Behind the Ivy - Summer 2018

SUMMER ISSUE |  BEHIND THE IVY

PING! PING! My phone rings as I receive yet another hundred messages from my group chat on Facebook called “tck!!”. Rolling my eyes as I get up from bed, I reach towards my phone and read through the messages I’ve missed while sleeping. TCK, known to them as “Taipei Cool Kids” but also “Third Culture Kids”, is a group chat where a bunch of my friends just rant about things like any other teenage group chat would. But what sets it apart from others is that we live on opposite ends of the world. “Third culture kids” is a term that identifies children raised in a culture other than their parents’ for a significant amount of their childhood. These children are also commonly known as the first generation of immigrant families. Through the hard work the families go through to bring their children to a new place for a better future, they want their children to be even more potent than they were. This means understanding the language and cultures of both their inheritance and their environment. In early childhood, languages are often hard to grasp for these children. Torn between speaking their native languages at home and another foreign language at school, third culture kids often take longer to develop literacy skills compared to others. As a toddler, I didn’t speak much, but when I did, it was jumbles of English and Chinese, also known as “Chinglish,” that nobody but my sister, another third culture kid, could understand. T H I R D C U LT U R E K I D S CLA IRE LEE

Growing up, I often felt caught between different languages. Born and raised in Vancouver, I spent most of my school years in an international school in Taipei before attending boarding school in Toronto. From my mom speaking in Chinese idioms, to my sister practicing French vocabulary, my grandma bartering in Taiwanese at the market, my teachers conducting classes in English, my roommates watching Korean dramas, my neighbours gossiping in Cantonese, and my friend using Japanese slang, I have adapted to living in a world filled with languages. This unique world of mine—this culmination of the different cultural influences in my life—has made multilingualism an integral part of my identity. Over the years, I have learnt that being a third culture kid isn’t that bad. In the 21st century, the number of bilingual children in the world is about the same as the number of monolingual children. Going into a Taipei convenience store, I no longer think that they are judging me but rather helping me become more fluent in Chinese. Consequently, I have embraced my identity as a third culture kid and am grateful for such opportunity given to me by my mom. Third culture kids are common and I’m sure many of your friends also share the same story. I believe these stories are the ones that define our diversity in Canada, bringing together the multicultural languages and celebration into society.

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