Third Culture Adult — Stories

My first relationship started in Costa Rica. Running around the city, beach trips, endless sunny days. It was perfect…

In Love, Adulthood, Better Late Than Never, Bouncing Back, Moving, Relationships, Resilience, WomanBy Molly Kaitlin (From Peru, Costa Rica, Minnesota & Florida. Living in Tennessee)24 March 2021TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

The Bittersweetness of an International Friendship

One of the neighbours we connected with was a family from the Netherlands. Their lives mirrored our own as they too had recently relocated with a toddler in tow, exactly the same age as ours...

The Powerful Words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda’s contributions are shaped greatly by her TCK experience, where she champions plurality…

Black Lives Matter, AfricaBy Danish Khan (From Melbourne, Perth, Karachi & Islamabad. Living in Karachi)17 February 2021TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Lupita Nyong'o — Mexican and Kenyan Superstar

She starred in ‘Shuga’, an MTV/UNICEF-backed series looking at sexual relationships among youth in Nairobi, promoting HIV awareness…

Black Lives MatterBy Danish Khan (From Melbourne, Perth, Karachi & Islamabad. Living in Karachi)27 January 2021TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Returning to the Ocean's Wave

I know how older people feel, when they return to a country abandoned long ago…

Fear, Moving, Water, AdulthoodBy Shannon Irby (From Ramstein, Tucson, Okinawa, Adana, D.C., San Antonio & Houston. Living in Okinawa.)16 January 2021tck, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture kid, beach, ocean, childhood, resilienceComment

Keep It Secret

Anger is vicious, and knows not his strength. He wrestles and pulls, until Fear’s out of breath…

Anger, Asia, Black Lives Matter, MovingBy Shannon Irby (From Ramstein, Tucson, Okinawa, Adana, D.C., San Antonio & Houston. Living in Okinawa.)2 January 2021TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture kid, anger, Tck, tck, social, socialize, secret, Korea, South Korea, EnglishComment

Catalyzing World Class Education

We need to be developing global citizens who can engage with ideas and issues, make decisions and enact positive change…

Asia, Education, School, ChangeBy Seth Robinson (From the USA & Australia. Living in Melbourne)30 December 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Moving Back “Home”

My teachers weren’t interested that my life had been uprooted to return to a culture that I had little understanding of…

Education, School, MovingBy Natalie Silmon de Monerri (From London & Munich. Living in New York City)12 December 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

'Weird Culture Kids'

This was the daily context in which I grew up: Vietnamese with a splash of Soviet culture at home, coupled with a very French environment at school…

Where Are You From?By Ngoc Nguyen (From Vietnam, France & the USA. Living in Paris)9 December 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

South American Memories in the Margins

The warm and humid tropical air hugs me and in the blink of an eye, it opens a box of memories from another life…

South AmericaBy Eli G. Goa (From Bolivia & Norway. Living in China)2 December 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Stained Glass Shards of Autumn

A promise of fading light and cooling mercury…

The Upfield Line

When the vaccine comes and lockdowns end, the world will be different. At least, that’s what everyone says…

COVID-19By Seth Robinson (From the USA & Australia. Living in Melbourne)4 November 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

The Yellow Uniform Shirt

My form teacher peered over his spectacles at me like I was an exotic bird and gestured for me to take a seat…

SchoolBy Simone de Monerri (From London, Munich, Vienna & Berlin. Living in Essex)24 October 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

I Wish Everyone Were A Migrant For A Week

I corrected her pronunciation. She tried again. I corrected her again. She said she would stick to her own pronunciation of my name…

Fear, SchoolBy Danish Khan (From Melbourne, Perth, Karachi & Islamabad. Living in Karachi)17 October 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, third culture kid, Third Culture Adult, Migrant, Australia, Friendship, Culture, Travel, SchoolComment

Interested in Travelling While Teaching Online?

I have traveled to over 118 countries over the last four years because I could work online and earned a steady income even if I was spending one week in Lebanon and another week in Oman…

School, GuidesBy Kiran Bhat (From Jonesboro [Georgia] & Mysore. Living in Melbourne)14 October 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Social Hide & Seek

Our version of a corsage was a motia flower and though street vendors would sell these readily, they were not durable enough to hang around the hands of people as they danced…

In America, a Grief Observed

As third culture kids, moving around frequently has accustomed us to loss…

North America, COVID-19By Dora Bralo (From Croatia & the United States. Living in New York)22 August 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identity Comment

Loving & Hating Nashville

I took everything I could from Nashville and in return, Nashville took everything out of me. I haven’t figured out how to make this city my home and I don’t know how to stay…

Weaving Stories of Washing Rice

Images appear and race into the mist, to places I’ve been, the food I’ve made and the people I’ve shared meals with…

FoodBy Paul Kennedy (From The Western Pacific, South East Asia, Europe & Alaska. Living in Tokyo)15 July 2020TCK, TCK TOWN, Third Culture Adult, third culture adult, culture, story, identityComment

Learning To Be a Diplomatic Mum

Imagine the chaos of the first few years: Romanian, German and English mixed together in a way that it took us sometimes minutes to realize what exactly it was that our own children were trying to tell us…