These days it isn’t entirely uncommon to meet a TCK (Third Cultural Kid) or CCK (Cross Cultural Kid) who either have parents of different nationalities, or have spent a large part of their lives in various places.[break]
Due to different cultures, traditions, and exposures this new breed of individuals come with their own concept of “home” and what being a global citizen is.
“I have to make everywhere my home. It doesn’t matter wherever I move I have to make it home,” says 26 year old Ayla Pariyar.
The daughter of a German mother and Nepali father, Ayla’s life has taken her across the globe. After living in Nepal till she was 11, the following seven years of her life she moved to India, and then it was off to Germany and Scotland for three years each.
Following a number of months in Vienna and Brussels, Ayla is currently in the UK.
For her, Europe is more home. “In Europe, I can be me. I don’t have to worry about reputation, family name, what I do in life, who I meet, who my friends are, I can choose to live as I please.
” The difficulty with being in Nepal is how her family responds to her., “If I go back for visits my family treats me like I’m Nepali but they don’t understand that things are different for me. I am trying to focus on my career and life and not wanting to get married at 22 and have children. I always get asked when I’m getting married, or when I’m gonna have kids… I feel there is a lot of pressure that is also one of the reasons why I never went back to live there.”
French-Nepali Nadia Shrestha too feels like home is where ever she is. “I remember the first time I realized that I didn’t have a “home” was when I was in Spain feeling depressed. I was so sad I just thought to myself that I just wanted to run away and go home,” Nadia says and explains, “And usually with this thought, an image of “home” appears in your head, but this time it didn’t. I had no idea where “home” was.” Taking this realization Nadia has “learned to adapt rapidly” to wherever she is.
The theme of adaptability is something that most CCKs or TCKs have in common, but beyond being adaptable, those with lives spread over continents speak praises of how their constantly moving and changing life offers them perspectives.
According to 24 year old Astha Shrestha who has moved from Nepal and India to Canada and Thailand, “It helps me have a different perspective on life than those exposed to one culture all their life. I’ve gotten to meet people from all over the world and have an appreciation for other cultures. I think that I would have been narrow-minded, insensitive and unknowledgeable if I had been grounded in one place.”
Of course, though being multicultural offers ample opportunities to learn and grow, it comes with its downsides, namely, often feeling alone and alienated.
Sakar Pudaisani says, “It made me feel like a stranger, an outsider when I visited Nepal. The other factor was that in a country where “Ghar ka? Jaat ke?” is how people make sense of you, I was incomprehensible. I did not make sense to them, and this furthered my sense of alienation from Nepal.”
Nadia has a similar experience and shares, “I don’t belong anywhere, and am always a foreigner in a certain way. I am always away from people I love and in constant instability. I guess my constant is instability. Which may make one strong as a person, but sometimes it is very difficult to deal with as you spend a lot of your time questioning who you are. With no roots, it is difficult to have a strong sense of self.”
Despite the cons and the troubles including always having to say goodbye to close friends and family, Sakar claims, “The advantages of being cross-cultural are tremendous,” just one being how most TCKs or CCKs are multilingual.
It appears those who have benefited from the world wouldn’t want it any other way. “I love the fact that I am all around the world and that I get to see so much and learn so much. I believe traveling is a way of learning and it is one of the most important ways of learning. Makes you tolerant, independent and adjustable,” says Dikshya Gautam who has moved from Nepal to Germany, Bangladesh, America and South Africa.
Even without feeling completely grounded, there are perks to being multi-cultural and those who have lives that span countries and continents are completely optimistic about it. As Ayla says, “I try to keep the best of both worlds in me and try and portray that.”
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