Will I Ever Tire of Movement?
A piece about the need for movement over settlement and what’s my ‘norm’.
As I boarded the long haul flight and 13 hours later landed in Singapore, the embodied knowing of that process of transporting in time, from one home to another, of the wall of humid air that hits as I step outside the airport, the jet lag, the otherness, the feeling a minority in someone else’s homeland… it’s all so familiar.
It’s my version of what I call home.
It’s a strange experience to be one nationality (British for me), sound like that’s ‘where I’m from’, have parents and a sister that live in that country and it not feel like home or at least not my only home.
I’m 36 years old and I’ve spent 17 of those in Far East Asia. 8 years in Hong Kong and Tokyo growing up, and (after completing high school and university in the UK) have see sawed between Singapore and London for the past 15 years.
For just under half my life I haven’t lived where my passport tells me I’m from.
Ignoring the recent nomading, I have lived at 20 addresses in those years. (In the past 6 months I’ve lived at 8. Clocking them up over here!)
Ok rest assured, the stats portion of this piece is over. Suffice it to say, I’m familiar with movement.
I’ve been pondering this theme of my life. Wondering if I’ll ever want to ‘settle’. Wondering if the recent decision to buy a flat in a small town outside of London (what now seems like a little act of out of body madness in light of the above) felt so wrong because it felt so permanent?
The fact that my parents live in said small town and enjoy it there, having lived their expat lives in the US and Far East Asia returning to their home-post over 20 years ago, is actually quite confusing.
Shouldn’t I now want what my parents want? Or vice versa, shouldn’t they still want what I want?
They set me off on this path of movement so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that settling in my birthplace doesn’t feel right to me, however it’s still jarring.
An ex-colleague made a British TV reference to me the other day and when I looked confused he couldn’t understand why this didn’t resonate. I look the right age and the right skin tone and I sound like I should get him… but still confusion. ‘I grew up in Hong Kong, sorry’ usually does the trick.
It’s like I’m a fish out of water although I look and sound like a human. And my parents are human and everyone can’t understand why I want to be back in the ocean.
There’s an expression people use of ‘3rd culture kids’ (or TCK I’ve discovered recently) when children of a particular nationality are raised outside of their parent’s or birth culture.
I don’t feel I’m from Hong Kong, I don’t feel Singaporean, I don’t feel like a Londoner, and I don’t feel like Hertfordshire fits.
It feels rather strange in fact. Like parts of me are out enjoying an English countryside walk and meal in a good pub and other parts are a 13-hour flight away eating Chicken Rice in a hawker.
I can’t describe where I belong but I do know these things:
I have a British accent which doesn’t sound like either parent however I pronounce Twenty as Twenny and Party as Pardy (go figure — there’s another Americanism creeping in)
I like cooking with a wok (it just makes things so much simpler and less washing up)
Having a rice cooker and a kettle as staple kitchen items is necessary
Too much stuff makes me feel cluttered and less agile (and just more to pack on international moves!)
Japanese katsu curry is my go to ‘home comfort’ dish
I wish my Hong Kong friends Kung Hei Fat Choi at Chinese New Year, and my Singapore pals Gong Xi Fa Cai
I’ve had countless conversations with other displaced TCKs about ‘where next’ as we list the pros and cons of visa and tax situations in countries across the globe
I never ask someone where they are from
I enjoy meeting and mixing with new people and hearing their stories
I focus really well when I’m travelling – some of my best writing and thinking happens on a train or plane or a waiting at an airport
I love shopping in a local supermarket and finding they sell white rabbit sweeties from Japan but I also get excited when I spot they stock marmite
I feel my body relax when I’m in 80% humidity and slip into my flip flops
I prefer living in an apartment (stairs are so annoying!)
Part of me feels right sleeping with the AC on and part of me doesn’t bat an eyelid when there’s carpet in the bathroom of an English home
I have collected friends from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, the US and Ukraine dotted around the globe
I’ve dealt with transience all my life. Making new friends to see them leave a year later. Constant and consistent endings, new beginnings, goodbyes and fresh starts.
I’ve adjusted to new schools with new faces. I’ve faced confusion over why the new kid moved over from Hong Kong is pasty white and blonde.
I’ve noticed how much more settled I feel when I’m immersed in otherness. I think I just like being around people that don’t look like me. I feel more at home in diversity.
I’ve come to acknowledge this might be in part why I’m dating someone from an entirely different culture and in a room full of people to talk to I’m drawn to the one that looks the least like me.
I shared the above musings with a fellow grown-up 3rd culture kid recently. He asked me if I always liked moving my bedroom around when I was a child, I laughed because I would drive my mum mad with this request most weekends… That was all the proof he needed to be sure I wasn’t running from something.
He said another way of looking at it is that we process things quicker. We’ve had to adapt to change — emotionally, geographically, environmentally, relationally — so we’ve not just learned how to be good at this but it’s now part of our DNA. Done that, learned the lesson, bought the T-Shirt, what next?
Movement is my norm.
In my recent nomading, I have really enjoyed the transcience and simplicity. Something about the agility helps me ground. I need it to feel free. I guess I’m getting back to my roots in my own TCK way.
Will I slow down? Will I ‘settle’ in how my family or friends in the UK define that word? Maybe my understanding of settlement is actually being in flux. Maybe motion is my landing?
I recognise that my itch to move might be because as a child I wasn’t allowed to get used to settlement, who knew when we next had to move and adapt. But who says this shaping of my norm is not healthy?
I’ll end it there – off to pack my bags now for our next Airbnb stint in Ubud for a week. In flux I shall continue!