
I shiver during winter
and feel refreshed during summer.

I’m from the white wool
falling from the sky,
cooling the ground,
for two thirds of the year.

Editor’s Note: We are checking on Ivan Orlav’s country of origin but suspect it is Russia.

Where I’m From
By Judith Smit

I am from Napoleon Bonaparte’s bronze soil,
I am from the silver trust in the eyes of a horse.
I am from the blonde country’s golden hair.

I am from surviving
And winning over the lower levels.
From creativity and freedom
And the possibilities that create dreams.
I am from diversity
And from sharing stroopwafels.

I am from the red
Blood flowing on an ancient stone wall,
From the white
Belly of a Burmese mountain dog,
From the blue
wavy water that never ceases.

I am the fiery clean energy,
The air scented by tulips,
And the unexpected weather.

Judith is from the Netherlands; she has lived in Malta and Holland.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions—and yes, poetry—in the comments! During the last round, it was great to get a poem from Cinda MacKinnon, an Adult Third Culture Kid and novelist whose work has been featured on the Displaced Nation. You can read it here.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; and is a freelance writer and editor. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for more fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and much much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Photo credits:
– Photo of Bulgaria by Alexandr Bormotin on Unsplash
– Photo of Russian snow by Anton Scherbakov on Unsplash
– Photo of stroopwafels from Pixabay.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Bulgaria, Crosscultural, Europe, Holland, Malta, Poetry, Russia, TCK, TCK Talent, The Netherlands, Third Culture Kid, Writers we love

TCK TALENT: In response to “Where are you from?” a few more TCKs wax poetic

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on October 14, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with a second round of poems composed by Third Culture Kids in answer to that vexed “where are you from?” question.

Hello Displaced Nationers, global nomads, expats, Third Culture Kids and other curious travelers! Since the last time my column appeared, I trust you have moved on from an enjoyable summer (or winter, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere) to a splendid fall (or spring).

In celebration of the change in seasons, I’d like to present the second post in my series of TCK poetry here at the TCK Talent column. If you missed the first, be sure to check it out here. As I explained then, the poems are the work of a group of 11th and 12th graders at an international school in Malta. Their teacher wanted them to think more deeply about what “home” means for them, given that they are all growing up in more than one country.

Perhaps because I never even lived in the country of my ancestry (Lebanon), I find it endlessly fascinating to read what these young people had to say in response to the fundamental TCK question: where are you from? The older I get, the more I realize that, although there are places I feel more connected to and that hold a big piece of my heart, I’m definitely not “from” any of these places. I don’t belong entirely to any of them.

And by now I’ve also grown used to the bittersweet flavor of living in-between. At the same time, I feel confident that, given the choice, I would do it all over again—because the sweet far outweighs the bitter.

See what you think of the poems below, readers. Are the young writers on the road to the place where I am now: can they taste more sweet than bitter?

* * *

Where I’m From
By Arabella Ovesen

I am from the tall coconut tree
towering over a blue sea
where the Rhum Runner runs
under the midnight sun.
I’m from the yellow, luxurious castle
Azzurra where father taught me to dazzle.

But one day we went up north,
back to the Vikings’ home
where they work back and forth
in a frozen zone.
And that day, I lost my
Spice Ilse throne.

I’m from the pure white snow
of the Northern Pole.
From being surprised;
At the age of fourteen,
they didn’t want to survive.
I’m from time being slow, dark.
A place where Caribbean purity
lost its innocence,
and left a burnt mark.

 Arabella is from Grenada; she has also lived in Malta and Sweden.

Where I’m From
By Clarissa Meyringer

I am from trams
From steel and cement
I am from cold, glistening snow,
It feels like whipped cream.
I am from the towering pines,
giants whose evergreen leaves
were sharp like knives.

I’m from horses of stone
From Fabio and Ben
I’m from the jokers
And the loners
From turning and turmoil
I’m from shadows,
Seen, never heard or spoken of.

I’m from the shallow sea, crystalline.
From the late night snacks
of my grandmother,
The dangerous soccer fan tales of my uncle
I’m from lore and religion, Supernatural;
A friendship with Luci, Castiel and an alliance with Crowley.

On a wall in my room is a drawing
Colors bright
A breathtaking sight
A crayon mess
I am from that place—
Chaotic and free—
Everchanging.

Clarissa is Austrian-Italian; she was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Gianluca Chincoli

I’m from the mixed sounds of farm animals
The mud, those painful marble stairs, and a giant old farmhouse.
I am from fresh air and immense woods
Extending in all directions like a green ocean.

I’m from those two spiteful creatures
That made my life a horror and a fight since the beginning.
I am from big toothless smiles to every stranger
And all those cheeky jokes we crew of three planned every day.

I’m from the wind of the night and the day,
Warm and cold, strong and weak like a zephyr.
On those plastic crafts with sails it was always a tough adventure
But the prizes were always priceless.

I’m from the screamings of my father
New experiences, like no one else in the world.
I am from the orange porch of golden sunsets,
Where the wolf was acting drama in front of the innocent children.

From Italy, Gianluca has been living in Malta.

* * *

We love to hear from our readers, so please leave any thoughts, questions, suggestions, and yes, poetry in the comments!

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay except:
– Photo of Rum Runner boat in Grenada: 1252 Rhum Runner II in Grenada (19), by Mark Morgan via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– Photo of Italian football fans: AC Mailand – VfL Wolfsburg (2:2), by funky1opti via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
– NOTE: The final photo (from Pixabay) is of a hiking path in the Garda Mountains, in northern Italy.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Austria, Crosscultural, Europe, Football, Grenada, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Middle East, Poetry, Spain, Sweden, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, UK, USA, Writers we love

TCK TALENT: The best answer to that pesky “where are you from?” question? A poem!

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on July 22, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli joins us again—and has something new and exciting in store.

Welcome readers! Today we’re starting something new at the TCK Talent Column—a series of poems from TCKs on where they’re “from”.

If you’re a TCK, global nomad or otherwise displaced individual, you will probably appreciate the complexity of emotions raised when you’re being asked a seemingly simple question like: Where are you from? Where is home?

Spread over several posts, we’ll share the work of these TCKs along with some details on where they’re “from” originally and where they’ve lived.

The poems were part of a project and the students’ teacher is the best person to explain how this theme came up and how they tackled it:

“I teach in an International IB school in Malta, and I have 11th and 12th graders who come from all over the world. Last year I started doing a unit on cultural diversity and I connected it to the idea of being a Third Culture Kid.

As Third Culture Kids, we hear ‘Where is your home?’ a lot. It has always been difficult to answer completely, but we wanted to give it a try. While thinking about how to tackle this identity question, we looked at George Ella Lyon’s unique poem “Where I’m From”. In it, home is not connected to one place. Rather, it is connected to all the diverse images, phrases, memories, neighborhood characters, tastes, scents, sounds, and sensations that make up a reflective person’s foundation and sense of self; and this seemed a fitting way to describe our concept of home as well.”

A couple of years ago, I composed my own “where is home” poem, following a prompt on a friend’s blog. It was a fascinating exercise, coming up with the words to express the combination of places, people, sights and smells that make up who I am.

Where I’m From
By Dounia Bertuccelli

I’m from the warm Mediterranean Sea,
And the smell of fresh pines in the mountain.

I’m from lavender fields and vineyards,
And the ochre colored house.

I’m from bahebak, je t’aime,
I love you, te quiero and ti amo.

I’m from islands and continents,
From north to south and east to west.

I’m from all these places that hold my heart,
And from a home that’s rooted in love.

Truth be told, it’s tough to cover everything in a single poem, but at least we can provide a glimpse into the beautiful complexity that makes up the Third Culture Kid life. We are the sum of our experiences, of all our homes, of the blood that runs through our veins, of the people we met throughout our journey, of the foods we tasted, of the smells we breathed in, of the languages we spoke and heard…

All of these make us who we are and tell the story of where we’re truly from.

And now let’s find out how a couple of the TCKs in the Malta class answered this question.

Where I’m From
By Allesia Falcomata

I am from the best cuisine
in a small city of pasta.
I am from fashion shops
and the coffee everyone loves the best.

I am from the south
with hot weather
and the beautiful sea.

I am from the sunset,
when the city lights come on.
I am from November,
‘the cold month’.

I am from tons of pictures,
because the best moments they must be captured.
I am from the black and the white,
and the mystery photo too.

I am also from red,
the warm color.
And from the dreams of
Eiffel Tower love.

From Italy, Allesia was living in Malta at the time of writing.

