Book review of the book "Expat Alien" by Kathleen Gamble

I am so happy that there are third culture kids out there writing books and telling us their story. Kathy Gamble not only grew up abroad but also followed suit. She married a Russian American, moved to Moscow and raised their son there. As an expat parent she raised their cross-cultural kid in Russia.

I met Kathy online through her blog Expat Alien. She has written her memoir "Expat Alien, My Global Adventures".

Her parents moved to Burma in the 1950's and that's where Kathy was born. Due to her father's job in Third World agriculture with the Ford Foundation the family moved to Mexico, Colombia and then to Nigeria. At thirteen years of age she goes to boarding school in Switzerland. She likes the school better than the one she attended in Texas for a while. In Switzerland "I felt like I could breathe" she writes. Kathy describes life at boarding school. The food was generally bad and you did not get to choose who you lived with.

While she was at boarding school in Europe she travelled the continent from Venice, Florence in Italy to Paris and London. She learned to ski in St Moritz. Actually wherever she was she travelled. "I used to run into people I knew a lot in airports and museums around the world".

The book gives insight into the life of a third culture kid. Kathy survived a plane crash, an earthquake and a military coup but to her her life was normal. It was only when she moved to California to start college that she discovered that the other girls didn't like her stories of her life abroad. They thought she was bragging or lying. Her first year was very difficult, she suffered from a "reverse" culture shock. I can really identify with this part of the book because my experience was very similar to Kathy's. I went to university in the Netherlands but had a similar experience. Kathy starts to wonder whether there is something wrong with her. During the years in America she never got over the feeling that she was different.

While living in Moscow, in her forties she discovers what global nomads are and that they are also called third culture kids. It was her "aha" moment, this was what she had been looking for. She says that she is not from anywhere. She is a third culture kid, from everywhere and nowhere.

The book is a great read for anyone who grew up globally or parents who are raising third culture kids. If you just enjoy travel and adventure stories then I am sure the book will appeal to you too.

Related Posts:
Interview with author Heidi Sand-Hart of "Home Keeps Moving"
Book review of Expat Teens Talk
New mentoring Program for Expat Teens
Book review of the Globalisation of Love by Wendy Williams

Hello World! The Dutch Children's Book Week 2012

I just listened to the song specially made for the Dutch Children's book week (de Kinderboekenweek 2012). It's a really great song and I would nearly like to call it a third culture kid song. The song is all about the world and all the stories of this world. One of the children sings  

"Hello neighbour, tell me your story. You come from far away, but now you are here, we are here together."

Another child sings: "hello book, with your nice stories, countries far away, new people now live in my head".

"The world is mine, the world is yours, it's ours".

"When you read you understand the people around you,
When you read you know you're not alone,
a book opens borders and let's you go into the world" 


This year the Children's Book week is all about meeting other cultures. I just love books and I love meeting people from other cultures so you can imagine that I am quite excited about this theme. The coming week many schools, bookshops, and libraries will be organizing activities around this theme. It sounds like a lot of fun! I would like to encourage all third culture kids living in the Netherlands to share their story this week. Tell other children about the adventures you had when you lived abroad. I want to encourage immigrant and refugee children to tell their stories. Let's have a time of celebrating our multicultural stories and our multicultural kids. I am grateful for all the multicultural books that have been written.

Watch the film, listen to the Dutch song and enjoy all the multicultural kids.

 Here is the song with the song text:

The Children's book week is from the 3rd of October until the 14th of October 2012.

Related posts:

• Dare to be a creative third culture kid
• My 10 advantages of growing up in another culture
• Cultural identity confusion and third culture kids

Looking forward to this film: "Shanghai Calling"

Just to let you know that I am looking forward to watching this film. Just watching the trailer makes my heart skip a few beats. I am a third culture kid and I just love:

• meeting people from other cultures
• hearing foreign languages 
• adventure
• travelling
• a new challenge
• tasting new foods
• a multicultural environment

All above elements are included in this new film. Just enjoy the preview. I'm sure (adult) third culture kids, expatriates, immigrants, cross culture kids, global nomads and anyone who has experienced a move from one culture to another culture will appreciate this film.

More information about the film can be found at www.shanghaicalling.com and on twitter @Shanghailicious.

