You Know You’re a Third Culture Kid When….
This morning I received and e-mail from one of our NuNomad buddies, Milosh Zorica. Milosh has been a part of our blog since we interviewed him in November of 2008 (click here for Milosh Zorica – Graphic Designer on the Move) and I again used some of Milosh’s thoughts on crossing borders in Bordering on Madness.
Milosh is a hard-core nomad who occasionally emails me from many different parts of the world. He works as a graphic designer. If you’d like to see his stuff, check it out at Coroflot.
Today Milosh sent this fun list on how to know you’re a Third Culture Kid and I thought many of you nomads might resonate with it! Thanks Milosh!
You know you’re a TCK (Third Culture Kid) when:
1) You struggle to answer the question “where are you from?”
2) You speak two (or more) languages but can’t spell in them.
3) You are asked, “Where are you from?” has more than one reasonable answer
4) You feel odd being in the ethnic majority
5) You look like everyone else around you but still don’t fit in
6) You have the urge to move to a new place every couple of years
7) You go into culture shock upon returning to your “home” country
You have a passport, but no driver’s license
9) You don’t know where home is (besides saying, “planet earth”, which is usually not accepted)
10) Your life story uses the phrase “Then we moved to…” three (or four, or five…) times.
11) You think VISA is a document that’s stamped in your passport, not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.
12) You sort your friends by continent not color or religion.
13) You believe vehemently that football is played with a round, spotted ball.
14) You feel that multiple passports would be appropriate.
15) Half of your phone calls are unintelligible to those around you.
16) You know the geography of the rest of the world, but you don’t know the geography of your “own” country.
17) You’ve gotten out of school because of monsoons, bomb threats, and/or popular demonstrations.
18) You often speak of your “home” country in the third person as if it were not yours.
19) You constantly get labeled being from another country than “yours”. (Usually one you lived in at one point.)
20) You have friends from more than 30 different countries.
21) You realize it really is a small world, after all.
Feel free to add.
You can connect with Milosh at any of the following places:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/miloshzorica
Milosh is a Co-Founder of Loana Technology, a media streaming and digital assets protection startup
Photo by: Loungerie
