Not Feeling at Home in Your Own Country

by Natalie Tudela

    What is the blueprint for your individual background?  It can be influenced through your travel and encounters with different cultures or your family heritage with values and customs.  For the life of a Third culture kid it is a combination of both.  The Third culture kid can experience a vast amount of separation with identity and belonging to a specific culture or home. The challenge for them is relating to something that they can call their own. Why can’t some people relate to their family customs or identify with the country they were born in and are not able to call it their home?  The Third culture kids struggle to connect to their culture influenced by their parents as well as the culture from their birth place or their present home.

    “Third Culture Kids (also known as Trans-Culture Kids) have the best of all worlds. Travel, adventure, excitement; these global nomads collect cultures across a patchwork of countries. Children who have spent a significant part of their developmental years in a culture other than that of their parents develop relationships to all cultures, yet do not really belong to any.”  (Moser).

    If you fall under the category of army brats, missionary kids, global nomads or cross cultural kids you are one of the many who encounter problems with short term friendships, loneliness, feeling of no identity and losing birth language/ mother tongue. There are many websites available to help Third culture kids to adjust to the stress of change and solitude in a new environment.

    “Did you spend formative years in different countries?   Do you know other cultures so well, there are aspects you prefer?   Do you find yourself smiling at the sound of a foreign language?   Are your best friends scattered around the globe? If you answered "Yes," you may be a Third Culture Kid, and the good news is, there are hundreds of thousands of people just like you.”  (TCK).

    For others to integrate, it is like becoming immersed in a culture and adapting like a chameleon.  Having a one on one involvement with many cultures enriches ones views and broadens their outlooks on life.  Being able to experience and compare cultures; it is easy to see how one could become confused and unable to identify with oneself. Yet the beauty and complexity of your identity comes from the intricate and diverse details you acquire in your lifetime.  Having the opportunity to experience various lifestyles allow your views to be open and your judgment not to be sheltered.

“The experts agree that TCKs are multilingual, highly adaptable, broad-minded, often untouched by racial stereotypes, and more culturally aware than their peers back home. They are self-reliant and socially mature. In one sense, they are the ideal citizens in a globalized world.”  (Schuler). 
 
     Students with an understanding of their diverse background are more self- confident and are more flexible to change. They are constantly wanting challenges and are active and curious to different activates and lifestyles.  Students with varied backgrounds have very little trouble with cultural boundaries and can express themselves with ease in cultural situations. “These mobile children are known as TCKs because they integrate elements of those cultures where they live with their own birth culture into a third, different and distinct, culture.” (Kidd).
                                                                      
      With the lack of education offered in public schools around the world, having an education that is taught in different languages, religious views and political guidelines can offer a prosperous and diverse education to an individual.   

ExpatWomen Confession: INFIDELITY

I am currently volunteering for a telephone help line, which is aimed at the expatriate community.  We have received more than 1200 calls in the past year since opening and there is a very clear pattern as to the types of issues expatriates are facing living here.  It is frightening to learn about the vast number of affairs and cases of infidelity that are occurring in our community.  Most of the calls are from wives or friends of, but a few are also from men who want to get out of the mess they are in.  We have obviously discussed many of the issues that arise during our duty with our mentor groups, but I was wondering if you had a theory as to why infidelity seems to strike hard in expatriate communities?

JK

ExpatWomen Girlfriend:

Dear JK,

I guess firstly we should acknowledge that unfortunately, infidelity is not limited to expatriate communities, it is just perhaps easier to ‘see’, in a close expat circle.  It seems that ‘dirty laundry’ is shared and aired more easily throughout the international communities, making it appear more common than at home.  Many books suggest that infidelity is most likely to occur in relationships that are strained and under pressure. Move a relationship with fine cracks to a foreign country where numerous stresses and strains on the individuals and the relationship are inevitable, and you have a recipe for developing plunging caverns.  

Whilst I in no way condone extra marital affairs, if we look at circumstances of an unhappy expatriate relationship, it can be quite easy to see how they can begin. In this example let’s assume the male is the working partner and his wife is the trailing spouse.  It’s worth noting here that while it is apparent that more males are the perpetrators of extra marital affairs, it is not at all completely unheard of for women to partake as well. 

Back to our example - On an overseas assignment, the husband moves to his new office where he is stimulated by an exotic and new working culture and is surrounded by enthusiastic people who bend over backwards to be helpful.  He is challenged by new colleagues and is admired and accepted by his company.  As a result, he feels more alive, interesting and extra special from all the positive attention he is receiving.  His wife on the other hand is struggling at home on her own with day to day cultural and language barriers, is perhaps trying to appease unhappy and resentful children, trying to make friends with other expat wives who are stressed or depressed, is bored, suffering from culture shock and trying to accept her new role and identity.  She doesn’t have the energy or capacity to treat her husband as the new and exciting person he is at his work place. 

Instead, she wants to be able to complain and share her frustrations with him.  A few other factors such as the perks in some expat packages (cars, drivers and servants) can boost a man’s confidence and self worth as can the cultural differences between genders.  In some cultures, it is a women’s duty to put the needs of men above her own and to behave in an extremely feminine fashion.  This vulnerable girlish femininity coupled with adoring attention at work and limited attention from home can forge a rift.   The contrast between husband and wife is resounding and slowly the husband prefers to spend more time at the office with adoring staff and this can eventually lead to an affair.

