I've been reading "The Art of Coming Home" by Craig Storti. What follows are resulting ruminations.
Being a TCK means being a paradox that walks around on two legs and talks (sometimes sensibly, and sometimes not so sensibly). Here are a few illustrations:
I can travel around all of Europe, sleeping on trains, carrying nothing but a backpack, and enjoy it.
I can stand up to irate cleaning ladies in train station bathrooms and sling back as good as they're dishing out to me.
I can converse in three languages and order from menus in six.
I started traveling across the world by myself via airplane when I was 15. (And I've crossed the Atlantic more than fifty times.)
I have more than passing acquaintance with the cultures of four different countries.
BUT:
I don't know how to use an ATM.
I don't know how to open a bank account.
Highway systems mystify me.
I wouldn't have a clue how to operate a gas oven.
I don't know how to buy a car.
I don't know how to buy a house.
I have a lot of trouble boiling eggs.
Until a few days ago, I'd never had a library card or checked out a library book on my own.
I don't know who the mayor of my city of residence is.
And a plethora of other things.
As a TCK, I have a storehouse of experiences and skills that enable me to function on a global scale. But when it comes down to some of the practical details of everyday life, I am often operating solely on guesswork.
I'm not bemoaning this; it is who I am. I don't feel any sort of desperation to "fix" the things on that second list. I am definitely interested in self-improvement, but most of those things, I figure, I'll learn in the course of life. I just thought I'd offer these two lists as an example of the TCK paradox--because unlike Tigger, I am not the only one. ;o)
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
why being a TCK/expatriate is so weird
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1 comment:
That's funny you mentioned the gas oven because I learned to use a gas oven in Chemnitz. You had to turn it on, then slide a match down this chute to light it. (I imagine you were really supposed to use long matches, but we didn't have any.) So when we moved into a place in OKC with a gas oven, I was sure I knew how to use it, but I couldn't find the chute for the match. It took quite a bit of time and at least 4 people inexperienced with gas ovens to figure out that you just turned it on and the oven had an automatic lighting mechanism that kicked in after about 30 seconds to a minute. Silly us, we kept turning it off too soon because we didn't want to blow something up.
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