Where I’m From
By Andy Qiu

I am from the twitter
at five everyday
pushing me to wake up.

I am from the stream
flowing around the mountain
and the sun
lighting up the atmosphere

I am from the golden field,
fragrant with growing rice,
where I spent most of my childhood.
I am from children salivating over
the sausage and ham
hanging on the wooden stick

I am from the town
where everyone provides sincere help.
From the yearly reunion dinner
which includes all the village.

I am from the desire
for a peaceful atmosphere
where it still exists.

Andy (Yuqin) has lived in Malta, China and Costa Rica.

* * *

Readers, I hope you enjoyed this first poetry sampler. And if you’ve written your own version of “where I’m from,” we’d love to have you share it with us in the comments.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
All photos from Pixabay.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, China, Crosscultural, France, It's Food!, Italy, Malta, Poetry, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, UK, USA, Writers we love

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD: Doreen Brett’s creative life as an expat in Holland

Leave a comment Posted by ML Awanohara on May 28, 2017

At a moment when I feel far from the madding crowd myself despite being in a big city—it’s Memorial Day weekend in the United States, when most New Yorkers flock to the beach—it’s my pleasure to welcome new columnist Doreen Brett to the Displaced Nation. She was introduced to me by former Culture Shock Toolbox columnist Hélène (“H.E.”) Rybol: they met in Singapore, where they were roommates for a while.

Like Hélène, Doreen grew up among several different cultures. Her grandparents emigrated from India to Malaysia, and the family spoke English as their first language. While based in Malaysia, she attended school in Singapore.

Doreen’s horizons widened still more once she reached adulthood. A few years ago, she moved to the UK with her British husband; they now make their home in the Netherlands.

Doreen loves exploring wild, remote places—and it’s this passion of hers that has inspired her column, “Far from the Madding Crowd.” From next month, she will be interviewing expats who have chosen to live in some off-the-beaten-track locations. Did the experience lead to cultural immersion, and in what ways did it foster creativity?

To kick off the series, Doreen has agreed to have me pose to her the same series of questions she plans to ask other international creatives.

* * *

Welcome, Doreen, to the Displaced Nation! I understand you grew up in Malaysia but were educated in Singapore. How did that come about?

I was born in Johor, the Malaysian state on the Straights of Johor, which separates Malaysia from the Republic of Singapore. When I was six years old, my parents decided to send me to school in Singapore, since my family was English speaking and schools in Malaysia tend to teach only in Malay. My parents were influenced by a neighbor of ours, a close family friend, who was the principal of a school in Singapore. She spoke very highly of the city-state’s educational system. In any event, that’s how I came to living in one country while attending school in another! Every morning I would wake up at 5:00 a.m., sit sleepily on a yellow school bus and travel across customs. Once school finished, I would make my way home again, through immigration checks. As a child, it became second nature for me to keep my passport in my pocket, for daily use. It marked the beginning of what has thus far been a life of travel.

What brought you to your current location, the Netherlands?

My husband is British. We moved from Singapore to his native UK to live and work. We lived in his home town, Billericay (a small town in Essex, not far from London), for a few years before moving to London to avoid the commute to work. We only recently moved to a small city in the Netherlands, again for work.

Those of us who have been Third Culture Kids or repeat expats tend to gravitate towards global cities as that’s where we think we’ll find work and our “tribe.” How did you find life in Singapore as compared to in Malaysia?

When I think of Malaysia, there is very much a community feel to the place and the people. You always know your neighbors; family and friends drop by without any notice (and are readily welcomed with a snack–every house always has snacks prepared for impromptu visits); and weddings are celebrated on a large scale–500 people is a small number. In fact, the further you get from the city, the more of a village feel there is and the more you will experience these community bonds. Rather than finding your “tribe”, the tribe will find you and welcome you with open arms! Singapore, by contrast, is very much a global city, with all the conveniences such places have to offer, including a vast variety of food choices available day and night, efficient and safe transport links, and of course, a plethora of cultures living in one space.

Once you moved to the UK, you went from living in a small town to living in London. Which did you prefer?

To be honest, coming from a background that values community, I felt alienated in both locations. If only I had known about the Displaced Nation then, I would have realized there was nothing unusual in my reluctance to head out into what I perceived was an unfriendly environment. Even when I moved to London, a place where virtually everyone is “displaced”—it is very much a global city—I still felt this disconnect. Being in a global city does not guarantee a sense of companionship and belonging. You can be in a room full of people and still feel alone. It was only when I took steps to reach out, and get past cultural differences, that I began to find people I could connect with. And while city life is of course convenient, and there are always things to do, I found that I never got any space to myself, to just BE.

How do you feel about your latest “home”?

Where I live in the Netherlands is much quieter than the flat we had in London. It’s a complete switch in lifestyle. Like a detox of sorts. I absolutely love it. All in all I have to say that I love being outside of global cities. On the surface, cities have more people and hence provide more opportunities to connect with others; but I think that relationships forged in communities outside the city limits will trump this any day.

How do you keep from feeling isolated?

I do not feel isolated, no matter where in the world I am. I always have a small, steady group of friends and family I can turn to—my global tribe.

I understand you enjoy writing. Do you foresee that in your current location you’ll be able to nurture your creativity?

Being in the Netherlands gives me time to pursue my creative interests and the opportunity to develop my writing. Currently I am working on writing a fictional piece, and of course my protagonist travels, and I am embellishing the tale with the flavours of the different cultures I have experienced.

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

I’ve only just moved to the Netherlands, so I would like to stay put for a bit. Fingers crossed that this move goes well!

Thank you, Doreen!

* * *

Readers, any further questions for Doreen on her thoughts about place, displacement, and the connection between the community you live in and creativity? Any authors or other international creatives you’d like to see her interview in future posts? Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

STAY TUNED for this coming week’s fab posts.

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a biweekly round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Photo credits:
Opening collage (bottom to top): Sultan Ibrahim Building, Johor, Malaysia, by Bernard Spragg via Flickr (CC0 1.0); Singapore, by Neils de Vries via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); Bellericay High Street, by Steve Hancocks via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); Picadilly Circus, by mrgarethm via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); and Doreen Brett feeling happily displaced in Holland as the sun is shining (supplied). Sea image is from Pixabay.
2nd visual: Madi + Pika // Reception, by Azlan DuPree via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
3rd visual: Oxford Street in London via Pixabay.

Cool Columns, Far from the Madding Crowd Crosscultural, Crosscultural marriage, Far from the Madding Crowd, Holland, India, It's Fiction!, London, Malaysia, Singapore, TCK, Third Culture Kid, UK

TCK TALENT: Author-speaker Chris O’Shaughnessy tells the Third Culture Kid story with belly laughs and substance

2 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on May 19, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is here again, in the company of another gifted Adult Third Culture Kid.

Hello again, readers! Today’s interviewee is the extraordinary Christopher O’Shaughnessy. A talented author, speaker and TCK advocate, he is passionate about what he does and also happens to be hilarious. As Lisa Ferland, editor of the Knocked Up Abroad series (see top 60 nonfiction expat books of 2016), tells it, Chris’s opening keynote speech at the Families in Global Transition conference in 2016 made a lasting impression “because he made me laugh so hard that I cried.”

Chris is a military brat. He was born in England to American parents, both of whom grew up as Third Culture Kids (his father was born in Germany and raised in France, while his mother spent most of her life in the UK). Following in the family tradition, he spent much of his childhood backing and forthing across the Atlantic as his family moved to bases in Florida and Nevada as well as to multiple US bases within the UK.

After graduating high school in the UK, Chris spent three years traveling between the United States, Germany, and Italy before returning to England to study at Ridley Hall, a theological college in Cambridge, for a degree in Youth, Community Work and Applied Theology, validated by Oxford Brookes University.

After college, Chris moved to Turkey “and then kept on gallivanting”: he can now boast of living and working across the globe and of having ventured to more than a hundred countries. (Right now he lives in Waterloo, Belgium.)

Meanwhile, his passion for nurturing youth and community has only deepened. After a career as a community director in the UK and the Middle East, and then eight years in a military chaplaincy, he became what he is today: a full-time speaker and writer sharing messages of empathy and hope with fellow Third Culture Kids, often through the use of self-deprecating humor. Particularly entertaining are his “lost in America” stories.

Chris’s first major written work is the book Arrivals, Departures and the Adventures In-Between, published by Summertime in 2014. Containing many examples from his own life, it has garnered high praise from the global community.

