Interview 1: mina
Both of the people that I interviewed are friends from my high school because they fit my topic perfectly. They are T.C.Ks from the U.S. who have recently returned to attend college. My first friend, Mina, was born in Japan, moved to Australia at one, then moved to London at three, after that New York at five, then Hong Kong at eight, and finally she moved to Singapore at the age of thirteen. Obviously, after living in six countries, Mina has experienced a lot of cultures of which most are very different from that of the U.S. With so many cultures I wanted to know where Mina says she’s from when introducing herself. Simply put she says, “I’m from New York, but I just moved from Singapore.” Even so, when she really thought about where she’s from she said, “It’s a long story, I’ve lived in 6 different countries, so I don’t really know where I’m from.”
We then moved on to talking about expectations vs. reality. She explained that she just expected the U.S. to be “different from what I’m used to. People are less relatable. I expected people to be like ‘Singapore and Japan?’ ‘oh your English is so good.’” When talking about the real difference between expectations and reality she stated, “Um, well I expected it to be a lot harder to make friends but I was able to make friends easily. I expected people to already have a lot of friends in Davis because they had already lived in California and they would have people from their high school at college but even though that’s the case people are still friendly.” Most people experience dramatic change when going to college but for T.C.Ks that change has another layer. I asked Mina, “Has it been hard adjusting to life in the U.S. beyond the basic adjustments of college?” To which she responded, “No actually. I actually really like how people in the U.S. are more outgoing and friendly because in Asia people don’t really talk but here no matter where you go everyone talks to you and is friendly. Like Uber drivers and cafeteria workers make small talk whereas in Asia they don’t really do that so I really like it here.” The fact that the change hasn’t been more difficult could be in part due to the fact that Mina doesn’t necessarily identify as an international student as “the international students here (at UC Davis) are classified as F.O.B.s (Fresh off the boat), international students are from like main-land China or like overseas, and I went to the national seminars during orientation.” However, Mina doesn’t identify as an American student fully either for her, |
Photo Credit: Stanczak, Lael. 2016
“It’s hard to say because I’ve lived abroad all of my life so I’m not American in culture, and I don’t know the differences in slang from state to state but I’m also not international because I have an American Passport but I don’t really relate to American students.” All in all identity can be very confusing for T.C.Ks especially when returning to their “home culture” much like it is for most of the people I know from my high school.
Because many T.C.Ks that return for college end up living abroad again in their adult lives I asked Mina if she saw herself living in the U.S. after college and she replied, “Yes and eventually I’ll move to New Zealand or something hopefully, but I don’t see myself living in Asia again.” And to sum up the interview I asked for any final thoughts or comments on the subject: “I guess when we’re living overseas everyone tells you that being a T.C.K. isn’t special or cool/doesn’t get you anywhere but it’s kinda cool coming back and having people be amazed at your life and finding it special. I realized how privileged I am because there are so many people who haven’t left California. It’s kind of annoying when people take going home for granted when my family is 15 hours away by plane.” |