A new move.

Today I got a text from my mom, going something like this: "Bangkok it is!!!". A very similar text followed from my dad. Have you guessed it? Yup, my family is moving to Bangkok. After three years of Hanoi, it is time to move once again. Only this time, I am not moving with them, I'll be on the side lines. This is the first move that I will not be a part of, and there is something a little bit sad about it. While moves are never easy, they somehow bring a family closer together. You miss friends together, are nervous about a new place together, and are excited for new experiences together. They will be moving to a place which I will have no real connection with. I won't go to school there, or have a job there, it will now just be the place my family lives.

Would it be strange to say that I am a bit jealous? Not because of the place they are moving to (although I certainly wouldn't complain about Bangkok, it has been one of my favorite places for a long time!), but because they are moving without me. At the moment, when I Skype my mom, I can relate to the people she talks about, the places she went to in the weekend, because I lived in Hanoi myself for 2 years. Next year, this will all be different. Although I will visit them in their new home, it won't exactly be my "home", as I have no connections to the place (at least, that's what I say now. If you read my post on "home", we all know that soon I will probably be calling Bangkok "home"!)

I suppose this is the way our family in Holland always felt. Numerous times we moved, and when we talked about our "home", they were not able to truly relate. I never realized how hard it must have been for them, time after time again when we moved. Now I am in that same place, and boy, I have a feeling I am going to have a hard time with this move! Of course, I wish my parents and brother the best in Bangkok, and hope they have a smooth move. However, I am not going to lie and say that a part of me wishes I was 15 again, and going through another move with them! However with every move comes heartbreak and tears about leaving friends and loved places behind. This is the part I won't miss, but dismissing it would be dismissing reality. I know that it will be a rough time for my family, particular my brother, and it will be my job to be there to support them. I will try my best at this, and hopefully succeed, because I have enough experience to do so!

Tradition.

It's hard to create and uphold a tradition when you move around quite a bit. There is no restaurant to go to for every birthday, no park to visit every Sunday afternoon. You often end up with a series of traditions, a tradition per country. My family's tradition in Hanoi was to have bagels for dinner every wednesday, because we lived close to a bakery that sold the best bagels. Every Saturday morning, I would visit the Weekend Market with my mom. In Shanghai, we would visit Century Park on sunny weekends, me on my roller blades and my parents and brother on a four wheeled bicycle. Whenever my mom would pick me and my brother up from school, we would get treated to a garlic french bread at Paris Baguette. In Beijing, whenever we went to Decathlon, my brother and I would get Pop Chicken at KFC. And on Wednesday nights, whether summer or winter, my brother and I were allowed to go get ice cream at the nearby grocery shop for desert. The list goes on, and it's making me nostalgic thinking back to all these traditions. Yes, they were short term, but they are so valuable in my heart. I do wonder though, do these things count as traditions? According to the dictionary, a tradition is:

"a specific custom or practice of standing"

This specific definition does not mention time. How long do you have to do something before it becomes a tradition? I suppose that differs for everyone, and as a TCK, I think my time requirement for a tradition to be created has significantly decreased. As soon as something is done the same for 3 times, it becomes a tradition in my mind. But there has always been one thing, one true tradition, that has stayed the same for the past 7 years.

For Chinese New Year, or TET when living in Vietnam, we would go to Krabi, Thailand. A week long vacation that included the sun, sea, beach, and most importantly, family time. We knew our favorite restaurant there (the fancy Italian for if we had something to celebrate), our favorite place for drinks (the beach bar where my parents told us we were moving to Beijing), our favorite dessert (Swensens Ice Cream, or a banana roti), and our favorite nearby island (Railey Beach). It was something I looked forward to every year, because I knew that Krabi would always be there, the same as the year before. It was a little bit of stability whenever I moved. Yes, it is a very extravagant tradition, but it is the one true tradition in my heart. Which is why it was so hard to break tradition this year. This blog post was inspired by me sitting in my cold room, alone, during TET/Chinese New Year. This week has been hard, knowing that for the past 7 years, my family and I would have been together this week, enjoying the sun. My parents decided to finish this tradition, and instead they are spending the week in Koh Lanta, close to Krabi. This makes me very happy, knowing that Krabi will always be 'our' place, the place for the four of us. I know that sounds very selfish, not wanting my parents and brother to enjoy Krabi without me, but I am ever so protective of my one true tradition.

If you and your family uphold a tradition, I tell you one thing: treasure it! 
 

Home.

There are so many things I could talk about in regard to being a TCK, that I am having trouble finding a starting point. After much deliberating, I decided to go with the topic of 'home'. For most, 'home' is one place, and has always been that one place. For a TCK it is much different. Personally, what I call 'home' varies, and often I feel like I have more than one 'home'. At the moment, Cardiff is home, but at the same time so is Hanoi. For Easter break I am going 'home'; I am going to Hanoi. Why is Hanoi home? I suppose it is because my parents and brother still live there, and because it is where I lived for the past 2 years. While I have now lived in Cardiff for over 5 months, I still feel like I cannot commit to it fully. I suppose I never really feel like I can commit to one place as being 'home', as I always end up leaving it, or if I don't, then my close friends do, people I care about, and 'home' is disrupted. So I have a backup 'home', a place where I know my family will be to catch me if I fall, to help me through the hard times, life a safe haven.

By now, you probably think I have serious commitment issues regarding places, and I do, but there is a flip side. Since my sense of 'home' is constantly changing, the meaning of the word has changed. According to the dictionary, 'home' is:

"The place in which one's domestic affections are centered"

For most, this is exactly what they mean by 'home'. For me; however, this definition of 'home' applies less and less with every move. A sense of 'home' is not so special anymore, and thus I use the word very loosely. When on holiday, my hotel room is 'home'. This is not because I do not know the proper usage of the word 'home', it is because I do truly feel that for that one week holiday, my hotel room is my 'home'. I take my sense of 'home' with me wherever I go, my 'home' is mobile. I think that this is unique to TCK's, as we have had to carry 'home' with us, as whenever we settle in a new place, we always know that we will be moving sooner or later, and that 'home' will have to come with us again. I envy people that truly treasure their 'home', that have had the same 'home' all their life, because the term is still so special.

Now, I am not attempting to write a sob story and have people feel sorry for me. Yes, there are a lot of downsides to being a TCK, this being one of them. Yet there are so many positive outcomes that being a TCK has, things that I will explore in following blog posts. I'm looking to create a balance through my blog, because being a TCK is not all good, but not all bad either, just like almost everything else out there.