* * *

Welcome, Chris, to the Displaced Nation. Did growing up as a TCK influence your decision to become a writer and speaker?
Absolutely! In hindsight, a big part of the reason I chose to work with youth and communities was the desire to help people in transition. I didn’t learn the term “TCK” until my final years at university and was so thrilled knowing there was a concept which explained my experiences, that I wrote my final dissertation on TCKs. I’m a firm believer in the power of moving something from intuition to intellect. Learning I was a TCK shifted something I felt to something I could intellectually engage with, learn more about, and use as a framework to examine my life. Over the years I watched many of my peers who also grew up in transition face challenges without the benefit of realizing the strengths their upbringing had bestowed. That’s what inspired me to become a speaker and writer—I wanted “my people” to make the most of their experiences and appreciate their own unique stories. I wanted to help others process intellectually what they felt intuitively, just as I had done. That and my love of speaking into microphones.

In both your writing and speaking you’re able to touch your audience, make them laugh and think, weaving humor, empathy and hope throughout. Have you always had this ease and voice, or is this something you cultivated?
I’ve always had a love for telling stories—I find the human capacity to be moved by and immersed in story to be incredible and beautiful—and for trying to make people laugh. Laughter can be disarming because it’s genuine: it’s a physical outburst we’re relatively comfortable experiencing in a group. Comedy can be a fantastic teaching tool as we tend to remember things that have made us laugh really hard. So the desire to tell stories and make people laugh is probably in my nature, while developing the voice to do so has taken some effort. That said, I’m fortunate in that working with youth has afforded plenty of opportunities to practice and refine my public speaking skills. Kids are very honest critics!

What led you to write your book, Arrivals, Departures, and the Adventures In-Between?
I have been thrilled to see the number of books about TCKs grow over the years, many of which have been helpful for me in processing my own experiences. But while I would draw on this growing body of work in my presentations to students, parents, and school faculty, I found I wanted to leave my audiences with something more than I could possibly cover in that kind of format. So I decided to write my own book in a style that would hopefully entertain while educating and helping others process intellectually what they were going through intuitively.

How long did it take you to produce the book, and what did the process involve?
Admittedly it was a few years between deciding I needed to write a book and actually doing so. In fact, it took a friend calling me to task at a pub one evening and saying, “So, this book you’ve been planning on writing: are you ever going to actually do it?” My friend took it upon herself to hold me to deadlines; as a result, I had my first manuscript in about six months. (To be fair, I’d been thinking about things for so long, it was really just a matter of sitting down to record the concepts and stories in written form.) After I got together with Summertime Publishing, it took at least another six months to finalize the book working with Summertime’s editors and designers. Conveying stories and concepts in written form is a bit different than doing so verbally. I can be far more dynamic when presenting something live, and adapt to the audience as need be. Writing is static; it’s a different kind of discipline.

Are you working on anything else at the moment?
Actually I am in the preliminary stages of producing another book! I have been devoted a lot of my work to the concepts of hope, empathy, community, and connection in our ever-globalizing world. I firmly believe that the experiences TCKs and CCKs (cross-cultural kids) have had with multiple transitions and developing a global perspective carries wider lessons for what the world needs in order to thrive in a new era of technological connectedness and cross-cultural reality. I’m working on a book exploring these concepts—along with the need to go beyond mere tolerance toward something closer to healthy connection and community.

Do you have tips for other globally mobile individuals looking to publish a book or become speakers?
I’m sure it’s been said before…but get out there and do it! Writing and speaking are both skills that really require feedback and interaction to hone. Any opportunity to speak or write is a helpful one. No matter how small the audience, it builds experience and invites feedback. It requires vulnerability, and things don’t always go as planned. But isn’t that the very basis of a story? If it all goes smoothly it’s not very interesting! If we demand struggle and growth and mystery and reflection from stories to hold our attention, shouldn’t we expect the same from life?

I can see why people find your words inspirational! Finally, could you please share any other information or links you would like our readers to know about.
I am really excited about the What Expats Can Do project, put together by Cristina Balden and Claudia Landini of ExpatClic. It is an ingenious way to connect action with the concept of increasing empathy and bringing hope. They used some of the concepts I’d spoken about during my keynote speech at the 2016 FIGT conference (it wasn’t just belly laughs!) and took them so much further. There are challenges to participate in and stories to read—definitely worth checking out. Speaking of FIGT, I’m also a huge fan of Families in Global Transition. It’s got a wealth of resources and connections and hosts an annual conference where you can meet and interact with leaders, innovators, thinkers, and practitioners all focusing on the world of the globally mobile and cross-cultural. It’s inspiring and energizing! Last but not least, I frequently visit the following websites/magazines for inspiration and insight into our field:

• Global Living Magazine
• CULTURS Magazine
• Denizen
• and of course, The Displaced Nation

Thank you so much, Chris! We appreciate all the great resources (and of course the shout-out!).

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Chris below. Check out his website and connect with him on social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), because as Chris says, “I really do love connecting with people and exchanging stories and adventures!” And don’t forget about his book: you can preview three of the chapters here.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
Top (clockwise from top left): Interviewee photo (supplied); Gate entrance to Ridley Hall, by Sebastian Ballard via Geograph project (CC BY-SA 2.0); book cover art; and Nellis Air Force Base by Airwolfhound via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Middle: laughing, by nosha via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0),
Bottom: Surfing photo via Pixabay.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent Army Brat, ATCK, Crosscultural, England, Europe, Middle East, military brat, North America, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, Turkey, UK, USA, Writers we love

CULTURE SHOCK TOOLBOX: Expats & TCKs, take the measure of the new location first and, as far as reentry goes, pack a roadmap

1 Comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on April 8, 2017

Transitions enthusiast H.E. Rybol is here with her final guest in her Culture Shock Toolbox series. We’ll miss her, and her column, dearly but wish her well in starting a new life in Montreal. (Hélène, don’t be a stranger!)

Happy April, Displaced Nationers!

For my last Displaced Nation column, I’d like you to meet Cate Brubaker. Some of you might know her from her website, Small Planet Studio, which focuses on addressing re-entry challenges. As the banner announces:

MAKE GOING HOME
THE BEST PART OF GOING ABROAD.

Cate first experienced reverse culture shock as a teenager when she returned home after spending a year as an exchange student in Germany right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. All she could think about was going abroad again. She majored in German in college so that she could spend a year abroad in Stuttgart, and then she became an English teacher after graduation so that she could spend another year abroad. Her next move was to enter graduate school, which, because she was earning a PhD in German Applied Linguistics, gave her the perfect excuse to continue living and traveling abroad.

As much as she thrived on her time overseas, Cate had a lingering feeling that something wasn’t quite right. She began asking herself questions like:

Who am I if I’m not living abroad?
What does “global” mean to me at this point in my life?
What’s most important to me right now?
Who am I and what do I want?
What is it about traveling and living abroad that makes me feel so alive?
If I move abroad again, what do I want the experience to be like?

It took some time, but she finally resolved her re-entry issues and is now helping her fellow global adventurers thrive before, during and after they go abroad. Toward that end, she recently published The Reentry Relaunch Roadmap: A Creative Workbook for Finding Happiness, Success & Your Next Global Adventure After Being Abroad. As the title suggests, it’s designed to help expats navigate reverse culture shock but still retain their love for the global life.

Cate’s other creative projects include a website launched last year called International Desserts Blog, where she invites visitors to join her as she bakes her way around the world (she offers two free e-books, Easy Mini Tarts and European Christmas Cookies); and a young adult novel that she just started writing. Although fiction, it is heavily based on her year as an exchange student in Germany.

Cate kindly took time out from her busy life to share some of her culture shock and reverse culture shock experiences with us.

* * *

Hi Cate, and welcome to Culture Shock Toolbox! Can you tell us which countries you’ve lived in and for how long?

I’ve lived in Germany for four years as well as in three very different regions in the US. I’ve also worked, traveled to, and had extended stays in many other countries within Europe, Central and South America, and Australia.

In the context of cultural transitions, did you ever put your foot in your mouth?

So many times!

Any memorable stories?

Here’s one I’ll never forget. I was enrolled in a German university, and it was the beginning of the semester. My literature professor announced he was trying to organize a weekend class trip. He went around the room asking our opinion of the plan, and when he got to me I said “I don’t mind” in German…or so I thought. From my classmates’ gasps and chuckles, and the dismayed look on my professor’s face, I realized that the phrase I’d used had came off as sarcastic and flippant rather than relaxed and agreeable. Oops!

How did you handle the situation?

