Let me tell you the story of someone who grew up as a Third Culture Kid, like Kud.
As I have mentioned before, I was born in a former Sovjet country. I grew up with two native languages and two religions. After celebrating my 10th birthday in my home country, my family immigrated to Germany. That means, except for my family, I had to leave behind everything I had. That includes my childhood friends, whom I’ve been playing with ever since Kindergarten. Part of why observing the core Little Busters members is tugging on my heartstrings is because they are childhood friends who grew up together. Something I had long lost.
Everything was new and I did not know what to expect. It was a whole different world, the possibilities of which I couldn’t possibly gauge. I couldn’t speak German when I entered school. That made communicating with my ‘peers’ very difficult. Back at home, I had started learning English in the first grade, so I could communicate the important things to the teachers if need be, but my classmates, whose curriculum was much milder, weren’t as proficient. It is no wonder, then, that anywhere I went, I felt completely isolated. I was always alone. My parents could only relate to my struggles to a certain extent due to the difference in age and obviously, they couldn’t accompany me to school. And my brother was several years younger than I, thus attending a different school. Only a few years later did our circumstances become comparable. So I had to adapt to the new and foreign environment all on my own.
It took me a year to learn the new language, but only a day to realize that everyone at my new school was fundamentally different from me. To the other kids, everything about me was different and weird. The way I look, the way I talk, the way I dress myself, the way I move, my thought process, and my interests. They had fun watching me struggle with the their native language, and hearing how strange mine was. “Hey, hey, how do you say ‘Penis’ in Russian?” Why did they want to know? In order to shout out those words for several weeks in every situation imaginable. Kids certain ages sure are easy to entertain…
Sometimes, when I did things, they would start laughing. I thought it was a good thing, so I kept doing it, but I eventually realized that they were making fun of me. And that they had gotten the wrong idea. Their image of me was off to a ridiculous extent. Full of confidence, they would talk about what they thought why I am the way I am. Even after I had learned the German language and was capable of communicating normally, I would still slip up a lot and every mistake I made was still funny to them. It wasn’t just the kids. The teachers, too, would often misunderstand my words and intentions and scold me. I don’t think most kids had wanted to be mean, but I did have to deal with actual bullies, as well. To be fair, though, I was only faced with outright hatred on very, very few occasions.
I have changed schools several times. One of the hardest things about it was that every time, I also had to say goodbye to the few friends I did have and start from zero again. As a foreigner, and a shy kid on top of it, making friends really wasn’t easy. The people I tended to get along with back then were simply those who would talk to me normally, the same way they talked to others. I didn’t want to be alone, so I was quick to trust kids who seemed nice. Unfortunately, it didn’t always end well. No class was like the previous, but It always started with me becoming an outsider. As I was growing up and getting accustomed to this not-so-new-anymore country, the differences between me and my peers kept waning. My cultural background was becoming less and less obvious and it became easier to blend in. But to this day, I remain different from everyone around me. Needless to say, I am also different from people my age in my home country. Don’t get me wrong, though. I only attribute a small fraction of it to the cultures I came in touch with and to my nationality. I am by no means as interested in cultures as Kud is. I think what made the difference was my starting point and the big change in environment in the middle of my growth.
I hope this post has helped you understand, even if only a bit, what it’s like to grow up in a foreign country. I hope it made it easier for you to relate to Kud’s everyday struggles.
