Home and cultural identity difficult to pinpoint for third-culture kids
For children who are raised outside their parents' culture, the search continues for a sense of belonging
For a growing number of youngsters these days, the question: "Where are you from?" may not be as straightforward or easy to answer as others might imagine. Rotem Steinberg Wiersch is one of them.
"If I am in Hong Kong or anywhere else overseas and someone asks me that question, the answer is Israel. However, when I am in Israel, I'd always say: I am from Hong Kong," says Wiersch, a 17-year-old student at Sha Tin College. Born in Rehovot, Israel, the teenager moved to Sri Lanka with her family when she was three years old, then to Hong Kong when she was 10, and has lived in the city since.
Wiersch is part of the generation of "third-culture kids": children raised outside their parents' culture for a significant part of their developmental years.
In today's globalised economy where companies relocate employees to different parts of the world for business reasons, the generation of third-culture kids keeps growing.
Unlike many third culture youngsters who have problems adjusting to living in different cultures and wondering where they belong, Wiersch has a strong sense of her roots and family, one of the founding families in her hometown. She can speak fluent Hebrew, her mother tongue, and she visits her hometown in Israel regularly.
"I spend every summer there working in a cafe, which gives me the opportunity to integrate with the local community," she says.