I tried to quickly rephrase and hoped that they’d forgive me as I wasn’t a native speaker. The problem was that by that time, my German was pretty good, which meant that people who didn’t know me well would assume I meant exactly what I said and was in control of my tone.

Looking back, can you recall any situations that you handled with surprising finesse? Why do you think that was?

Not so much particular situations but I was able to finesse my overall approach. Before I went abroad the second time, I made a conscious effort to reflect on the challenges I’d encountered during my first stint abroad and how I could do better in future.

If you had to give advice to new expats, what’s the tool you’d tell them to develop first and why?

I guess I would tell them to take out their tape measures. Don’t judge until you take the measure of what’s going on and have more information—and you’ll also need to figure out culturally-appropriate ways to gather that information.

Yes, and sometimes you have to get used to a new way of measuring things, literally as well as figuratively.

If the shoe doesn’t fit at first, don’t worry! It just means you need to take the measure of your new location.

Let’s move on to reverse culture shock, which has had such a big impact on your life.

It was simultaneously easier and harder than I expected. Easier in that I actually enjoyed the first few weeks of being back home with my friends and family. I easily adjusted to the visible aspects of reverse culture shock (food, language, cars, etc). I had a much harder time with the invisible aspects I felt but couldn’t articulate.

I like that you make a distinction between the visible and invisible aspects. Feeling conflicted seems to be at the heart of most re-entry experiences. Do any of your reverse culture shock experiences stand out for you?

There was one that occurred when I first returned home after a year abroad a teenager. As my family sat down at the table for our first dinner together after my return, I found my brother sitting in “my” seat. He tried to convince me that it was “his” seat at the table, as he’d been sitting there all year. I got really upset and ran off to my room. Through my tears, I kept telling myself, “It’s just a chair, it’s no big deal”; but in my heart it felt like a really big deal. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but that one experience summed up how I was feeling in re-entry…as though I no longer fit in with my family and friends or at “home” in general. My life back home felt a size too small. I was conflicted because, while I was happy to see everyone at home, I missed the life I’d led in Germany. I was also questioning everything: my identity, my future plans, friendships, expectations…everything!

Did you develop any tools to handle these feelings?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any tools or people to help me navigate re-entry or reverse culture shock, so I didn’t handle it as well as I could have. I mostly relied on the so-called 3 Cs: crying, complaining, and contemplating my escape. 😉 That’s ultimately why I created the Re-entry Relaunch Roadmap workbook. I want other global adventurers to have an easier time than I did!

Indulging in the 3 Cs? Then it may be time to invest in Cate’s creative workbook!

What kinds of tools do you offer in the workbook?

At the beginning of the workbook, there are several activities that focus on things like feelings, identifying reverse culture shock coping skills, finding a way to reframe re-entry into something you find appealing, reflecting on how being abroad has changed you, intentionally creating a support ecosystem and an adventure passport, and much more. The rest of the workbook helps you find your unique Global Life Ingredients, which you can then use as a compass for identifying your best next steps. Readers have told me that going through the workbook felt like having a friend guide them step-by-step through re-entry—I love that!

I really like the idea of reflection as a reverse culture shock tool. By delving into the facets of our experience that enriched us, we can go from being a collection of loose patchwork pieces to becoming a beautiful patchwork quilt, strong seams and all! Thank you so much, Cate, for taking the time to share your experiences with us. Oh, and when you mentioned ingredients just now, it made me think of your new international desserts blog. Hm, can you pass me a slice of that Bienenstich (German Bee Sting Cake) before you go?

* * *

How about you, Displaced Nationers? What are your Global Life Ingredients? Let us know!

And if you like Cate’s prescriptions, be sure to check out her website, Small Planet Studio, where she occasionally blogs and also holds (online) events for expats and travelers who are looking to find their next global adventure. While you’re at it, don’t forget to check out her creative workbook on repatriation. You can interact with Cate on Small Planet Studio’s private Facebook page or on Twitter. Oh, and don’t forget those international desserts! Finally, Cate is serving as a Webinar coordinator for Families in Global Transition (FIGT) so would love to hear from you have an idea for one. Please contact her at webinars@figt.org.

Well, hopefully this has you “fixed” for a good long while as I bid farewell to this column…but not to the Displaced Nation! (Thanks, ML.)

Prost! Santé! Thank you all for being such great readers!

H.E. Rybol is a TCK and the author of Culture Shock: A Practical Guide and Culture Shock Toolbox and Reverse Culture Shock. She loves animals, piano, yoga and being outdoors. You can find her on Twitter, Linkedin, Goodreads, and, of course, her author site.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts.

Related posts:

Photo credits: All photos supplied or from Pixabay, apart from the “complain” photo in the last collage: [untiled], by ttarasiuk via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Cool Columns, Culture Shock Toolbox Crosscultural, Culture Shock Toolbox, Germany, Guide, It's Fiction!, It's Food!, Repatriation, Reverse Culture Shock Toolbox, TCK, Third Culture Kid, USA, young adult fiction

TCK TALENT: Journalist Alison Cavatore has crafted lifestyle magazine for those who consider the world their home

Leave a comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on April 1, 2017

Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with another super-talented Adult Third Culture Kid guest.

Hello, readers, and welcome to this month’s interview with Alison Cavatore—founder and editorial director of Global Living Magazine, a lifestyle publication for expats worldwide. It features exclusive content for expats by expats, including articles on living and working abroad, expatriation and repatriation, Third Culture Kids, culture shock and adaptation, international business, world-class cities, travel, and more.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to an American mother and a Spanish father, Alison is an ATCK who grew up in the United States, Holland and France. As an adult, she has lived in Canada, Switzerland and the United States. Currently she is based in Arizona with her French/German husband and their six-month-old baby girl. Even though Alison hasn’t been an expat for several years, she still feels very connected with that life and looks forward to the day when she and her young family cross borders again to travel and live.

Fun fact: Alison and I graduated together at the American School of Paris, and serendipity reconnected us through expat/TCK communities over ten years later! We are living proof of the value of such communities.

* * *

Welcome, Alison, to the Displaced Nation. Due to your father’s job, you grew up largely in Europe, and now you’ve repatriated to the United States. Let’s start by talking about your travels as a young adult. How did you end up in Canada after Europe?
I went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada, for my undergraduate education, where I studied psychology and sociology. I chose McGill because it’s a great school and I loved the city of Montreal—it was the perfect mix of North America and Europe, something I really appreciate even to this day because of my background. Having just lived in France, I found it a good middle step to getting back to the United States (I eventually ended up in Miami). The university is also extremely international, which suited me well having attended international schools for most of my life.

And then you went to Switzerland?
After finishing McGill in 2007, I took a year off and then attended Webster University in Geneva, Switzerland, for a master’s degree in counseling. While there I got involved in magazines, interning at Swiss Style magazine, which caters to expats within Switzerland, and decided I wanted to switch my graduate studies to journalism. That’s how I ended up back in the United States: I headed to the University of Miami (Florida) for a master’s in journalism, which I completed in 2011.

Starting up Global Living Magazine is a huge achievement. What gave you the idea in the first place?
While studying at the University of Miami I was involved in numerous publications and decided I wanted to work in magazines and focus on content I was passionate about: living abroad and the expatriate lifestyle. I created the prototype for Global Living Magazine for my master’s thesis; a month after graduating I founded Global Living and began working on the first issue, published in May 2012. I wanted to start my own publication so I could shape the narrative and focus on topics I see as important for the expat community as a whole, whether you’re an expat in Dubai, Chicago, Kenya or Australia. There is no other publication dedicated to expats worldwide like Global Living Magazine.

It sounds like your TCK upbringing played a big role in creating GLM.
Definitely. Having lived abroad for so much of my life, I was back in the United States and feeling a bit like an outsider in my own country. When I was thinking about starting my own publication, I wanted to make sure I was publishing content that could be useful to those who shared some of these feelings, who, like me, are so strongly connected to the expat community that they would appreciate and benefit from having a new resource.

Nearly five years have passed since the magazine’s launch. How has it evolved?
The magazine has evolved in many ways, both creatively and in terms of content. When I started Global Living I had a strong expat focus but also incorporated a lot of travel articles into the publication. I subsequently cut down on the travel component as I watched the positive response to the expat component grow and take on a life of its own.

As we TCKs know, global living can be glamorous, but it can also make you feel displaced. Does the magazine reflect these two sides of the coin?
Global Living presents a realistic perspective on international living: we present the good, bad and ugly aspects of expat life. While one person’s experience in one country may have been extremely positive, I think it’s also important to share a less positive experience because it’s reality—some assignments go well, some don’t. There are so many different aspects to expat life and Global Living touches on as many as possible in each issue so there is always something for everyone.

