This has been a long and strange season for me. I have found myself, for the first time ever, being the person who has “been here a while” and it still throws me off.
I lost a husband. I own a house. I’ve been employed by the same place for five years. I know where things are and what places used to be. My world timeline has stretched longer than I can believe.
But, I still breathe easier in airports, and always eat my Korean food with metal chopsticks. I taught my students an Indonesian word because it was easier than finding an incorrect substitute. I prefer to sit cross legged. I planted palm trees in my back yard. I wear my batik and I don’t know where to wear my galabeya. My frustration is in Spanish and when I’m tired my English grammar fails me.
I am surrounded by a deeply insulated monoculture that is not my own and it is hard. This long staying in a place that is not my culture but seems like it should be is hard. It is harder than living in the Middle East, or South East Asia, and harder than learning any languages I have learned.
People ask me questions to get to know me but it seems that they are the wrong questions or I give the wrong answers. The longer I stay the more obvious it is to me that my culture is different. I have been thinking a lot about that classic TCK image of the culture iceberg. The majority of the cultural values and ideas are underwater and it turns out I’m not so good at swimming here. I cannot count the number of meetings I have sat in where I find myself incredibly confused, not with the what, but with the why and how. I have sat in meetings where I see the same confusion on the faces around me as I speak. Forget being on the same page, we aren’t in the same library.
Grief tipped my iceberg over and no one knew what to do, including myself. I noticed that I don’t have TCK friends. That’s been hard. I MarcoPolo my dorm sister now and ask her if I’m crazy. I might be but mostly I’m different.
I went with some of my people from this world to Spain to work with TCKs. One of them said to me that I seemed peaceful. I said, “I am. I’m with my people. I’m in my world. I’m eating rice pudding twice a day.”
But now, back in this tricky place, where I am staying, where I have a place of belonging but don’t actually belong, I find myself repeating a phrase again and again to myself and those around me:
Kind curiosity.
The kindly curious have been my life savers. They are the ones that will stop after making a cultural reference and give me context just in case then ask if I knew that one. They are the ones who will ask that one question further. What was the dorm like? Do you miss it? Is it hard to be here?
I remind myself of the same. Even though I understand the language and know my way around, I am still a stranger here and I need to learn. I am still asking the dumb questions and I am still learning how very different this place is, and how very different I am.
And maybe that has been the most interesting part. I am learning so much about myself. I found out greetings are so important to me. I discovered my heart holds to honor/shame. I was told that using someone’s name as you debate can sound manipulative and it still doesn’t make sense to me. I am trying my hardest to be American on-time, which means early. I realized I don’t ever know what time it actually is or what time things happen.
TCKs will never have a box to check on a customs form. We will not have a cultural moment in this world. We will probably walk widely undetected through spaces that we will borrow. But every once in a while we will find a moment where a curious mind wants to know more, and by letting them in we will each find more of ourselves there too.
Be kind.
Be curious.
