Living in a Third-Culture

A person’s perception of “home” has always fascinated me. I’ve always believed that in each person lies a place that warms their hearts — or a city that gives meaning to their existence.

When I encounter a person for the first time, I find myself paying close attention to their place of upbringing. In the city, I look for customs that explain their movements and belief system. Behind their candor and speech, I look for the sounds of the place that may either be a bustling city or a tranquil suburban area. The way the city pulses through their veins and reflects in their demeanor. Isn’t it amazing how a single place could define a person?

This isn’t simple for people like us, though. For people that belong to more than one place or maybe even two, it gets quite confusing.

My parents were both born and raised in the heart of the capital city of the Philippines, Metro Manila. They had me in Manila and lived until I was four. My family decided to move to Hong Kong for work. During long weekends, my family and I would still find the time to visit the Philippines as if it were a bus ride away. When I turned 18 years old, I flew back to study for university for four years. My stay in Manila was eventually cut short due to the pandemic, and so I’m back in one of the cities I call home. This year marks my 17th year living in Hong Kong. But even so, I couldn’t quite grasp where home really was to me.

I’ve always wanted to call myself a local Hongkonger. Like any local, I would go for cha chaan teng (often called Hong Kong-style cafés in English) on early Sunday mornings to order myself a bowl of Hong Kong Style Satay Beef with Noodles and a cup of hot milk tea. Like any local, I would clutch onto my handbag and rush past other citizens in the MTR station (Hong Kong’s major rapid railway system) as if I’m about to miss a flight. Like any local, I would say my m goi’s and dor ze’s (translates to “Excuse me” and “Thank you” in English) out of respect. When Chinese New Year comes, Hong Kong is my home. But no matter how hard I tried to identify myself as a local, it never sat well with me.

I was often a bystander during my high school days. I studied in a local all-girls Catholic school which meant the majority of the institution consisted of Cantonese-speaking girls. The school was attended by over 900 girls each year and a small chunk of them were non-Cantonese speaking girls like me, otherwise known as the “French girls”. We were dubbed as such as it was mandatory for us to study French for six years. As for the other girls, they studied Cantonese. It never made sense to me but it sure looked great on my resumé. Sure, I also knew Cantonese but it was only useful when it came to ordering food or saying hello. It was a completely different story when it came to an academic setting. When a teacher would make a joke in Cantonese, I would laugh as if I were part of a talk show’s audience, not understanding a single word that was said. At school events, you would find me sitting at the back of the hall sitting next to an English teacher translating every word spoken. Eventually, I managed to pick up common Cantonese phrases from my classmates. But even so, my Cantonese was not fluent enough to join a conversation.

Lunchtime was the most chaotic of all, during which our playground would turn into a battlefield of cliques. Every group had an untouched spot claimed by the populars, the jocks, the good-ats, the fine-arts, or the weebs. And somewhere in the little corner of the holy campus sat us girls. The “French girls”. The non-Chinese girls. The ethnic minorities. Our tiny group was a melting pot of cultures and languages which made us a bit more interesting than the other girls. Like myself, my girls were multilingual and were born elsewhere — be it in the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Singapore, or Britain. We led our own little country where we would make jokes in Tagalog, curse in Hindi, order food in Cantonese, and gossip in French.

For a moment, I thought to myself, I found my home.

Then I thought back to the times I visited the Philippines. My family can be as Filipino as it gets. My family and I shared a household with my grandparents and my cousin’s family. I have so many cousins that I cannot count them with my two hands or even my two feet! We often have our typical fiestas and boodle fights with a gigantic, freshly-roasted lechon resting on the center of our table. As soon as I’ve arrived fashionably late to a party, I pay respects to my relatives by practicing my mano po’s, the holy grail of Filipino customs. Of course, the party isn’t complete without warming a piece of stolen lumpia in my hands until after the opening prayer.

My family takes Christmas very seriously. We are so Filipino that we put our Christmas tree up by September. On Christmas Eve, it is almost essential to layout a table per relative group — the Titas, the Drunk Titos, the Doñas, and finally, the Children. Karaoke is definitely a must on Christmas Day. When I think of Christmas, the Philippines is my home. But even so, I didn’t feel Filipino enough to identify as one.

English is my first language. It is universally believed that your first language should be your mother tongue. In our country’s case, that would be Tagalog. At home, my parents and I would speak Tagalog and English daily. Sometimes, we would even code-switch in Taglish. It was the language I heard most when watching teleserye with my grandmother. Growing up, it was one of the languages I heard around me among many others having grown up in a multicultural society like Hong Kong. Still, my command of Tagalog isn’t the best. In fact, my relatives found me cute and entertaining when I couldn’t roll my l’s and r’s properly. Just as I thought I’d finally bargained for clothes in Tagalog correctly, store clerks would answer me in English and chuckle, “Hindi sya pinoy.”

At that moment, I realized, what’s the point of trying if people don’t see me as Filipino?

