What Is A Third Culture Kid and Why Is It Cool to Be One?

Hello, there. Some of you close to me has already known that I love anything related to diverse cultures and can conclude myself as taking part of the millennials era. Who can blame me (or us in general)? I was born in the year 1995, the year where many major things took a point of turn in life and many technologies were invented. I am now taking my bachelor degree in International Relations major, but hell, if you ask if I like politics or naw I will definitely say BIG NO. But don’t get me wrong, my major is not always about politics. A lot of times we talk also about history, social stuffs, and what I love the most, culture.

While I was sitting in class on this culture studies class, I discovered one term called ‘Third Culture Kid’. You don’t say I am only interested because there is a word ‘culture’ in it, but something about that term seem to tingle me and brings my inner curiosity up. So what in the fact is ‘Third Culture Kid’? Third Culture Kid is a term used to refer to children raised in a culture other than their parents’ or the culture of the country given on the child’s passport, where they are legally considered native. This leads to the exposure of a greater variety of cultural influences to the children itself.

Third Culture Kids move between cultures before they have had the opportunity to fully develop their personal and cultural identity. The first culture of such individuals refers to the culture of the country from which the parents originated, the second culture refers to the culture in which the family currently resides, and the third culture refers to the amalgamation of these two cultures. Have you ever met someone born in Australia, grew up in China, went to school in Scotland, and now working in Thailand? For a globe-trotter junkie like me that sounds like a total heaven!

And when we are now in an era with less barrier to move from one country to another, I can see clearly that this might be the future of the next upcoming generations. So will this be a good thing because it helps creating a diverse environment and one-world global citizen or a bad thing for it is threatening unique existing cultures because it will likely less possible for next generation to adapt only one culture? While the fixed answer hasn’t been developed just yet, we can take a neutral side and just take everything that is positive about this phenomenon.

Cool Things of being a Third Culture Kid

You are good at more than one or two languages (or know few curse words, at least). Third Culture Kids spend their childhood in many different places and more likely to meet diverse-cultured people so it is no surprise that they are familiar with many languages.

Sometimes your changing accent is super cool. What a pleasure seeing their faces when your sexy British accent accidentally slipping out…

You have many friends from all over the world. You met them either at a summer camping trip in States, gala dinner with your expat parents in France, or simply your college friends now in Japan. By living from one place to another, Third Culture Kids build networks with many people they met along the way.

Your passport looks like it’s been through hell and back. Sounds bad? Not for me. Shabby passport means you have been living on and off plane on a jet-setter way of life so nothing to be complained about. You can even have a little ‘brag’ about those faded old stamps filling your passport pages.

Your experiences of living abroad make people think that you are cool. Because, well, you really are. But seriously they don’t have to know how is it when you have to catch a red-eye flight to visit your parents on their birthday or lose a luggage in the Middle East airport.

You always have people to listen to your story. Because when it is night in your place and everybody is sleeping, remember it is mid day somewhere with your other friend resides there…

You can travel like a boss a.k.a. collection of airline miles. Your parents might or might not be rich, but nothing else matters when you got bunch of flight miles to help you upgrading your coach seat to a business or first class one. Traveling is now your official business.

You can handle jetlag better than everyone else. Well, maybe not on first few years of you being a Third Culture Kid. But hours spent on the plane surely makes you becoming an inventor in making anti-jetlag potion or mastering a power nap.

You tend to be more open-minded and have a high-tolerance of diversity. You know how it feels like to have multi-racial best-friends so you don’t easily get pissed off if there is something that is done differently from what you usually do.

You don’t have awkward cultural experiences when you travel. You know that you have to bow when greet a Japanese older person and take off your shoes when go inside a local’s house in Thailand.

You are a food snob because you have sampled the best and most authentic of every possible cuisine. Your friend knows that they can lean on you when asking about where to find the best paella in Barcelona or the tastiest sushi in Tokyo.

You are always home even when you are away from ‘home’. For you, ‘home’ is not a matter of place anymore for it is more about feeling that given by people you meet along the way in a place where you currently are living at the moment. It might sounds weird, but you never truly miss some places and be sad leaving the others because you leave your heart in every place you visit.