MY LITTLE TCKS異國育兒記
SIMON KUPER on the confusion of being – and raising – a third culture kid Simon Kuper暢談在異地文化中成長，以及在異地養育第三文化孩子帶來的困惑
My late mother must have written the article about 40 years ago, for a nowforgotten English-language expat magazine in the Netherlands.
Immigrant Mum is the headline. At the time my mother was young, pretty and, she writes, ‘well-educated, reasonably dressed’. And yet, she explains, her eldest son (me) was ashamed of her because she mispronounced the rolling Dutch ‘R’.
In 1976 we had moved from London to the Netherlands for my father’s work. ‘Suddenly we were no longer poor,’ writes my mother. ‘I could offer Simon a birthday party in McDonald’s, plus a film at home. He hesitated: was it worth the potential embarrassment? I promised that I would behave, not ask too many questions and pronounce my “oo”s and “ee”s properly. Finally he agreed to invite seven eight-year-olds to our house.’
The result: ‘Shame, when they all said they had never been to that sort of party, that it was very different from their own parties.’ Then my mother got so nervous that she began speaking English, and everything fell apart.
我的母約亡 大 在40年前寫了一篇文章，投稿給荷蘭一份現已無人認識的英語僑民雜誌。文章標題是〈新移民母親〉。當時母親年輕而漂亮，在文章內更自謂「曾接受良好教育，衣著得體。」 可是，她卻在文中慨嘆，因為自己無法正確發出荷語的「R」捲舌音，的令她 大兒子（即是我）在人前感到難為情。
1976年，父親從倫敦被調往荷蘭工作，於是我們舉家遷居。突「 然之間，我們不再貧窮，母」親寫道。「我可以在麥當勞為Simon舉行生，日會 然後再招待小朋友在家裡看電影。可是兒子卻猶疑起來，怕我會於人前失。禮 我答應他到時會小心謹慎，不問多餘的問題，並準確發出『oo』和『ee』的。音調 他終於同意邀請七個八歲小孩來家裡參加生。日會 」
結果，她如此記述：「真是失禮，大夥兒表示從未參加過這樣的，的派對 他們 派對完全不是這樣的。」母親在情急之下，開始說起英，語來 最後派對在一團糟之中草草收場。
作為在異地長大的「第三文化孩子」（英文簡稱TCK），我也讓的我 兒女承受相的同 經歷。2002年，我以60,000英鎊（ 60.8萬港元）在巴黎買下一個公寓單位，從此在花都安居樂業起來。不久之後，我結識了一
Having grown up as a third culture kid ( TCK), I’m now inflicting the experience on my children. In 2002, I moved to Paris because I found an apartment there for £60,000 (HK$608,000). Soon afterwards I met a pretty American colleague, and today we’re still there, now raising three little TCKs. It’s mostly been lovely – but from the start I have worried that TCK-dom might damage them (even more than the usual experience of family life, I mean).
Being or raising a TCK can be confusing. The usual parent-child relationship is often reversed, because the TCK has to teach the parent about the local language and culture. One day, when I was picking up my daughter (she was two) from the crèche, I asked a childminder whether Leila spoke any French yet. ‘Oh, yes,’ replied the woman. ‘ The other day we were talking about cuillères (spoons) and she understood everything.’
Just then Leila toddled up from across the playroom. She had been listening in to our conversation, so that if necessary she’d be able to help out Daddy with his bad high-school French. ‘ Thpoons!’ she shouted at me, by way of explanation. Thanks a bunch. By now, when I open my mouth in public, my children find me as embarrassing as I used to find my mother.
It’s also true that TCKs don’t have the simple identity that most human beings take for granted. One day this summer at a ceremony at the Panthéon (Paris’ mausoleum for great French people), my wife and children officially became French citizens. Afterwards we went to a café for croissants to celebrate, and I interviewed them about their feelings.
My daughter, now 11, said, ‘I don’t feel different at all,’ and complained that an official had spent the ceremony loudly checking the sound system. I told her that in a century, her great-grandchildren in Rio or Sofia would be desperately searching her papers for her certificate of naturalisation.
My wife hadn’t noticed any extra Frenchness either: ‘I was hoping I’d be thinner.’ One son said he felt ‘normal’, and was disappointed President Macron hadn’t come. The other son shrugged, ‘I was already French. No need to become any more French.’
That was it: they were already French, but also American and British. They could handle the complexity – and the confusion. And as TCKs they have an inbuilt advantage: because they feel at home in lots of places, they will never feel trapped. If their lives aren’t working out in one place, they can move.
This mobility angers populists. They think we TCKs belong to a rootless global elite estranged from single-culture people. British writer David Goodhart portrayed Brexit and Trump as the revenge of the ‘Somewheres’ against the ‘Anywheres’.
But my experience doesn’t feel rootless or estranged. As a TCK, every day of your life is a training session in understanding other people’s cultures. When I went to university in Britain, I found myself surrounded by single-culture Brits. I liked them. I went to stay at their houses all over the country, met their parents, watched their favourite comedy sketches with them, and acquired a love for their culture without losing my connection with my Dutch schoolfriends.