Print magazines are having a tough time these days.
Yes, when it started, Global Living was exclusively available in print-on-demand editions through MagCloud; but it can now be read (for free) in the Global Living app. Taking this step to make GLM more accessible worldwide has significantly grown our audience and made it more appealing to expats who are often on the go and can access all our issues on their smartphones or tablets.

Has GLM helped you process your upbringing?
Watching the expat community embrace Global Living has helped me accept my TCK upbringing as something positive. It has given me a foundation I didn’t always feel I had growing up. The magazine has also been an amazing way for me to stay connected and in tune with what is going on in the expat community. The people I have met and worked with through the publication have shaped it (and me) in ways I couldn’t even imagine when I first started. Expats are, in general, a fearless, adaptive, open-minded, accepting, forward-thinking group of people and that has ultimately been my motivation every time I put together a new issue. The response to Global Living has been so inspiring and rewarding as I hear from expats that it has been a wonderful addition to their life, making them feel less alone.

You’re currently based in Arizona, but before you were in DC and Miami. Do you see yourself going abroad again and resuming the expat lifestyle?
My husband is now the expat in the family, as a French/German living in the US. We moved to Arizona based on his job, which could subsequently move us pretty much anywhere in the world. We’d love to have our daughter, Victoria, experience expat life. Most of our immediate family lives outside the United States. I’m sure they would love to be closer to her at some point, too, if that happens.

Ultimately, do you think you might settle somewhere or will you always get “itchy feet”?
Ideally, I’d like to establish a “home base” somewhere in the US to which we could always return—preferably in Washington, DC, which I personally associate the most with “home.” I definitely still get itchy feet when we’re in one place for too long, though, a common TCK and expat experience. When we’re in the States we miss things about Europe and when we’re in Europe we miss things about the US.

“I want GLM readers to feel connected and ‘rooted’ in a global community,” Cavatore says.

Lastly, what are your hopes and future plans for GLM?
I want, and have always wanted, Global Living Magazine to be more than just a form of entertainment for readers—I hope it can be a resource and guide to the expat life. It can be a disorienting life to have many homes and the purpose of Global Living is, in part, to provide a sense of community and identity for those who struggle to find one while immersed in countries away from their “home”. I want people to read through the pages of Global Living and say, “Oh, I know exactly how he/she feels” or “That’s an interesting way to look at that experience” and feel connected and “rooted” in a global community. As far as the future goes: Global Living will continue to explore the latest issues that arise within the expat community and to invite new writers to provide fresh perspectives. Expat experiences vary so vastly, it’s important to include as many perspectives as possible to present a realistic view of living abroad, and repatriating.

Thank you so much, Alison!

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Alison below. Also be sure to check out Global Living Magazine, which is published every quarter (October, January, April and July). Current and past issues are available for free in the Global Living app. At GLM online, you can read magazine content, extra articles and the popular My Expat Story section. And of course you can follow the magazine on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

Photo credits:
Interviewee photo and magazine covers were supplied. Photos of Geneva, Paris & Montreal, and the vector of roots are from Pixabay. Photo of Miami: “South Beach The Carlyle dusk,” by Dan Lundberg via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Canada, Crosscultural, Crosscultural marriage, Multicultural, North America, Switzerland, TCK, TCK Talent, Third Culture Kid, USA

CULTURE SHOCK TOOLBOX: Expats & TCKs, when the culture shocks pile up, pull out the manual or consult an expert

5 Comments Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on February 4, 2017

Transitions enthusiast H.E. Rybol is back with her first guest of 2017.

Happy February, Displaced Nationers!

Meet my fellow ATCK Diahann Reyes-Lane. You might know her already from Elizabeth Liang’s lovely interview for TCK Talent. If you don’t, Diahann is a former CNN journalist and Hollywood actress who now works as a coach for writers and artists.

In her own creative life, Diahann is a blogger, writer, and performer. In Stories From The Belly, her blog about “the female body and its appetites,” Diahann addresses feminism, body image, identity culture, food and travel. Her poems and essays have been published in WriteGirl anthologies Emotional Map of Los Angeles, You Are Here and No Character Limit. She has written a number of chapbooks: Howl Naked Raccoon the Moon; Moon Goddess; and Basketball Dome of Tears. And she has performed at the Hollywood FringeFestival and read her stories at Beyond Baroque in Venice. Currently, she is working on a memoir as well as a solo show.

Diahann lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their five cats. She kindly took the time to share some of her cultural transition stories with us. Join us as we talk about TCK burnout, courting customs in Manila (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), and various forms of therapy.

* * *

Hi Diahann, welcome to Culture Shock Toolbox! So where on our beautiful blue planet did you grow up?

I was born in the Philippines. I learned to speak my first language, English, with a Kiwi accent at age one when my dad’s company moved us to New Zealand. We lived there for almost two years before moving back to Manila. When I was eight, we moved to Argentina for two years. Buenos Aires is still, to this day, my favorite city where I’ve lived. Two years later, we landed in Pakistan, where I spent the fifth grade. We stayed for a little over a year before migrating to the US. This was supposed to be our final move, but when the Marcos regime was overthrown, my father moved us back “home” to Manila in 1987.

How well did you settle down once you found yourself back in your passport country?

Our repatriation to the Philippines was brief. It was less than a year before my dad’s company moved him to Indonesia. I spent my senior year in Jakarta before moving back to the United States for college. I’ve been here ever since—going on 27 years now. I consider my long stay in this country a far more exotic adventure than moving countries all the time, which had been my norm for so long.

That’s very interesting. You mean you found staying in one place more exotic than travel?

Yes, learning to live in the same place has been a bigger adventure because moving, I knew how to do. Going to a new school, I knew how to do. Moving out/into a new apartment/house/neighborhood, I knew how to do. It was what my family did the whole time I was growing up. Until I turned 18, I moved to a new school, if not country, almost every year. I had no idea what it was like to have friendships that lasted beyond a school year. My sophomore year at UC Berkeley was a challenge because I didn’t know how to have ongoing relationships and I had to learn how to do that as a young woman. I used to think “what if”, mourning the losses of friendships and budding romances that surely would have blossomed if only I didn’t have to move again. I now know that sometimes, even when you live in the same zip code with people, friends drift apart and romances die for reasons beyond geography.
moving-i-knew-how-to-do

I hear you. And that’s a lot of moves. I’m guessing that, for you, like many of us Third Culture Kids, your most difficult re-entry shock occurred when you returned to your birthplace?

Yes, since Manila was “home”, I assumed there would be no transition. I thought I’d be like everyone else, for once, since I was no longer a foreigner. To my dismay, I still was an outsider. I didn’t know the customs or social rules any more than I did when I’d moved to the other countries. I was hard on myself about this because I assumed that I should know because I was a Filipina citizen.

Did you ever put your foot in your mouth when you were back “home”?

One example that springs to mind occurred during junior high school in Manila. A boy from another school was “courting” me. This was the eighties, so I’m not sure if courting is still what kids do nowadays. Basically, he was wooing me to be his girlfriend. But I wasn’t interested in him and I didn’t want to lead him on. I told the guy straight out—nicely, in my opinion—that I just wanted to be his friend. That’s what I would have done had I still been in living in the United States or studying at an international school. When I told my classmates about what happened, they made clear that this was a breach of etiquette. They said I should have allowed him to keep courting me until he finally asked me to be his girlfriend. Only then should I have let him down. Instead, I’d embarrassed him.
courting-in-philippines

Would you handle that kind of situation differently today?

The woman I am today would have handled the situation exactly the way I did then. But at 16, and after so many moves from country-to-country and school-to-school, I just wanted to fit in—especially because the Philippines was my country of origin. After that incident with the boy, I made more of an effort to abide by Filipino etiquette, including never calling guys and not taking the initiative when it came to expressing interest in a boy. Adapt, assimilate, and conform became my way of coping. I wish I could have told my younger self back then: “Just be yourself and honor your values. Who you are is enough. Your perceptions and choices aren’t wrong.”

Any “tools” you can recommend for the rest of us who are feeling some of these emotions?