ExpatWomen Girlfriend

Our ExpatWomen Girlfriend is originally from New Zealand.  She has been living abroad as an expatriate since 1996.  She has an educational background in Human Resources and Cross Cultural Psychology and has worked with expatriate support issues at the private, corporate and non-profit level.  In 2004, she saw a need and established an English speaking hotline in her expat location, offering free mental health support to the growing expatriate population. The hotline provides confidential and anonymous support and information via trained telephone volunteers and is funded through corporate sponsorship.  Our ExpatWomen Girlfriend has always been an active member in the various expatriate communities she has lived in, providing cross-cultural awareness training and informal counselling sessions with a particular focus on the 'trailing spouse' and family.

Disclaimer: This column is intended to be of general interest to ExpatWomen.com, www.awaymagazine.be visitors.  Its suggestions and/or inferences are independent ideas and may not represent the views of ExpatWomen/(A)WAY magazine. See our Terms of Use for further details. Please seek professional advice/counselling/therapy if you genuinely need assistance in dealing with different issues in your life.

Spring Cleaning, the Collyer Brothers tale

By Kenneth Muller

No calendar necessary – the suddenly visible and ubiquitous layer of dust particles in the apartment confirms the fact that the light entering the windows from the Southeast is shifting. Accordingly, my cleaning habits will be required to emerge from their dormant state for yet another spring season. Say what you will about the bleak and often dispiriting effects of the long, leafless and not-so-luminous winters, but they must be given their due for being master illusionists that could even teach David Copperfield a trick or two. The dull glow that should be sunlight is powerless to shoot any golden rays through the windows, thus allowing us to delude ourselves into observing that they are actually clean (enough). The hovering grey mass above generously denies us the sight of a harmless, yet even-coated film of epidermal flakes and the small stuff that the dryer filter just cannot be bothered to capture. Bliss. More time for self-indulgence. Besides, who would be so audacious as to even consider disturbing the Hoover’s well-deserved winter slumber? Maybe it needs that seasonal coating of dust as a protective force filed that will ensure its life well beyond its warranty. But alas, Mr. Hoover, it’s nearly showtime once again, so change that bag, polish those attachments and get ready for that curtain… among other things.

Do we succumb to spring cleaning because suddenly the drek is blatantly pointed out to us as a result of annual orbital shifts, or do we feel obliged to do it simply because it is a term, an expectation? Could spring cleaning possibly be yet another offshoot of religious guilt? With the season of renewed life, there comes a renewed energy in each of us. When we were a bit younger, it is quite feasible that we used this energy to participate in some of the more outdoorsy and social activities that accompany the onset of spring, but having been there and done that, we choose practicality and use that energy to clean out garages and reorganise cupboards. Sad? Maybe not. There are far more frightening alternatives. Do you recall the tale of the eccentric Collyer Brothers of Harlem?

As kids in the sixties, our parents would sometimes accuse of being Collyer Brothers if our rooms were a mess or if we did not do the washing up in the kitchen as expediently as was expected. We knew by the context that this meant we were being chastised for being slobs, but for some reason, it never occurred to us to ask, “Why Collyer Brothers?” Years later as an adult living in New York, I did learn the rudiments of the reference at a staff social event; the party must have been dire for us to have been reduced to a discussion about untidy domiciles...luckily, I do not recall the details.

For a recent school trip to New York with sixteen students from the Antwerp International School, I organized a bike tour of the city. The guide, a young guy named Jesse, led us up to 128th Street at Fifth Avenue and I could not believe my eyes – Collyer Brothers Park! Jesse had my undivided attention as he told the kids the lamentable story of Homer and Langley Collyer. The beginning of the story was not the least bit pathetic; Homer was an engineer and Langley was a lawyer and they lived in a luxurious mansion in New York City. Sounds good to me! What happened?

As they are wont to do, times changed and in the early 1900’s, poverty was becoming more common, and subsequently, so was its fraternal twin, crime. The brothers began to isolate themselves from the outside world, eventually boarding up the windows and setting up a series of booby traps around the house to ensnare unwanted visitors.

In 1933, Homer went blind. Faithful brother, Langley, convinced that Homer would regain his sight, began saving all of the newspapers so that his brother could catch up on things once that glorious day arrived. It never did, and in the meantime, Langley managed to collect a lot more than newspapers. Eventually, in 1947, Langley was caught in one of his own booby traps and could not get himself free. As a consequence, both brothers starved to death. Soon thereafter, a neighbour called the police to complain of a terrible stench emanating from the former mansion, and after a bit of excavation, Homer’s body was found. It was not, however, until more than three weeks later that they found Langley. During the search, over nineteen tons of junk had to be removed from the first floor alone! The building was in such a state of dilapidation and disrepair that it had to be demolished.

I was really pleased that Jesse included the Collyer stop on his bike tour, because the older I get, the more frequently my references elicit raised eyebrows of no recognition from the younger set. At least they now know the Collyer Brothers ! It’s a start.

Back to spring cleaning. In light of the sad and tragic demise of Homer and Langley, the yearly ritual of sorting and heaving has its obvious merits. If nothing else, it just might spare you some bad earthly press once you pass through the pearly gates… which, one assumes, are self-cleaning.