By the time I entered college in the Philippines, fitting in started to feel like a chore. Aside from my broken Tagalog, my habits were barricading me from finally finding my cultural identity. When I say thank you, my body involuntarily bows which is a common custom in Chinese culture. Growing up in Hong Kong, I also tend to prefer to get things done quickly. Sure, we Filipinos get things done, but 2381 hours later. Forget the weekly lunches or after-work drinks. To local Hongkongers, work is work. I had gotten used to the fast-paced city life where traffic does not exist and bank transactions do not take forever. And please do not get me started on our government system.

To be quite frank, I missed my home called Hong Kong.

Living in Hong Kong was no different, though. The friendliness of Filipinos is incomparable. I often find myself yearning to bump into a Filipino stranger hoping we would start a conversation on how horrible the traffic is in Metro Manila. How blue the water in Philippine beaches is during the summer. How much we miss eating sisig. Unsurprisingly, this community of Filipinos is pretty easy to find in the city. I pretty much go to Church on Sundays to have a taste of the warmth our people give off. It is almost a thrilling experience when I meet a Filipino for the first time as it can be compared to meeting an old best friend. This is not something you can receive from Hongkongers.

I began to wonder — if I’m told I’m too foreign for the Philippines, then what am I? If I’m too Filipino for Hong Kong, then where am I from? No matter how hard I try, I cannot explain how foreign I feel when I fail to speak a language I am expected to be fluent in or why I have beliefs different from what I am believed to have. Wherever I go, a part of me is missing.

“Where are you from?” the question I abhorred the most growing up.

What is supposed to be a minute conversation turns into a TED talk about my entire life. I can tell you my maroon passport and birth certificate says I’m Filipino. I can tell you what my Hong Kong permanent resident card implicates. I can also tell you where I studied for elementary and high school. But to tell you where I’m from takes more than one answer to satisfy my needs.

After years of avoiding the dreaded question, adulthood has finally forced me to make a decision. Now that I’m about to enter the corporate world, I think it’s time I build my life soon in a place I can truly call home.

Being raised in an urban jungle like Hong Kong, nothing feels more like home than the sound of multiple languages being spoken on the streets or the dim sum plates clamoring as the waitress lays them down on a plastic table in a hurry. I can lose myself in the neon signs and vibrant skyscrapers that light up across the harbor. Nothing will ever beat the convenience of city life and its natural liveliness.

I remember what liveliness is like in the Philippines. My mind lights up when I spot the stressed syllables in a Filipino accent. I cannot speak my native tongue fluently but I can work the accent in my tongue when speaking English or Cantonese. My heart warms when I think of my family back in my mother’s childhood home and my grandma’s home-cooked Nilaga.

This is how deep the Philippines runs within me. The same way the metropolitan city moves me but quickly. The bright city lights thrill me but not the way the scorching heat does on Philippine land. I’ve been looking for the perfect mix of family, languages, skyscrapers, and islands. If only this place existed.

But what if I create my own world? My own culture?

I belong everywhere and anywhere that fills me.

Why should I choose to live in one country when I can live in both or even three? I am constantly switching between two worlds in a third-culture where I could belong nowhere in an instant. That’s the real beauty of living as a third-culture kid. My life is my playground where I am able to expand and inherit the best traits from the two worlds and create my version of a hybrid culture. This I could use to my advantage as I’m reaching the peak of adulthood.

An upbringing with a wealth of global experiences has its perks. As a child, I have been exposed to a fusion of accents and traditions having lived in an international city like Hong Kong. The language section in my resumé suggests so. To be a cultured and multilingual candidate is a trait that has opened doors for me professionally and personally as it supports my ability to adjust to various environments. Besides, nothing is more festive than getting to celebrate three cultures simultaneously in a month. In winter, I have the chance to do a rapid wardrobe change from traditional sari clothing for Diwali to Thanksgiving turkey-themed sweaters to Santa Claus jumpsuits.

There is this proverb I learned in high school that I never really understood: “Curiosity killed the cat.” As a third-culture kid, curiosity is what drives me. How do people live? Where have they lived? How do they eat? What gets them busy during the holidays? What has changed them? I want to know everything about the people around me. I am addicted to learning the old and new. I love exploring new places and interacting with their people. As someone raised between the Philippines and Hong Kong, where friends and family would come and go, we become adept at calibrating ourselves to finding connections between both points, relating equally with our peers from Australia, America, South Korea, London, Japan, Malaysia in my case more so than others. Ask us about the political controversy happening in Western Australia and we will explain both sides of the parties to you. It is our cross-cultural knowledge and skills that have formed our identity. At some point in my life, the plane was my third home where the map became my personal playground.

This is the life of a third-culture kid.

You can ask me where I am from and I can tell you what places have touched me. I can tell you of several places I have lived and how its people have left a mark.

You can ask me where home is and I can tell you that home is not a geographical location nor is it a place you grew up in. Home is what warms me and is familiar to my conscience. I am the product of my environment, and my environment is what I consider my home.

I now believe that no one belongs to a place, be it a country or a city. Our identity cannot be dictated by a piece of paper or an accent. It changes over time as we visit a new place, meet new friends, take a new job, get our hearts broken, and find ourselves.

I do not belong to one country, instead, I belong to a blended world of city dreams, cultures, food, people, and spaces. As for my home, I’m looking forward to seeing where that may be next.