Reading books about culture shock and re-entry culture shock helped. I discovered I wasn’t the only one having these experiences and my behavior, reactions, and mental and emotional state because of all the moving was normal. Until that point, I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t stay grounded in my body or any place or culture. Also, I wrote a college paper about re-entry culture shock, and the research I did for it was eye opening and healing. It also helps to have friends who have also lived the expat life and know what that’s like. Oh—and therapy. I recommend getting a good therapist.

youre-not-going-crazy

I like your recommendation of consulting the experts, whether it’s through books—we might call them operations manuals—or conversations with therapists who understand the TCK and expat mindset. Can you think of any transitions you made that were particularly smooth?

I’m inclined to say my move back to the United States to study at Berkeley was the easiest. I made friends right away and jumped right into college life. I didn’t miss Indonesia at all—probably because I’d lived there only for a year and hadn’t wanted to move there to begin with. (This had nothing to do with Indonesia—more that I was tired of moving.) But what I didn’t realize was that I’d not yet dealt with the accumulation of culture shocks and re-entry culture shocks I’d amassed in my psyche over the years. Inevitably, all of that would catch up with me eventually.

Yes, the compound effects of all those transitions is such an interesting subject! What advice do you have for expats or TCKs who are experiencing expat burnout or change fatigue?

I’d advise expats and TCKs to understand that the psychological and emotional fallout of multiple moves around the world are real. Recognize what is happening to you, proactively rather than reactively. Read and write about it. For me, writing that college paper about re-entry shock was a formative experience. I finally understood the effects that moving so many times while growing up had had on my development.

Lastly, do you have any advice for parents of kids like us?

For parent expats, I’d recommend letting your kids know that they, too, will be subject to culture shock. I’d suggest making space for your children to process their feelings and deal with the losses that can come from moving countries and cultures. Yes, there are plenty of gifts and benefits from being a global nomad, but there are also drawbacks. Ignoring the negative effects can be harmful. Granted, kids generally adapt more easily than adults, but this can also make it harder for them to stay grounded and cultivate a solid sense of self.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories, Diahann. I agree, some of the best advice for those who feel culture shocks piling up is to try to stay grounded: actively engage in activities that make you feel grounded in the place you are right now.

* * *

How about you, Displaced Nationers? What makes you feel grounded? And do you have any “manuals” or “experts” you’d recommend for getting through the difficult cultural transitions and/or their cumulative effect? Let us know!

And if you like Diahann’s prescriptions, be sure to check out her Website and blog. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Well, hopefully this has you “fixed” until next month/year.

Until then. Prost! Santé!

H.E. Rybol is a TCK and the author of Culture Shock: A Practical Guide and Culture Shock Toolbox and the newly published Reverse Culture Shock. She loves animals, piano, yoga and being outdoors. You can find her on Twitter, Linkedin, Goodreads, and, of course, her author site.

STAY TUNED for next week/year’s fab posts.

Related posts:

Photo credits: First visual (collage): Culture shock toolbox branding; photo of Sine & family, her book cover and her blog banner (supplied); View over Stuttgart-South and Stuttgart-Heslach and the “Karlshöhe”, Germany, by MSeses via Wikimedia Commons; and A rainbow over Joburg about two hours ago, by Derek Keats via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Second visual: Hamburger via Pixabay (moustache vector art from iPiccy).
Third visual: Embarrassed boy, happy faces and wrench via Pixabay; Australia v England Netabll [sic] Test, by Naparazzi via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); and Traditional protective cup, by Scoty6776 via Wikimedia Commons.
Fourth visual: Great white shark, by Michiel Van Balen via Flickr (CC BY 2.0); and tennis player via Pixabay.

Cool Columns, Culture Shock Toolbox Argentina, Crosscultural, Culture Shock Toolbox, Indonesia, Los Angeles, Love love love, New Zealand, Pakistan, Performing arts, Philippines, Repatriation, Reverse Culture Shock Toolbox, Singapore, South Africa, Southeast Asia, Southern California, TCK, Third Culture Kid, USA

TCK TALENT: Educational theatre specialist Guleraana Mir uses drama to coax out and channel TCK & immigrant stories

Leave a comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on January 28, 2017

mir-tck-talent
Columnist Dounia Bertuccelli is back with her first Adult Third Culture Kid guest of the new year.

Hello again, fair readers! In this month of dramatic change here in the United States, perhaps you’d like to switch to another kind of drama. My guest this month is writer and educational theatre specialist Guleraana Mir. Among other projects, she has been working on Home Is Where…, an experimental theatre project based on the stories of Third Culture Kids, with Amy Clare Tasker, my very first guest.

Born in London to Pakistani immigrant parents, Guleraana spent the first five years of her life moving between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the UK. She recounts her family’s decision to settle back in the UK with humor, explaining:

“There’s a family joke that I returned home from the American nursery in Riyadh with a mixed-up accent, and my dad, proud of his broad Yorkshire twang, said something along the lines of: ‘No child of mine will grow up speaking like that!’ So we immediately made plans to return to the UK so my brother and I could be educated in England.”

As an adult, Guleraana continues to expand her horizons, traveling around and working in South America for a year and then spending two-and-a-half years in the United States. Currently based in London, she engages in a variety of creative endeavors, from leading theatre and creative writing workshops in community settings and schools in the UK, to developing scripts, to producing content for a London-based digital marketing agency, to writing poetry. Her first full-length play was long listed by the BBC Writersroom team in 2014, which seeks out new writers for possible BBC broadcast.

* * *

Welcome, Guleraana, to the Displaced Nation! Let’s start by hearing a little more about your path once you became an adult. What and where did you choose to study at university, and why?
I completed my BA in English and Creative Studies at the University of Portsmouth, in the south of England. I chose that location because it was far away enough to not be in the immediate vicinity of my parents, but close enough to hop on a train home to London. Four years later I chose to study for an MA in Educational Theatre at New York University’s Steinhart School instead of a comparable course in the UK because the dollar was two to the pound, making the cost of studying in the USA was almost affordable. Plus, I was obsessed with New York after visiting the year before. I would have done anything to be able to return for an extended period.

What made you so obsessed with New York, and how does it compare to London?
I can’t tell you how hard I’ve tried to answer these questions in a succinct and tangible way, but it always comes back to this: my obsession with New York is visceral, not something I can rationalize. New York has an energy that inspires and motivates me. London is wonderful, steeped in history and tradition, but its energy is different. In my first semester at New York University, I found myself on the 7th floor of the Student Union Building. I looked out of the window and realized I could see past Washington Square Park all the way up Fifth Avenue. All the way up! It was so long and straight and brightly lit; it seemed infinite and vast, full of magic and possibilities. In London the streets are small and cobbled and windy and you don’t get that sense of size, even though it is a very big city.

Do you think your love for New York also has to do with going to graduate school in that city?
Yes, my passion for New York ultimately has to do with the fact that I first visited at an extremely pivotal moment in my life. I have since written an essay about becoming a woman and an artist, and I attribute 100% of my current confidence to NYC mostly because of all the empowering experiences I had whilst living there. London is my childhood, my safety net, my current state of success. New York sits in the middle of those two states. It’s the place I ran away to and discovered myself, the place I finally felt comfortable being who I am. Whilst I know that London is the right place for me because I could never really live in the USA, every time I think of New York my heart breaks. It’s like the lover you can never let go of, the one that got away.

torn-between-ny-and-london

“Theatre is the art of looking at ourselves” —Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal

Did growing up as a TCK influence your decision to go into theatre?
I grew up not only as a TCK, meaning I spent my early childhood outside my parents’ culture–but also as a CCK, or cross-cultural kid, as I spent the next portion of my childhood living in England with Pakistani parents. These experiences moved me to want to become a human rights lawyer or a journalist, or else pursue European Studies. All I can ever really remember being passionate about was traveling the world and writing, with a heavy emphasis on “changing the world.” While working on my BA, I explored creative and journalistic writing, but ultimately graduated without a concrete career path. I’ve ended up working in educational theatre because it is a combination of things I am good at, and love. I honestly couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

Has theatre helped you process your TCK upbringing?
As a playwright I can process my mixed-up identity through my characters. Having the opportunity to explore things I’ve experienced on stage is both triggering and cathartic. Luckily I am surrounded by amazing people who also happen to be extraordinarily talented artists, so working with them makes the whole process easier.

You’re currently based in London—are you settled or do you get “itchy feet”?
I will always dream of New York, and Rio, and all the other places I’ve felt “at home”; but London occupies a special place in my heart. It’s where parents and family are, so as long as they’re here, I’m here. Sort of. The itchy feet are constant—but I hate packing. So, we shall see!

