Third Culture Adventures

I have my own culture

Growing up in a country foreign to my parents and with friends that were also out of place, meant that I had to form my own culture from a mix of everything I saw.

Now that I'm living in the Aussie culture, sometimes things that are "normal" here don't fit into the culture that I built for myself. One of the stranger ones is the culture of men holding open the door for women. I mean, I get it, I know why they do it; culturally, it's socially respectable to hold the door open. And I appreciate it when they do, just like when a fellow woman holds the door open for me.

But sometimes I see a man open a door, start to walk through it, and then spot a woman and stop. They wait for a woman that's meters away, or step back out of the doorway to let the woman go through first. So even when the act is clearly at cost to them, they still bow to this cultural norm.

When it comes to men vs women, I think everything should be equal including the things we do for one another. In case you're wondering, yes, I've had "stand offs" with men at doors. The men I'm talking about take a few seconds to process it when I hold the door for them. And it makes me think, am I being socially inappropriate by rejecting their cultural tradition?

It must be hard being a man these days. Not that it's easy being something else, but these days in particular men seem to be culturally wrong at every turn. I don't want to make that worse by blaming anyone for holding a door open! It's a very nice gesture, and a sign of a good gentleman. Just every now and again, be prepared for a woman to hold the door open for you too.

Posted on August 1, 2015

#reflections #australia #childhood #culture #doors #menandwomen #norms

Is third-culturalness open to non-3CKids?

I just met someone that I find myself describing as a third culture adult.

The conversation started off comparing Sydney to London, which is the type of conversation I love. NSW has many towns named after places in England; Liverpool is a semi-industrial suburb southwest of Sydney as well as a place in Mersey, Gloucester is a small country town in the Hunter region of NSW as well as a city near the (old) Wales border. Similarly, Paddington is a borough in central London and "Paddo" is a suburb near the Sydney city centre.

In a classic case of culture bleed, this person - who is English - recently returned to London for a visit and called that Paddington "Paddo". Which did not go over well with the locals.

We got talking more, and I found out that this person grew up in one town in England, which is both her own country and the country of her parents. After school, she left home to travel the world, living for a couple of years at a time in China, Egypt and more. Now she lives happily as a Sydney-sider in sunny Australia.

While talking, I can see similarities between her childhood and mine. I can see where she got her "itchy feet". That town she grew up in was a commuter town, a transient town just like the Middle Eastern countries of my childhood were for my family. Her school friends cycled through as their parents got different jobs, just like my school friends. Once they left school, her friends all moved away from the town - mostly to other places in England, but they're still not there when she goes home for a visit. The town has also boomed since she left, looking nearly unrecognisable from what she remembers.

These days, she's someone with a great appreciation for change. She's lived in all these countries (and moved to Australia without concrete job prospects). Plus we're actually colleagues, and in the last year I've seen her take on three different roles in different departments, and seen her thrive.

Discovering all this extra information about my colleague was pretty eye-opening for me. I guess being a globe-trotting cultural chameleon is something that can be grown in any transient environment. No passport-watering required.

Posted on July 2, 2015

#australia #childhood #expats #itchyfeet #language #moving #london #sydney #uk

Reading on the move

think I'm going to have to stop listening to audiobooks while I drive. When I'm reading a good book, I tend to become engrossed in it, wrapped up in the mind of the characters and near oblivious to anything that's going on outside the world of the book. In the past, reading has helped me to block out screaming children, airplane engines and entire train journeys.

Not the best experience to be having while operating a moving vehicle! Luckily I'm listening to these books on the way to work - a route that I know well and could probably do blindfolded - as I keep finding myself in foreign lands rather than the streets of Sydney. I'm surprised these haven't been made illegal while driving :)

Posted on February 7, 2014

#audiobooks #car #driving #reading

Getting bugged

When I was 8, I had a dream that all the bugs and lizards would come for me while I slept and take vengeance for any family of theirs I might have stomped on. Thousands of bugs, crawling over every wall and across the ceiling, dropping onto my face...

On a completely irrelevant note, I won't kill a single spider or lizard in my house. In fact, I have a pretty bug-friendly policy in casa Danielle. The spiders provide a symbiotic service by catching flies and ants and the bigger ones can be moved outside sort of easily. I don't even have the heart to move the cockroaches and deprive the cat of her playthings.

But I'm waging a war with the realm of Ant. There's no open food anywhere, except the cat's and I don't want to spray killer chemicals there. Google tells me they don't like vinegar, so now my kitchen smells like a British fish & chip shop and the ants find tiny, zig-zagging paths around the pickled-patches. Hopefully these attempts will count in my defense for yesterday's kitchen massacre... They seem to have got at least part of the message, now they only walk behind appliances or against skirting and don't venture out into the open. Maybe that's the best victory I can hope for until winter returns.

Posted on January 24, 2014

#reflections #ants #australia #cat #childhood #spiders

Like riding a bike

Last week I pulled my bicycle out after 2 injured months of not riding it. Pushing it out of the driveway I had second thoughts - surely it would be easy enough (though not cheap enough) to find a carpark in the city for a few hours... I didn't want my December injuries to play up again, but I really wasn't sure how they were going to react.

I went out with minimal distractions and took it slowly. The sun was shining, there weren't many cars on the road, and after 10 minutes it felt exactly like the thousands of journeys I've made on this route before. The same sense of freedom and independence that are part of what I love about cycling. Another 10 minutes in and I was flying again, these well worn bike paths coming back to me like.. well, like riding a bike.

