I was first introduced to the concept of "Third Culture Kid" in September of 2009. My journal-group leader and mentor for my Student SEED Seminar explained how it was a term that describes men and women around the world who, as children, have spent most of their life growing up in one or more cultures...like me.
What is, and has always been, normal in my life is quite the opposite for most. Within the first twelve years of my life, my family and I had moved back and forth between South Korea and the United States of America...three times. My childhood was greatly influenced by my constantly changing environment and by the characteristics my parents chose to instill in me. This mesh of East and West has created gray areas in my personality, aspects which hold true to neither Korean nor American ideals.
At age 14, I left the comforts of Korea and attended Milton Academy, a prestigious preparatory boarding school just a few miles south of Boston, MA. Known to be the most liberal prep school, Milton taught me how to think, write, and speak freely. Milton fostered a second home for me, where I grew to become an independent young woman. I felt the power of choice and the satisfaction of freedom. I could express my thoughts to teachers and peers without fear of being "wrong." We were encouraged to formulate our own ideas and, as a result, develop good reasoning skills. Now, the more time I spent at Milton, the more apparent the differences between Korea and America became. Aside from the basic differences that set the two nations apart, I began to compare and judge Korean society against an American standard and vice-a-versa: education, finance, buildings, agriculture, dating, sports, music, family, tourism...the list was endless. In the end, I came to a make-shift conclusion that these were differences between the developing and developed. I acknowledged and respected the historical heritage and cultural differences, but thought that all developing nations would eventually become much like America, a developed nation.
In retrospect...'damn, how could I have been so short-sighted? So naive?!' Yea, good reasoning skills...not so much.
With twenty years of intercultural experience, it took only four months of self-reflection and thought to begin understanding MY culture...this so called 'third culture.' My life is both Korean and American. (I have been asked repeatedly if I am Korean-American and my answer has always been, "No, I'm Korean." The subtle difference between a Korean-American and a Korean, who has spent significant time in America to learn about the unique culture, is a story for a later time.) I view society through a blurred lens of both East and West. So much of my life has been spent in the intersection of a Venn diagram that when I look at either set of elements, both seem right. No, to me, both are right. I think this is the reason why I attributed the difference between Korea and America as a socioeconomic disparity between developing and developed. In other words, I was blinded by this global influence and naively dismissed the cultural history of the two nations as a contributing factor. Because both cultures have merged into one, I have trouble viewing each situation from either a Korean objective or an American objective...because most of the time, it's just my objective...which is both.
I need to slowly pry apart the Korean and the American in me and step outside of my little intersection bubble. I need to see that an almost unnatural juxtaposition of East and West has naturally fused within me. This is the third culture.