“The worst part of holding the memories is the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” —ATCK writer Lois Lowry

You’ve been collaborating with Amy Clare Tasker on Home Is Where…, weaving together the true stories of TCKs with a fictional narrative inspired by our post-Brexit political landscape. What has working with other TCKs meant to you?
Meeting Amy and discovering the term “Third Culture Kid (TCK)” for the first time felt like getting into bed after an exciting night out. Through our work on Home Is Where…, I’ve engaged with so many more TCKs. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction and hearing some of the stories that make up Home Is Where… you realize how true this saying is. Some people have been on such great adventures! Also, as our actors are also TCKs, watching them bring a piece of themselves to the project is very humbling. Each of the stories the drama tells is like a special gift.

I know you and Amy have been experimenting with verbatim theatre. I want to ask you the same question I asked her: how has that process been?
Verbatim theatre is an interesting art form. As Amy explained in her interview, the actors listen to the audio recordings of TCK interviews on stage via headphones—and then repeat exactly what they hear. There’s something so raw and honest about it, but there is also the potential for it to be very static and boring. At the moment Amy and I are working on a way to revamp the piece so the interviews take center stage without the audience getting distracted by all the other things we feel we need to add to create an exciting theatrical experience. Watch this space for updates!

Are you working on anything else at the moment?
I am. My play Coconut is about a British-born Pakistani woman called Rumi who identifies as a “coconut”—a derogatory term for someone who is brown on the outside and white on the inside, i.e., who isn’t deemed culturally Asian enough by the community. The play explores Rumi’s relationship with her heritage and her religion, and we see how far she will go to appease her family. The play has been supported on its development journey by the Park Theatre and New Diorama.

coconut-play

Congratulations on that and on being selected as a Pollock Scholar and a speaker for the 2017 FIGT conference, which takes place March 23-25 in The Hague. Is connecting with global communities important for you on a personal and professional level? What do you hope to gain from this experience?
Thank you, Dounia! Amy and I will be doing a short presentation on Home Is Where… followed by an interactive workshop, something that I’m very passionate about. My expertise is in applied-theatre and I want to show the global community that the creative arts are the perfect way to explore the theme of this year’s FIGT conference: “Creating Your Tribe on the Move.” My hope is that everyone who attends our session will be moved to find a way to bring theatre into the way they work with families and individuals who are experiencing, or have recently experienced, migration.

Thank you so much, Guleraana, for sharing your story of how you got started as an international creative. You have so many exciting irons in the fire, it’s a true inspiration!

* * *

Readers, please leave questions or comments for Guleraana below. Also be sure to visit her Website and connect with her on Twitter, where she likes to tweet about theater, global politics and gifs (tweet her your favorites!). And if you’re headed to the FIGT event in March, be sure to attend her workshop on Friday, March 24.

Born in Nicosia, Cyprus, to Lebanese parents, Dounia Bertuccelli has lived in France, UK, Australia, Philippines, Mexico, and the USA—but never in Lebanon. She writes about her experiences growing up as a TCK and adjusting as an adult TCK on her blog Next Stop, which is a collection of prose, poetry and photography. She also serves as the managing editor of The Black Expat; Expat Resource Manager for Global Living Magazine; co-host of the monthly twitter chat #TCKchat; and TCKchat columnist for Among Worlds magazine. Currently based on the East Coast of the United States, she is happily married to a fellow TCK who shares her love for travel, music and good food. To learn more about Dounia, please read her interview with former TCK Talent columnist Lisa Liang. You can also follow her on Twitter.

STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!

If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for the biweekly Displaced Dispatch, a round up of posts from The Displaced Nation—and so much more! Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!

Photo credits:
Top visual: (clockwise from top left) Guleraana Mir photo, supplied; New Routemaster at Clapton, Hackney, London [mosque in background], by Sludge G via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); “Home Is Where…” performance photo, supplied; and New York University Waverly building, by Benjamin KRAFT via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
New York vs London visual: “Looking across Washington Square Park at Midtown Manhattan, up 5th Avenue,” by Doc Searls via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0); and Back Lane, Hampstead, by Dun.can via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Bottom visual: Coconut rehearsal, performance and promo piece, all supplied.

Cool Columns, TCK Talent ATCK, Crosscultural, London, Multicultural, New York, New York City, Pakistan, Performing arts, Poetry, Repatriation, Saudi Arabia, TCK, TCK Talent, Theatre, Third Culture Kid, UK, USA

CULTURE SHOCK TOOLBOX: Expat mums, time to loosen your worry nut: relax, write funny stories & try not to embarrass your kids!

Leave a comment Posted by The Displaced Nation Team on December 29, 2016

sine-culture-shock-toolbox
Transitions enthusiast H.E. Rybol is back with her final post of 2016.

Happy holidays, Displaced Nationers!

Are you already thinking about trips you’d like to make in 2017? Maybe you’re thinking about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? In which case you’ll find it inspirational to meet Eva Melusine (Sine) Thieme, traveler, writer, and author of the hilarious memoir Kilimanjaro Diaries: Or, How I Spent a Week Dreaming of Toilets, Drinking Crappy Water, and Making Bad Jokes While Having the Time of My Life, about climbing Africa’s highest mountain with her teenage son.

Born in Germany, Sine—whose name is not pronounced like “mine”—has moved across the world seven times, “lugging progressively more stuff and family members along the way,” as she puts it on her author site. Most recently, she and her husband, also German (they met in Stuttgart), spent three years in Johannesburg, South Africa, with their four children.

At that time, Sine started up her popular blog, Joburg Expat, as a space for recording her adventures—ranging from her campaign to help baseball gain a foothold in an African township to a series of hair-raising encounters with lions, great white sharks, and the Johannesburg traffic police.

The family now lives in Tennessee, where Sine continues to maintain her Jo-burg blog. She also writes freelance for the Wall Street Journal and other outlets, and prides herself on remaining sane with four teenagers in the house—which reminds me of a quote by Nora Ephron:

“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.”

Sine says her next book will be about a road trip through Namibia with six people in a five-person car.

She kindly took time out from her busy life to share some of her culture shock experiences. Join us as we talk about mustaches vs. mustard, cultural differences in parenting—and the therapeutic benefits of writing…

* * *

Welcome, Sine, to Culture Shock Toolbox. So where on our beautiful planet have you lived?

I was born in Germany where I spent the first 16 years of my life. I then embarked upon a year as an exchange student in the United States, arriving full of wonder in the Deepest South of Mississippi, marveling at such novelties (to me) as cordless phones, giant TV screens and drive-through fast food. My love for America kindled and confirmed, I returned after my undergraduate studies for an MBA at the University of North Carolina together with my also German-born husband. We have since moved—with an ever-growing entourage of kids—to Singapore, Wisconsin, Kansas, South Africa, and now Tennessee. Having been naturalized in 2010, I don’t consider myself an expat in the United States any more. My most memorable time of feeling like an expat came when we lived in Johannesburg with our four children, from 2010 to 2013.

It sounds like a beautiful love story, what you said about the United States! In the context of your many cultural transitions, did you ever put your foot in your mouth?

The most embarrassing—because I was a self-conscious teenager still learning English—was the time when, as an exchange student in Mississippi, I insisted that I wanted “mustache” with my burger. I had of course confused the word for “mustard”—and it didn’t do my perfectionist self any good to be relentlessly teased about it by my younger host siblings for months on end.
burger-mustache-quote

Any stories from your time in South Africa?

Nowadays I’m not easily embarrassed, but my kids make up for that with their exponential embarrassment on my behalf, which, I’m convinced, comes with the Expat Mom territory. Take, for instance, the school sports scene in South Africa. My daughter Impatience—that’s her blogging name—was playing in a netball match, actually playing pretty well considering she’d never played the sport before in her life. But I was going crazy because no one was going for the rebound after shooting at the basket. “Get the rebound!!!” was naturally what I yelled from the bleachers for an entire half, like a good American mother with Olympic ambitions for all her children, no matter how lowly the league. Well, as any netball players out there will know, it’s not called a “rebound”. It’s also apparently not something you can “get” willy nilly, because there is some kind of zone around the basket or perhaps the goal-shooter—I learned there is actually a position called goal-shooter that comes with its own lettered t-shirt—into into which you can’t extend your arms. Impatience later informed me of this technicality in hushed tones so that I would abstain from any further “encouragement” from the sidelines. South African mothers do not seem to provide such encouragement at all, I came to learn.

How did you handle that situation? Would you handle it differently now? What tools do you think are most useful for adapting to situations like these?