Posted on January 20, 2014

#bicycle #bike #cycling

Sydney life in January

January is my absolutely favourite time of the year to enjoy this wonderful city. Right now we're far enough away from New Year's that the only tourists left are just here to relax and enjoy the city, but close enough that hundreds of families are still away on holiday. This gives the whole city a relaxed feeling, even when you go back to work straight away.

To me, January is Sydney taking a breath before the year begins. Festivals start, installations pop up, hatted restaurants go on sale, the weather is great, and there are amazing experiences to be had everywhere you look.

Sydney Festival itself is held this month. This is the third Sydney Festival since I moved here, and I haven't missed one yet. It's hard to miss one, as the festival integrates into so many parts of he city. The Festival is different every year, but it always feels like the city just wants to play.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Hyde Park, where they have a giant jumping castle-Stonehenge for adults and kids alike. Staff handed out playful twirling umbrellas for the waiting line, and everyone that didn't bring socks spent their time bouncing between patches of shaded, cool plastic. Further into Hyde Park, you could choose between dressing up in cardboard 'armour' to fight a Box War or grabbing a free book from the pop-up mid-garden library. On another day you can choose between hanging upside down on a wall in Circular Quay or losing yourself in an inflatable tent by the Opera House. Fun, quirky and outdoors - the best parts of Sydney life.

Posted on January 17, 2014

#reflections #australia #january #sydney #sydneyfestival

Building an idea

Tonight I built a wardrobe. And we're not talking IKEA, no Allen key in sight. This one involved hammers, power screwdrivers and - given that the instructions said two people - a lot of careful balancing and clamps.

(At the beginning, the cat watched with interest from her cat-tree throne. As the wardrobe grew, it evolved into a scary monster from whose depths came bangs, shouts and whirrs and she was off like a shot to hide in the other room.)

To me, there's nothing quite like being able to make something from scratch, and see what you're doing physically develop over time. As a kid, I loved being able to create something that was specifically designed for what I wanted it to do. True, sometimes I simply had to, because nowhere in Bahrain sold it. We didn't even have an IKEA to crib from (unless you drove over to Saudi). Plus I've always gravitated towards all the fixit jobs (rehinging fences, rewiring plugs, creating bookshelf curtains) - perhaps because I was growing up with a busy single mum - so working with screwdrivers, hammers and measuring tape feels natural and comfortable to me.

Living in big city Australia these days, I have less need to build things from scratch. We're almost given permission go be lazy when Woolies sells all the picture hanging or garden managing tools you need and ebay sells just about everything else. Tonight helped me to call back those almost-lost feelings; of being able to focus completely on making, letting the rest of the world fall away.

Finally, it gives you an unbeatable sense of completion. I made this. I can walk past my wardrobe everyday and know that, without me, it wouldn't be standing there.

Posted on January 10, 2014

#reflections #australia #cat #childhood #diy #home #ikea #sydney

What does the new year mean to you?

Why do we mark this arbitrary point in space and time? What makes 23:59 on 31 December so different from 00:01 on 1 January?

1 January is a public holiday in many countries, making it the only day that businesses are closed across the world simply to let people sleep in. (Not to be confused with Australia Day; the only day that business are closed across a country just so citizens can get drunk.)

New Year's is one of the many things the Romans gifted the modern world and is celebrated on 1 January in almost every country of the world - even countries that don't traditionally use the Gregorian calendar will recognise 1 January as a New Year. Some people link the western "New Year" with Christianity (another Roman 'gift') and so celebrate in moderation, or feel left out. There's a great article about Israel's discord between the 'New Year' in the Gregorian and the Hebrew calendars here.

One of the many things I love about Sydney is how huge a party it puts on for the Chinese New Year, yet while the parade and fireworks are fun, I don't get the same feeling about the next day as I do on 1 January. You could say this is because I didn't grow up using the Chinese calendar, but I did grow up using the Islamic calendar, and I can't remember any widespread celebrations for Hijri New Year in 16 years.

Some people use January to practice their calligraphy skills to change one number into another - slightly harder to do this year unless your 3s start off very angular.

Some make resolutions, making this the year they quit smoking or take up running or just be happier. But what's to stop you from making resolutions on your birthday, or on the 2nd of May? Life is an ever-changing, ever-evolving beast and every moment - throughout the year - is a chance for you to do what you've always wanted to do. Plus making a new-June resolution takes off the pressure of a 365 day timetable deadline, just take one day at a time.

Lately, I've looked forward to the first week of January as a chance to get a head-start on projects at work. Most of my colleagues take an extra week of holidays where they can, and there are very few deadlines for the 5th of January. The phone stays quiet all day and the only emails you get are out of office replies. This leaves our office calm and contemplative and makes for a great environment to get things done.

I can't deny though, that there's something in the air on the 1st of January. Like the world is holding its breath, waiting to see what you're going to do next. I get the urge to spring clean, make plans, make this year stand out. I start new projects (like this one), rearrange furniture, change my Facebook photo. But I don't make resolutions. Resolutions (also known in some circles as goals) are my constant companion throughout the year, encouraging me to step out of my comfort zone and onto a glacier in the middle of a frozen June, or to sign up for a 3 month Spanish course in late September. These - and many, many more - were fantastic experiences that I did finish. Which may not happen to resolutions, which must compete with each other and with the ramping up of the year.

So, I believe the New Year is a challenge, an opportunity, a space for something new. And so is every other day of the year.

Posted on Janaury 2, 2014

#reflections #culture #january #newyear #resolutions