Now, at nearly 50, I’m still close to both sets of friends. We are godparents to each other’s children, and so, in a sense, have become each other’s family. I haven’t felt, with either set, that our different cultural origins ever got in the way. I feel at home not in a particular place, but in the company of particular people. That’s my ‘somewhere’.
As a child I came to accept TCKdom after reading Judith Kerr’s semiautobiographical children’s novel, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. It’s about a GermanJewish family that flees Berlin for Paris and then London. At one point the daughter asks her father, ‘Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?’ ‘Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives,’ he says. ‘But we‘ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.’
位從美國來的漂亮同事；我倆至今仍住在那裡，育還 有三個孩子。這當然是令人欣喜的，可是我也曾擔心，身為第三文化孩子，對他們所造成的破壞，會比一般人的家庭生活甚更。
身一為名TCK，或養是 育TCK兒女，往往令人感到困惑。由於小孩會反過來教導父母認識當地的語言和文化，正常親的子亦關係 因而顛倒過來。記得有次我去日托中心接女兒Leila（當時她兩歲） ，問起保姆她有沒有說法語，那女子隨即表示：「有啊！前幾天我們說起『cuillères』湯（匙）時，她全都明白。」
說遲時 那時快， Leila蹣跚地從遊戲室的另一邊走過來；她一直在我聽 們的對話，以備在必要時出手拯救說得一嘴蹩腳法語的爸老 。她邊走邊向我大叫「Thpoons！」試圖告訴我那個法文詞語解作湯匙，要真感謝這個乖女兒。現在，每當我在公眾場所開說口 話，我孩的 子都感尷到 尬萬分，如同我年當 聽到母親說荷蘭語一樣。
大部分人認為身份認同是件簡單而理所當然的事。但是在異地成長的TCK孩卻子沒有種這 感。受 今年某夏天 日，內子和小孩入籍國法 ，他們出席過在先賢祠（在巴日的法國偉人陵墓）舉行的儀，式後 正式成為法國公民。禮成後，我們到咖啡館吃牛角慶祝期， 間我問起他們的感想。
我的女兒（現在已經11歲了）說：「我不覺得有什不麼 同」，然後抱怨有個官員在儀式中不斷吵地查響鬧 檢 音 ，十分擾攘。我告訴她一個世紀，後 她在里約熱內盧或東歐索菲亞的曾孫可能會焦急地東翻西找，搜尋她的歸化文件和證書。
內子也沒有因入籍而突變更然 得 「法國」起來。她嘀咕：「我希望會再瘦一點。」至我於 兩個兒子，一個表示「就跟平時一樣」，但卻對馬克龍總統沒有出席感到失望；另一個則聳聳肩說：「我已經是法國人了，不用做什麼來令自己更像法國」人。
這就是了，他們已經是法國人，但同時也是國美 人和英國人。應付這複雜的身份，以及由此而產生的困惑，他們游有刃 餘；而作為一個TCK，他們擁有一種先天的優勢：由於他們能夠適應不同地的 方，就不會感到備受束，縛 可以自由翱翔。如果在一個地方生活如不 意，大可移居他鄉。
這種流動性令民粹主義者感到忿忿不平，他們認為我們這類人是無根的全球化精與英， 文化背景單一的人南轅北轍。英國作家David Goodhart將國英 脫歐與特朗普當選描寫成認同「某處」的人對認同「任何一處」的人的大報復。
我自己既不感到飄無泊 根，亦不覺得與他人關係疏離。作為一名TCK，每一天都像是訓上 練班，訓你練 了解別人的文化。在英國上大學時，我邊是身 全 文化背景單一的英。國我人 跟他們結為好友，在他們散佈全國各地的老家借宿，拜訪他們的父母，和他們一起看歡喜 的趣劇，愛上他們的文化之餘，同時跟荷蘭的同窗維持友誼。
現在我年近半百了，兩地的朋友跟我依然親厚。我們彼是 此孩子的教，父母 關係親密有如家人。我從不覺得文化背相景異會形成隔閡，影響我跟兩地的朋友交往。我感輕到鬆自在，不是因為我身在某個地方，而是因為我跟某些人在一起。這就是我所歸屬的「某處」了。
小時候，當我閱讀Judith Kerr的半自傳式兒小童 說《When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit》時，開接自始 受 己身為TCK的命運。該書講述一個猶太裔德國家庭從柏林逃往巴日，再輾轉移居倫敦的故事。其中一段寫到女兒問父親：「你覺得我們最終可以將某個方地 視為家鄉嗎？」父親答道：「我們不會像一般人那樣生於斯長於斯，然而我們會在不同地方生出點點家鄉情懷這，樣也不錯」。
THE USUAL PARENT- CHILD RELATIONSHIP IS OFTEN REVERSED, BECAUSE THE TCK HAS TO TEACH THE PARENT ABOUT THE LOCAL LANGUAGE AND CULTURE由於兒女會反過來教導父母認識當地的語言文化，正常的親子關係亦因而顛倒過來