Yoo Jin Jeong / Chapter 5 Interview / Narrative & Composition Tuesday 3,4

           In a world of ongoing globalization, one useful term that no one really seems to know about is TCK, or Third Culture Kids. They are children who were born into one culture but grew up in another. They then live in a strange amalgamation of their parents' culture and the culture they are currently living in, which ends up forming a culture of their own. TCKs often face many problems, such as adjusting to the new unfamiliar culture and readjusting to their home country when they come back. They have a hard time figuring out what place they should call "home", and have difficulty identifying what culture they belong to.

           Because I am a TCK myself this topic always interested me, so when I met another TCK in my translation class I was very excited. Song In Baek, nickname Song, was a TCK from Sri Lanka. She went to Sri Lanka at the age of 6 and lived there for 13 years. I asked her for an interview and we went to a small cafe at the back of HUFS, which was fortunately mostly empty. We ordered our drinks, an earl grey for me and a green tea latte for her, and I started the interview by asking her to tell me some of her earliest memories. She remembered the plane flight, of how they landed in the middle of the night. Her father was waiting at the airport to take the family to their new home.

           "It was quite dark. I did not see anything. Sri Lanka wasn't a developed country. The street lights weren't very developed. All I could see was the headlights. I couldn't see the view."

           The first thing Song saw the next morning were the tropical trees outside, the palm trees, coconut trees, and mango trees. "That was the first living, different organisms that I've ever seen in my life," she said with a laugh. She could hear the sound of birds twittering, and when she went outside, she could see clouds in the blue sky. Her voice lit up with passion as she remembered them. "To be honest, the blue sky and the clouds, they are not in Korea. Those skies and clouds, they are incomparable to Korea."

           "In the beginning of the year, right as I landed there, it was heaven for me," Song said, her gaze drifting to the ceiling as she remembered. Due to the differences in school schedules, Song had her first 6 month in Sri Lanka off. She only had fond memories of this first 6 months, because she got to live in a large house with a garden and had pets for the first time.

           I asked her if she was faced with any culture shocks when she first arrived there. "My first culture shock was eating with hands," Song replied with a laugh. "I've never thought of eating with hands. Many people in Korea found it unhygienic, but to me, it was quite a free style. I didn't want to eat with tools! And they were wearing traditional clothes everywhere. It's called sari, and they show their belly. And I was like, what are those clothes?" Going barefoot and seeing someone wear a burka also made it to the list..

           We next moved onto Song's school life. She went to three different schools in Sri Lanka, all international schools because foreigners were not allowed to attend local schools. Her first school was called Gateway International, which involved a lot of adjusting, since when she first went there she could not speak a word of English. "When I could not speak English, my friends split apart and made me a loner. That was really sad. But I had one girl, who was my best friend. She had courage. She was the only one who was next to me during that time. And when I started speaking English, everyone started coming back. They all came back for my stuff, because I had different Korean stuff. I knew, you were coming for me because I have different lunch and snacks. Maybe that's the culture difference. If you're different, they try to stand away from you."

           Song explained the school system for me a little bit, then I asked whether she made a lot of friends. She remembered that they were mostly nice. "Everyone can survive if there is at least one person standing for you," she said. "The most problem that I faced was the jealousy. Sri Lankan people, they are very jealous about something. It's a national thing. But if you're jealous about something, they show it. They will not tell you in words, but they will show it in action." She then told me a story about how a student made up a story about Song and told her mother, who was a teacher at the school. The teacher then scolded her and told the parents of other students to avoid her, which didn't end until she moved to her next school.

           Then we moved onto the second part of her life, which was coming back to Korea. I asked her how well she thought  she has adjusted to Korea. She quietly took a sip of her green tea latte, deep in thought. "I think I have adjusted quite well," she said, crossing her arms and leaning back into the sofa with a sigh. "At the moment. I think right now... maybe I have adjusted... I cannot say a hundred percent. But I will give myself eighty percent here. I still don't get all the etiquettes in Korea, but the reason why I said I have well adapted is that I have learned to ignored that. I am not stressed about that anymore." She used to be bothered by people who would not excuse themselves after bumping into her, but she learned how to walk away.

           There were a few things in Korea that she had to get used to: Grandmothers in subway who pushed her away. Korean food, such as sundaeguk (soup made of pig intestines), gopchang (grilled cow or pig intestine), and sunjiguk (soup made of cow blood). The drinking culture. "I thought I was very Korean. My parents thought I was very Korean. I believed, I wanted to believe, until I came to Korea then I started living here. I did not know whether I was Korean or not."

           I decided to ask what culture she felt most comfortable in. Song looked up to the ceiling for a minute without speaking, her gaze lost in thought. "I would like to bring some of Sri Lankan parts to Korea. The good part of each." Then I asked her what place she considered home. She sat silent for another while, her eyes darting around the room while she was thinking. "Wow. That's another tough question. When I'm in Korea I find myself Sri Lankan; when I'm in Sri Lanka I find myself Korean. I wish there was a land between these two where I could bring all I want to that country and I can say I'm from that country. But I say I'm Korean. My blood is Korean, even though I was raised in Sri Lanka. My parents are Korean, my passport is Korean, my ancestors were all Korean. If I say I'm Sri Lankan, that's just how I was raised. At this point, I will follow my ancestors."

           My next question was how to get back down to earth when she struggled with her identity. Song's eyes were glued to the ceiling again while she sorted out her thoughts, her gaze trailing down the walls as she spoke. "The moment I get into that stage is when Koreans tell me, 'You are Korean. Why are you acting like this?' Then all of a sudden I think, 'Oh I am a Korean and I'm acting like this.' I accept it. I was raised in a different culture. But when the same person says, 'Oh you're Sri Lankan.' I am offended. I don't know why I am offended. This person changes from one thing to another, and that confuses me. Everything that is "me" is called Sri Lankan. Koreans usually say that, especially who hasn't been abroad and doesn't know the culture difference there. This is a unique culture of myself. I love it when someone says, 'This is you. You are nothing else. You are the mix of Korean and Sri Lankan culture and you have created your own culture.' That's me," she said, looking straight at me as she finds a direction to lead her words.

           "That the point when I think about myself, when I'm floating around. This is me. This is my unique power that others don't have. I have experienced so many different things, something unique in Sri Lanka and something unique in Korea. And having this identity crisis itself is another experience and that's taking me to another level. This is my own culture, my unique culture and no one can have it. That kind of brings me back and gives me strength because I like to be unique. When people remember something unique about me, that's how I find strength."

           Lastly I asked her for any tips she could give to TCKs who are coming back to adjust to their home culture. "You don't need to try to fit into the culture," she said, then she started fumbling over her words a little bit, like she was trying to think as she spoke. "Like, if they can accept the culture, and this is their motherland and if they can't accept certain cultures, don't accept it. If you do not think it is acceptable in your own individual culture, you don't have to accept it. You don't have to force other people to make them understand you. If people do not understand you, it's their loss. There will be at least one person who can accept who you are, so don't try to fit in."

           It was then her turn to ask me questions. She asked me about my opinions on her answers to the interview, about my experiences in the Philippines and back in Korea. We spent the rest of the night exchanging stories and opinions over our empty cups of latte and tea, laughing like we never could with our non-TCK friends. We're all unique, we're all different, but when we talk to each other about culture and experiences, we know there is something that ties us together in ways that others will never know.

           We left the cafe five minutes to closing time, and I wished we could have talked longer. Because although this was an interview for a project, talking to a TCK is what grounds me the most when I feel like I don't belong anywhere. I was able to walk home refreshed, ready to start the next day in this country that was both foreign and home.