Related posts:

• So many Global Stories Waiting to be told
• Book review of the new book "Expat Teens Talk"
• Neither here nor there...where do I belong?
• Aga Magdolen's trailer "Les Passagers"

Meet Rebecca, an expat raising trilingual kids in the Netherlands

By chance I met Rebecca. Well actually we met through Marktplaats. It's a website on which one can buy and sell things. I was the buyer. Rebecca comes from Texas, lives in the Netherlands and together with her German-Italian husband she is raising two trilingual daughters here (16 and 14 years old). I would say that her girls are real cross cultural kids. I was interested in her experience. Rebecca writes a blog: http://signalsminusnoise.blogspot.com/

Twenty four years ago Rebecca moved to the Netherlands with her husband. Both her daughters were born here. 

Where’s home for your daughters? This question comes up a lot. They have done “Home country” projects at school. When my youngest daughter had to make a map of her home country city, she did a map about Dusseldorf, where her grandparents live. When it was a project on the climate of your home country showing rivers etc she choose to do  a map of Texas (so that’s a home too). There is no one answer for kids that are brought up this way. Home ends up being something you carry in yourself, both girls are at home in Texas, where their cousins, granny, and the lake house are. The Netherlands is home too. Germany is where the German grandparents and other paternal relatives are so it is home too. We were there every Christmas, Easter and part of every summer. The basement at their grandparents' home was their playground.

The downside of it is that they don’t have a fixed home, they don’t have deep cultural ties, they don't have the deep roots to any of these places, but they do have a connection. My home is Texas. They will not miss their house in the Netherlands like I miss mine in Texas. If we went to Portugal that would be a home for them too. In some ways they miss some of that. They will never have that patriotic aspect. They will never get tears in their eyes with any national anthem. My husband has a tie to the Germanic culture, it gives him pride in his country. The girls don't have any of that kind of connection or loyalty, but instead they have flexibility and a less judgmental attitude.

What languages do you speak in the home?

I spoke only English to the children, my husband spoke only German, they were raised in a Dutch creche from 7 months of age. Until the age of 5 the children had full choice about which language they wanted to answer, it was usually Dutch. Then they were encouraged to speak English back to me, German to to their dad, usually they communicated Dutch to each other. They were trilingual from the beginning.

They both changed from a Dutch school to an international school when the oldest was 10 years of age. She was furious. Her thought processes were in Dutch. Understanding English was no problem, input was fine but she had to think about it in Dutch and translate it to English to answer. It slowly switched over. It's harder for me to switch from one language to the other I make more mistakes.

Do you have some concluding words? 

The most important thing to deal with about third culture kids or cross cultural kids is that there is nothing that you can do that can make their experience like yours. Be flexible, see what fits your kids, adapt to what comes a long. For example our daughters celebrated the Indian Diwali festival in the international school. You may not be able to understand some of the things they are going through but there are compensations in lots of different ways.

                                                    ************************************************************************

Thank you Rebecca for sharing your experience. You had so much to tell me so this is just part one and part two will follow soon. We will compare growing up in Texas with growing up in the Netherlands next time. 

What's your experience? Where's home for you or for your kids? Do you have experience with raising trilingual kids? Or with raising cross cultural kids? Please share your stories with us.

Related posts:

• A guest blog by an African Gypsy: A story of an Adult Third Culture kid
• Cultural identity confusion and third culture kids
• Children of the World: where are your roots?
• Adult third culture kids: an under-tapped source of high quality expats?

Book review of "The Globalisation of Love". There's love in the air, all around the globe.

I heard about the book “The Globalisation of Love” on The Writer’s Abroad Radio show. Jo Parfitt interviewed the author Wendy Williams and my interest was awakened immediately. When I started to think about it, I realized that there are so many people around me in a multicultural relationship (a GloLo relationship as Wendy calls it in the book). I have neighbours, colleagues, family and friends around me in multicultural relationships. Even my own relationship brings together different cultures. The reason I choose to write a review of this book on this blog is that I have a feeling that third culture kids (TCKs) probably have more chance of entering into a GloLo relationship just because they mix with people from lots of different nationalities. Adult third culture kids usually love traveling too, so you have more chance of meeting your sweetheart on the other side of the globe.

The author Wendy Williams lived in 6 different countries and worked internationally for 18 years. Wendy is Canadian and she is married to an Austrian and is living in Vienna. They have an Austro-Canadian daughter.

GloLo couples have to bring together in addition to two personalities (which is already big challenge) their two worlds. In the book Wendy touches on different issues that are all part of a multicultural relationship, for example religion, language, location, food, and children. There is even a separate chapter on the topic of meeting the parents, this event often includes lots of traveling. Wendy has interviewed many multicultural couples and has included many examples and funny illustrations of things these couples differ in. I like all the examples because it makes it easy to relate to the different topics.

