✴︎TCKs (Third Culture Kids) are people who grew up mobile between cultural worlds ?
Club Launch on Clubhouse! ✨
The popular “Adult Returnees” series has been relaunched as the new TCK Series ✨ From 9PM to 10PM JST/Tokyo time. Our chats will be spotlighting the speaker’s experience of international mobility and career development. We’ll be welcoming Danau Tanu, an anthropologist, as our first speaker.
Our goal is to reach across generations and career paths to put into words the experiences of “adult TCKs”—and all the ambivalent feels that come with the territory—for the next generation.
In this interview, I talk about how I felt like an immigrant kid while going to an international school because I was Western by day and Asian by night. I also talk about how I engaged with the term ‘third culture kids’, as well as the importance of paying attention to not just the ‘movers’ but the ‘stayers’ too in international schools and help TCKs connect with the local place where they live.
I am in incredibly good company no less! The December issue of Among Worlds focuses on TCK Vocations & Careers with articles by many established writers, coaches, and so on in the TCK world. Some articles are practical and others heartwarming.
Some offer tips for TCKs looking to build their careers. These might be especially useful for younger TCKs who are just starting out or those who feel ‘stuck’ in their careers. See the articles by:
‘The opposite of belonging is fitting in‘ -Brené Brown-
Belonging. It’s a simple word with a lot packed into it. Is belonging something that just is and can’t be changed: we either belong or we don’t? Or can we learn how to belong?
I’d say yes. The older I get, the more I think belonging is a verb and an ongoing process. It’s not an end point that we have to strive to arrive at.
The good news is, I think ‘belonging’ is something that we can initiate.
But it needs regular maintenance.
The bad news is, we spend a lot of our time trying to look for it ‘somewhere out there’ as though we’re looking for gold that’s already in the ground somewhere. We fall into the trap of believing we’ll miraculously stumble across it one day and find it. And then we get frustrated when we don’t find it.
So, how do we learn to belong?
I’ll be sharing more about this topic with some of the folks at TCKs of Asia in December.
Come join us for the conversation!
Online Saturday, 12 December 2020 9am New York – 3pm Lagos & Amsterdam – 10pm Singapore & Perth