I think in general the key is to relax waaaaay more than we typically do, not just as a tip for expats but a life skill in general. None of this is really so important, so instead of watching my kid with eagle eyes to see how well she plays, I should have socialized with the other mothers much more and dug into the goodies piled onto tables for “tea time,” which had been supplied by some well-meaning parents. South Africans are good at relaxing, as I learned during those years. “Sit back and observe what locals do” is usually a pretty good guideline when arriving in a new land.

Definitely! Looking back again on your many transitions, can you recall any situations you handled with surprising finesse?

I don’t profess to have much finesse. So just abstaining from committing a similarly embarrassing blunder in front of another one of my kids can perhaps count for such a success story. One day I was tempted to walk right into the teacher’s lounge at the prep school, brimming with indignation, to tell my son Jabulani’s geography teacher that no, contrary to her firm belief, the United States does NOT have 52 states, never had, and probably never would. And, while we were at it, zero degrees north is just as good an answer on the exam as zero degrees south, if she really insisted on splitting that particular hair. Jabulani blanched at the prospect. He begged me to abstain. It would be SO embarrassing if I talked to the teacher like that, which is apparently something South African mothers don’t do. So I listened to my child—another good rule for parents of Third Culture Kids to follow. They are so much more attuned to the perils of putting a foot in your mouth.

Yes, that’s actually something Tanya Crossman wrote about in her book, Misunderstood, which was featured on this site last week.

Come to think of it, it was also Jabulani who found it equally embarrassing when, upon receiving the supply list before cricket season, I was the only mother who had no idea what a “ball box” was. And who then loudly inquired at the sporting goods store as to where she might find one, and proceeded to tell everyone for months afterwards, hooting with laughter, how funny it was that it turned out to be an athletic cup (which is inserted in a jockstrap to protect the genitals against impact from the ball):

Yes, if you think about it, a ball box is indeed a box containing balls, haha, and should we read anything into the fact that South African “ballboxes” are about twice the size of their American counterparts? Hahaha.

embarrassed-tcks

I’m imagining you might say “sense of humour,” but if you had to give advice to new expats, what’s the tool you’d tell them to develop first and why?

Maybe I’m biased because I’m a writer, but I’d actually say the most important tool as an expat is to start writing. Emails to your friends, Facebook posts, a blog, whatever it is, it will lighten your mood tremendously. It will shift being afraid of what’s new towards seeking out the new—because you have an audience and a story to tell. It will turn frustration at yet another long wait at an incomprehensible government office into almost giddy suspense as to what ridiculous thing might happen next, and how to best put it into words to make your readers back home burst into laughter.

How did you feel when you came back to the United States after living in Africa? What was “reverse” culture shock like for you?

It was worse. Before, there was the excitement about living in a new country, coupled with the benevolence you feel towards a people you don’t completely understand. You give them the benefit of the doubt. They might seem a little quirky and weird, and you might not understand all they’re saying, but they smile at you and they’re interesting. Plus, the sun is shining and someone is ironing your laundry at the house, and that someone is not you. But when you return “home” you feel like you understand everyone far too well, and you don’t like what you think you know about their psyche. They’re all too shallow, too pampered, too full of their First World Problems, you think, and there can’t possibly be anything in it for you by getting to know them. You pine for the friends you left behind in the country you left behind, and nothing seems like it will ever be quite so fascinating and exciting again in your life as it once was.

Can you recommend any tools for handling (reverse) culture shock?

The key is to treat your home country like any other expat location—with curiosity, an open mind and heart, and a willingness to adapt. You have to overcome your own snobbishness to realize there are wonderful people everywhere in the world, and only then can you form new friendships, find new passions, and move on with your life.

That’s good advice: it’s important to find new passions.

You might have cage dived among great white sharks and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro as an expat, and now you might have to settle for the much more mundane sport of tennis upon returning home. But let me tell you: perfecting your forehand is just as challenging and rewarding as living abroad. I’m still trying to find an equally convincing story about the laundry I’m now back to folding myself in a country without domestic help. I’ll get back to you when I come up with it.
shark-forehand-quote

Thank you so much, Sine, for taking the time to share your stories and insights. As you say on your blog, “If life always went exactly as planned, there would be no stories. If you look at it that way, a crappy day can be the greatest gift!” Such a wonderful motto to live by, abroad or at home!

* * *

Displaced Nationers, I hope you enjoyed this interview. Did you turn any frustrating moments into stories? Let us know!

And if you like Sine’s prescriptions, be sure to check out her author site and her blog. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Well, hopefully this has you “fixed” until next month/year.

Until then. Prost! Santé!

STAY TUNED for next week/year’s fab posts.

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Tag Archives: Crosscultural

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Welcome, Doreen, to the Displaced Nation! I understand you grew up in Malaysia but were educated in Singapore. How did that come about?

What brought you to your current location, the Netherlands?

Those of us who have been Third Culture Kids or repeat expats tend to gravitate towards global cities as that’s where we think we’ll find work and our “tribe.” How did you find life in Singapore as compared to in Malaysia?

Once you moved to the UK, you went from living in a small town to living in London. Which did you prefer?

How do you feel about your latest “home”?

How do you keep from feeling isolated?

I understand you enjoy writing. Do you foresee that in your current location you’ll be able to nurture your creativity?

What’s next for you, travel-wise and creativity-wise: will you stay put where you are or are other cities/artistic activities on your horizon?

Thank you, Doreen!

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Hi Cate, and welcome to Culture Shock Toolbox! Can you tell us which countries you’ve lived in and for how long?

In the context of cultural transitions, did you ever put your foot in your mouth?

Any memorable stories?

How did you handle the situation?

Looking back, can you recall any situations that you handled with surprising finesse? Why do you think that was?

If you had to give advice to new expats, what’s the tool you’d tell them to develop first and why?

Yes, and sometimes you have to get used to a new way of measuring things, literally as well as figuratively.

Let’s move on to reverse culture shock, which has had such a big impact on your life.

I like that you make a distinction between the visible and invisible aspects. Feeling conflicted seems to be at the heart of most re-entry experiences. Do any of your reverse culture shock experiences stand out for you?

Did you develop any tools to handle these feelings?

What kinds of tools do you offer in the workbook?

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Hi Diahann, welcome to Culture Shock Toolbox! So where on our beautiful blue planet did you grow up?

How well did you settle down once you found yourself back in your passport country?

That’s very interesting. You mean you found staying in one place more exotic than travel?

I hear you. And that’s a lot of moves. I’m guessing that, for you, like many of us Third Culture Kids, your most difficult re-entry shock occurred when you returned to your birthplace?

Did you ever put your foot in your mouth when you were back “home”?

Would you handle that kind of situation differently today?

Any “tools” you can recommend for the rest of us who are feeling some of these emotions?

I like your recommendation of consulting the experts, whether it’s through books—we might call them operations manuals—or conversations with therapists who understand the TCK and expat mindset. Can you think of any transitions you made that were particularly smooth?

Yes, the compound effects of all those transitions is such an interesting subject! What advice do you have for expats or TCKs who are experiencing expat burnout or change fatigue?

Lastly, do you have any advice for parents of kids like us?

Thank you so much for sharing your stories, Diahann. I agree, some of the best advice for those who feel culture shocks piling up is to try to stay grounded: actively engage in activities that make you feel grounded in the place you are right now.

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“Theatre is the art of looking at ourselves” —Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal

“The worst part of holding the memories is the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” —ATCK writer Lois Lowry

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Welcome, Sine, to Culture Shock Toolbox. So where on our beautiful planet have you lived?

It sounds like a beautiful love story, what you said about the United States! In the context of your many cultural transitions, did you ever put your foot in your mouth?

Any stories from your time in South Africa?

How did you handle that situation? Would you handle it differently now? What tools do you think are most useful for adapting to situations like these?

Definitely! Looking back again on your many transitions, can you recall any situations you handled with surprising finesse?

Yes, that’s actually something Tanya Crossman wrote about in her book, Misunderstood, which was featured on this site last week.

I’m imagining you might say “sense of humour,” but if you had to give advice to new expats, what’s the tool you’d tell them to develop first and why?

How did you feel when you came back to the United States after living in Africa? What was “reverse” culture shock like for you?

Can you recommend any tools for handling (reverse) culture shock?

That’s good advice: it’s important to find new passions.

Thank you so much, Sine, for taking the time to share your stories and insights. As you say on your blog, “If life always went exactly as planned, there would be no stories. If you look at it that way, a crappy day can be the greatest gift!” Such a wonderful motto to live by, abroad or at home!

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