The children of GloLo parents are called GloLo children. They could actually be called Cross Cultural Kids, that’s the term introduced by Ruth van Reken.

In the book there are several Top 10 lists, like the Top 10 GloLo celebrity couples (glad to see that our Dutch Prince Willem-Alexander and our Argentinean Princess Maxima are included in the list). There are also Top 10 clues that you have GloLo children.

I can imagine that this book would be really good for couples that are extremely in love (living in the “love bubble”) as well as not so in love and struggling with multicultural issues in their relationship. The book is down to earth and helps you get an idea of what the consequences are of starting a GloLo adventure together. The book gives you “food for thought” while you enjoy reading it. Even parents and other family members of couples in a multicultural relationship should read the book because it will help them to understand the challenges faced.

You know love is in the air and it is all around the globe, so it’s good that there are books like this one.

“There is a world of multicultural romance happening out there and it is all captured in The Globilisation of Love.”

www.globalisationoflove.com

Related posts:

• New Book "Writing out of Limbo" about Global Nomads and Third Culture kids
• Heard of the magazine: Among Worlds?
• New book: "Emotional Resilience and the Expat Child"
• Great Third Culture Kid information on the web
• Cultural Identity Confusion and Third Culture kids

Veelkleurig Nederland

Wist je dat Nederland nog nooit zo veelkleurig geweest is als nu. Dat hoorde ik in Het Klokhuis op donderdag 10 november 2011. Er leven in Nederland ongeveer 190 verschillende nationaliteiten naast en door elkaar heen. De klokhuispresentatoren Dolores en Mustafa leggen samen met hun ouders uit hoe Nederland zo veelkleurig geworden is. De ouders van Dolores zijn uit Suriname gekomen en de ouders van Mustafa destijds uit Marokko. Het is een leuke uitzending om te bekijken.

Kijk hier naar: Het Klokhuis, uitzending Veelkleurig Nederland

by J.Durham Morguefile

In 2007 was Amsterdam de meest multiculturele stad ter wereld. Of het nu nog steeds zo is kan ik niet goed terugvinden maar volgens mij is het wel zo.

De top 3 multiculturele steden van de wereld zijn:

1. Amsterdam met 178 nationaliteiten in één stad in 2010
2. Antwerpen, België met 164 nationaliteiten in 2007
3. New York, U.S.A. met 150 nationaliteiten in 2007

De meest voorkomende "vreemde" nationaliteiten in Amsterdam zijn:

1. Marokkaans
2. Turks
3. Brits
4. Duits
5. Surinaams

Wat voor talen worden er in Nederland gesproken? Het Nederlands en het Fries zijn de officiële talen van Nederland. In de 4 grote steden van de Randstad worden er, naast het Nederlands, 110 talen gesproken.

De top 5 talen in de steden in Nederland zijn:

1. Turks
2. Hindi
3. Arabisch
4. Engels
5. Berber

Waarom schrijf ik eigenlijk over de veelkleurigheid van Nederland? Op deze blog gaat het veel over third culture kids (TCKs), het gaat over kinderen die opgroeien in andere culturen maar hier in Nederland hebben wij die andere culturen om ons heen. Wat een rijkdom! Wat bijzonder dat er zo veel talen gesproken worden in dit kleine landje. Wat bijzonder dat onze hoofdstad de meest multiculturele stad is ter wereld. Volgens mij moeten third culture kids of global nomads zich wel thuis voelen in Nederland met zo veel diversiteit aan mensen en culturen om ons heen. Mocht je het niet zien, zoek het op en je komt het tegen. Ik ga een volgende keer over cross cultural kids (CCKs) schrijven. Dat zijn bijvoorbeeld kinderen van immigranten, asielzoekers, kinderen die ouders hebben van twee verschillende culturen. Heel boeiend.

Het leuke van third culture kids (zoals ik ben), wij zijn niet bang van de veelklerigheid van Nederland. Wij zijn gewend om mensen van verschillende nationaliteiten om ons heen te hebben. Ik geniet ervan.

Ook worstelen wij als TCKs met soortgelijke zaken als immigranten. Dit gedicht genoemd "Gevangen tussen twee culturen" sprak mij erg aan. Hier ook een gedicht van een Nederlandse TCK "Wortels".

Hoe kijk jij als third culture kid naar de veelkleurigheid van Nederland? Wat vind jij ervan?

