‘Uniquely Me’
I am
a confusion of cultures
Uniquely me.
I think this is good
because I can
understand
the traveller, sojourner, foreigner,
the homesickness
that comes.
I think this is also bad
because I cannot
be understood
by the person who has sown and grown in one place.
They know not
the real meaning of homesickness
that hits me
now and then.
Sometimes I despair of
understanding them.
I am
an island
and
a United Nations.
Who can recognise either in me
but God?
This is a poem by Alex Graham James, an Australian TCK (Third Culture Kid). I first heard this poem at a TCK professional development at school this week and it just struck me. It high lights the paradoxical nature of the TCK experience – the odd sense of being profoundly connected yet at the same time disconnected with people and places around the world.
For someone who has spent her years growing up in three countries, carries two passports and has permanent residence in a third country – What is it about this cross cultural childhood that makes me feel this way?
There are so many of us out there, we deserve our own nation.
My ethnicity, my residence and my cultural affinity have shaped me in different ways yet I belong to none of them. I'm a citizen of neither India (non-resident Indian), Hong Kong (right of abode only!) nor the United States, yet I feel a kinship with members of all three.
We relate to differing peoples because we CAN relate to differing peoples. We're privileged by nature. I feel sad for those of one ethnicity, one land, one culture as they lack the advantage we have.
I was actually wondering if you would say you are from NZ or Oz over there, but i'm guessing Oz is it! You became an aussie and are taking that culture and combining it with your chinese heritage… what a powerful tool you have there anna! You can relate to both sides of the fence in HK… not many people get to experience that
Amongst the homesickness and not belonging to one thing, i think what you have is pretty cool 
whats a third culture kid? this poem sounds a lot like a summary of my university studies…diaspora, transnationalism, multiculturalism and so forth. I like it. =]
If you study these things, monlia, you schould definitely read the book “Third Culture Kids -growing up among cultures” by David Pollock, Ruth Van Reken, and Georg Pflüger!!!
@Sundeep Peswani: I think an own nation for us is contradictory. How could we ever remain in one place??? I think we deserve something like an international passport, or even an international citizenship. Thats what i dream of =)
I enjoy to be who i am, of course, it’s my identity. But i also sometimes envy “settled” people of one nation and place, and i also struggle with problems my identity brings. I think the most difficult and important thing for us, since we are still the minority, is to manage to live together with the non-Third-Cultur-Kids in peace. For we are equal but not same.