Culture in the Blender

Pollock and van Reken mention in their groundbreaking book that one of the unique properties of third culture kids is that we experience the world as three-dimensional, meaning that we can easily imagine that we are on the scene of a news report and understand the consequences, suffering or difficulty reported on.For me, the 四川 (Sìchuān) earthquake is a good example. My parents lived in 重庆 (Chóngqìng). Now I’m wondering if our building is still standing, and whether the concrete factory that used to cover everything in white dust overnight is blanketing the area in inches of crumbles and pollution, and whether the taller buildings on the other side of the river are all right. I’m wondering about my sponsoring company’s factory there, along with the other joint venture factories I know of there. I know exactly where the office tower the BBC footage from 北京 (Běijīng) on swaying towers is - I rode the bus past it almost every day. I could have been there.

Those times when I hear bad news of people dying from a part of the world I know and think “There? I could have been there! I could have died!” are often times when I feel alone. International news so emotionally distant to local people. On the other hand, I felt rather emotionally distant from Hurricane Katrina. I’m not entirely sure why, but one explanation is that I live so thoroughly in a world of distant proximities that I’m just that lacking in patriotic fervor. I may simply feel closer to 北京 (Běijīng) people or 重庆 (Chóngqìng people than New Orleans people, because I conceptualize belonging nearly completely in a transnational, abstract space. It’s always hard to analyze yourself, but this might not only be an example of Pollock and van Reken’s properties of TCKs, but it might also connect that property with experiencing distant proximities strongly and living in Rosenau’s Affirmative Global world.

Maybe I feel for the earthquake victims more than Hurricane Katrina victims because I am very aware of that my life has intertwined with 四川 (Sìchuān), but not with New Orleans. My repatriation has made me keenly aware of the fallacies of assuming commonality because of shared language, partially shared culture and shared genes. I see myself, others and my own identity playing out in a space of emotional connections which are distant proximities. I do not automatically feel connected to people because they superficially ’seem’ like me. The most bitter moments of my life were caused by such people, and in contrast, some of the best were with people who were not superficially like me. I am committed to a global identity in ways that I doubt many expatriates are.

Perhaps our reactions to international news regarding our old homes or places we visited a lot locally is just the visible indicator of what really sets us apart from expatriates or other international-minded people. If I’m anywhere near typical, I just don’t care about people (above and beyond fundamental human dignity) just because they look like me, talk like me, dress like me, or have the same passport as me. All of those have been shown to be poor indicators of real similarity to myself. I feel connected to anyone I’ve met who is open-minded and open-hearted, and I continue to feel that way no matter how far away they are from me at the moment. The strong emotional reaction to bad international news is a natural consequence.