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A TCK - and wouldn't change it for anything
May 29, 2013, Wednesday
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AFTER spending eight years of my life abroad I will be returning to America. What has America meant to me? Vacation. Not home.
I was born in Michigan and when I was five years old, my family and I moved to S?o Paulo, Brazil. I was entering kindergarten and I was super excited. Little did I know, nobody else around me would speak English. This was only the beginning of my feeling like an outsider. Don't feel bad for me, though. Being a foreigner has never bothered me, but now at age 13, I am moving back to my home country where I will continue to feel like a foreigner.
When I lived in Brazil and started speaking Portuguese, I thought that meant I was Brazilian. I started making new friends, and sometimes I could even translate for my parents and siblings. I was happy and felt like I fit in. I started getting used to my life in Brazil along with the routine of heading back to America for summer vacation, until once we weren't heading back to Brazil; we were heading to China instead.
I was 10 years old, and my family and I moved to Shanghai where I would begin fifth grade at Concordia International School Shanghai. I was excited! I already knew the routine. Everybody there would be a foreigner, just like me. At school orientation, I was so surprised by the large number of students that appeared to be just like me - American. (At my school in Brazil, there were only a few families from the US.) I made my first couple of friends, Hayden and Elyssa, in the blink of an eye, but I still felt different. To me, they were "real" Americans. They moved here from America, unlike me.
Six months ago we had the option to move to South Korea. I was thrilled about the idea of moving to South Korea because I wouldn't be the foreigner, where again, I would be just like everyone else at school, another student away from their home country. That all changed, however, when my family decided it was time to go "home" instead.
For the first time in eight years, I am not excited to go back to America for the summer because I know that I won't be coming back to Shanghai once summer break is over. I also know that I have to begin eighth grade feeling like a foreigner in my own country, even if I don't appear to be foreign. After all, although I have spent some summers in the US, I have not lived in America since I was five years old! Even though I might feel like a stranger in my own country, I am blessed to have had all of these experiences and to have made friends with people from so many countries. I am a third culture kid -- "TCK" and wouldn't change it for anything.
I was born in Michigan and when I was five years old, my family and I moved to S?o Paulo, Brazil. I was entering kindergarten and I was super excited. Little did I know, nobody else around me would speak English. This was only the beginning of my feeling like an outsider. Don't feel bad for me, though. Being a foreigner has never bothered me, but now at age 13, I am moving back to my home country where I will continue to feel like a foreigner.
When I lived in Brazil and started speaking Portuguese, I thought that meant I was Brazilian. I started making new friends, and sometimes I could even translate for my parents and siblings. I was happy and felt like I fit in. I started getting used to my life in Brazil along with the routine of heading back to America for summer vacation, until once we weren't heading back to Brazil; we were heading to China instead.
I was 10 years old, and my family and I moved to Shanghai where I would begin fifth grade at Concordia International School Shanghai. I was excited! I already knew the routine. Everybody there would be a foreigner, just like me. At school orientation, I was so surprised by the large number of students that appeared to be just like me - American. (At my school in Brazil, there were only a few families from the US.) I made my first couple of friends, Hayden and Elyssa, in the blink of an eye, but I still felt different. To me, they were "real" Americans. They moved here from America, unlike me.
Six months ago we had the option to move to South Korea. I was thrilled about the idea of moving to South Korea because I wouldn't be the foreigner, where again, I would be just like everyone else at school, another student away from their home country. That all changed, however, when my family decided it was time to go "home" instead.
For the first time in eight years, I am not excited to go back to America for the summer because I know that I won't be coming back to Shanghai once summer break is over. I also know that I have to begin eighth grade feeling like a foreigner in my own country, even if I don't appear to be foreign. After all, although I have spent some summers in the US, I have not lived in America since I was five years old! Even though I might feel like a stranger in my own country, I am blessed to have had all of these experiences and to have made friends with people from so many countries. I am a third culture kid -- "TCK" and wouldn't change it for anything.
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