Growing Up a TCK
Growing up a TCK had its ups and downs. When I moved to China at the age of 7, I didn’t even know how to speak English. I was studying in an international school and the first few weeks at my new school, my classmates would correct my pronunciation for words like “scissors,” and no one was Filipino so at lunch time, I didn’t want to use my fork to push food into my spoon. Eventually my English got better after one year of ESL class (thank you Ms. Elizabeth). But around the same time, I was also starting to hate being Filipino. I hated my dark skin and wished I looked like Sharpay Evans or Hannah Montana instead. I changed the spelling of my name to “Diane” in 4th grade because I thought this was how Americans would spell my name.
After almost three years of being away, we finally went back to the Philippines during Christmas (and my 10th birthday eyy). It was during this trip that I had an awakening of the beauty of my culture. Yes, madumi Metro Manila. Yes, maraming mahirap sa Pilipinas. Yes, maraming problema ang bansa natin but it was in this trip that I knew, this place is my mission field. This is the place where God is going to use me. After that, I changed my name back to “Dianne,” spoke more Tagalog at home and at church, and got into Filipino pop culture at naging diehard Kimerald fan.
Fast forward to college, I moved to the U.S. and attended a small Christian university in small town, middle-of-no-where Grand Rapids, Michigan (I come from Beijing and Metro Manila so anything that’s not that size is small to me). This was the time that I experienced depression for the first time. I missed my family and friends. I missed public transportation. I missed food being cheap. I experienced racism for the first time (but that’s another story for a different time) and felt so small. I know I’m speaking English and I know a lot about American pop culture but how come there’s a huge gap between me and the local students? How come I can’t seem to understand them? How come no matter how hard I try, it seems like they don’t really care that I grew up differently from them? By the grace of God, I endured those 3.5 years and graduated with a BA in Psychology!
To be completely honest, when I left the US, I felt like I regained my joy in life. I moved back to the Philippines, lived in Cavite, Quezon City, and Dumaguete in the span of 3 years. I learned how to commute from Cavite to Quezon City, learned Bisaya, learned about Filipino dating culture 👀, got to vote for the first time in 2022, and also saw the wounds and problems within my culture.
And I guess that’s why I want to go to graduate school. Our country is so behind in mental health education and I think part of it is our highly religious culture. We assume that people’s mental health issues can be fixed just by praying for that person or we think people are dealing with anxiety, depression, or developmental disorders because they lack faith or because God is punishing them. I don’t know where I will be pursuing graduate school but that’s the life of a TCK, always moving to where we feel called to, never really settling but always hoping that the next move can still like “home.” Whatever home means anyway.