A Confession to make about the term Third Culture Kids

Well I have to admit that I have a confession to make. So listen all. I hope you have discovered that I am passionate about third culture kids and that I want more people to know what third culture kids are. I want you all to know why and how cross-cultural childhoods affect children and that cross-cultural childhoods do matter.

For those who are new to this DrieCulturen blog. I want to let you know that it all started on the 12th of June 2011. As I write I want to let you know that the past 24 hours people from 8 different countries have visited this blog. You came from Germany, Singapore, India and Sweden for example. The blog is just over 4 months old and people from more than 50 countries of this globe have visited here. I am so glad you came and I really hope you found what you were looking for. In Indonesian they say "Selamat Datang" meaning Welcome!

The most readers to date were from these countries. Here's my top 5:

1. the Netherlands
2. USA
3. Belgium
4. UK
5. Canada

Now the confession. When I started this blog I took the definition of third culture kids from wikipedia. Recently I discovered that experts like Ruth van Reken are not happy with this definition and actually think it is a little incorrect. This is the definition I found on wikipedia in June 2011.

Wikipedia: 
A third culture kid (TCK, 3CK) or trans-culture kid is "someone who, as a child, has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture." 

To all the readers who have read the definition on my blog I want to say I am sorry that I had the wrong definition. The problem with the above definition is that it talks of integrating pieces of culture. Culture is not individualistic, it must be shared.

The correct definition is the definition used in the book "Third Culture Kids, The Experience of Growing up Among Worlds" written by David Pollock and Ruth van Reken. So please forgive me for leading you astray. I will better my ways from today.

“A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside the parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background.”

While I am writing this blog post I have just discovered that wikipedia has recently changed the definition of a third culture kid. It is now a correct definition. In April 2011 Ruth van Reken wrote an article explaining what third culture kids really are.

Dr. Ruth Useem a sociologist from Michigan state was the first to introduce the name third culture kids in the 1950's. Originally her definition was very simple "A third culture kid is a child who accompanies a parent into another culture".

If you want to find more information about third culture kids visit TCKid.com
DenizenMagazine is an online magazine dedicated to third culture kids and written by third culture kids. It's really worth a visit.

Read my blog on: Third culture kids learning to be themselves and on cultural identity confusion and third culture kids. Well that's enough talk on definitions. I was really relieved to discover that I was a third culture kid. Relieved that there was not something wrong with me but that the feelings I experienced had to do with my cross-cultural childhood. What a relief that was, of course it does not explain everything but it gave me a good starting point from which to go forward. What are your thoughts on "third culture kids"? Are you one? How was it to discover that? Do you know one? Please share with us. Thanks.

Rina Mushonga een voorbeeld van een cross cultural kid (CCK)

Heb je de naam Rina Mushonga al gehoord? Zij is een Nederlandse/Zimbabwaanse zangeres die in India geboren is. Lees hier meer over Rina Mushonga: het beste van twee continenten. Rina is een third culture kid (TCK) maar ook een cross cultural kid (CCK). Een cross cultural kid heeft ouders afkomstig van verschillende landen of culturen.

Rina zegt "ik kom niet van één plek en mijn muziek ook niet".
"Ik verwerk zowel mijn Europese als mijn Zimbabwaanse achtergrond in mijn muziek"

Luister naar Rina:

Wil je meer muziek van Rina horen? Dan kan dat op http://www.youtube.com/rinamushonga.

Er zijn veel meer mensen die een deel van hun jeugd in het buitenland hebben doorgebracht. Hier zijn meer voorbeelden van Nederlandse adult third culture kids (ATCK). Ik heb ook eerder geschreven over Ank Oosting en Jutta König. Haikaa is ook een artiest net als Rina Mushonga. Haikaa is geboren in Brazilië en heeft in Amerika en Japan gestudeerd. Vaak zie je dat mensen die een deel van hun jeugd in een andere cultuur doorbrengen ruim denkend zijn, creatief, inventief, and they "think outside of the box"! Er zijn meer voordelen wat betreft het opgroeien in het buitenland, maar er zitten natuurlijk ook nadelen aan.

Het lijkt er op dat het Rina goed gelukt is om de verschillende culturele componenten van haar jeugd te mengen in haar muziek. Is het jou gelukt in je leven? Zou je er misschien iets over willen delen? Voeg dan een opmerking toe. Ik wardeer het. Wil je meer over mijn verhaal lezen?