How does being a T.C.K change my vision on societies and cultures i've encountered during my journey.

 BEING A THIRD CULTURE KID.

Hello Charlie,

Today I am going to be talking about my personal experience as a third culture kid and about my  journey.

First of all, a TCK ( third culture kid) is someone that has a mixture of three cultures: the parents culture also known as "Home culture". Then the host culture and last a mix of other cultures that are mostly acquired by living in many countries. 

I come from a french father and a colombian mother which i believe allowed me to have a greater sensitivity towards cultures around the world and today's society. I was exposed from a very young age to a bigger variety and volume of cultural references and i've been encountering cultures before even having the opportunity to fully develop my cultural ID. 

Location of Tunisia 

My journey starts in North Africa more precisely in Tunisia where I first moved when I was still just a toddler. Even though I was very young I was still able to observe  this new environment, these new people and this new culture. For example, I quickly got used to eating local ( North African )  meals and was also  able to familiarize myself with Arabic thanks to my kindergarten and my nanny. I was also able to discover new landscapes such as the  sea, the oases and even

deserts. 

At the age of 4 and a half I moved to Bolivia in South America. I was also able to discover new foods even though some meals and products are very similar to the Colombian meals which are part of my daily routine.  Also   I was able to perfection  my Spanish and learn a local language called Aymara  by staying with our house employees. It’s  an Indian language spoken by almost half of the Bolivian population. This is where for the first time I actually understood and learned the meaning of a culture, from the salt desert to the highest mountains or the Titicaca laque where I was able to discover the traditional outfits and the methods used to create them.  This Indian culture was everywhere, even at school where I had to dance traditional dances wearing specific outfits and spoke Spanish every day.This second movement brought in me a lot of curiosity and open up my mind in so many ways. 

 

Bolivian food products 

Multicultural melt pot 

4 years later I moved to the United States on the east coast   in the state of Maryland in Washington DC.  There I attended a public American school in order to learn English faster.  I was old enough to analyse this new society around me . When I first got there  I had a cultural shock to see how important consumption is. What is interesting is that I had two types of main cultures  in front of me,   Native Americans that have been living there for ever and on the other a multicultural melt pot that has  influenced today’s society. As I got to live there I realised that the rhythm of life was not what I imagined at all as a child. It was indeed faster. In my opinion the American society stands on three main concepts, technologie with for exemple tesla or apple, competitiveness for exemple in sports and liberty which is part of the amendments .

To wrap everything up, i believe there are a lot of benefits to being a third culture kid such as being able to adapt quickly to new cultures, monitoring your emotions with ease or even having more than one way to analyse difficult situations. Of course there are many more but i'll let you find them on your own. 

Thank you for reading my blog!

See you soon.