On Top of the World Marit Strand

On Top of the World

By Marit A. Strand

Third culture kids (TCKs) usually experience returning to their passport country at some point. Since coming back to America, I have had many varied experiences related to my having grown up in China. I have had people tell me:

“Go back to your communist country!” “Snap out of it—you live in AMERICA.” “You must be really happy to be here instead of China.” “Did you live in a tiny little hut since it is a developing country?”

I would be okay with all of that, if they had been to China and were giving me an opinion based on real experience. However, that is not the case. They were voicing something they knew nothing about. They were telling me how I should act and feel about my home in China. In contrast, I feel that if I express an opinion about America, my experience here makes it acceptable. To help you understand what I am talking about, I will tell what typical life was like for me in China.

To me everything in China is “the best.” It’s probably natural that I feel that way, since it is where I was raised. In China, most stores and markets are within walking distance and very convenient. Most parks are within biking distance, and we had many restaurants right outside our courtyard that served our favorite dishes. My favorite was potato strips and I could get it at almost any restaurant in China. One of my brother’s favorites was a cucumber dish with vinegar and green onions in it. My other brother’s favorite dish from the time he was a baby was tofu—any kind, since tofu can be prepared in many different ways. One restaurant that we liked to walk to and take our friends to was the la mian restaurant (la mian is translated “pull noodles”), where the noodles were pulled by hand and thrown into a large steel pot of boiling water. The noodles were served in soup with green onion, beef, and cilantro on top. We were raised with food like that, so it is our “comfort food.” Besides the food, we also had favorite places to go for fun. We lived near the Eden Hotel, which had the best swimming pool and a locker room with gushing hot showers. We went swimming every Sunday and then we would go to KFC for a treat, because it was located nearby. On Saturdays we often biked to Yuhu Park which had many different amusement rides; we got to pick two rides each. We always picked a trampoline as our second “ride,” because it had no time limit and no age limit either. Another park we enjoyed going to was the Children’s Park which had a ropes course, ziplines, seesaw, big slide, and swings. The courtyard where we lived was always busy with Chinese games, rollerblading, and biking. Every once in a while, when the weather was nice, we would bike out in the countryside to play in old forts that were used back when Japan was invading China. It was history and fun at the same time.

In our apartment the electricity would go out frequently. When the power went out, the water did too, so we learned how to salvage the water we had. Most of the time it happened when we were on our way to bed, so at those times we did not care that the electricity went out.

Every week my mom took my brother and me shopping and we carried everything back home in backpacks. There was also a store we went to to get our nails or toenails manicured with a fun pattern or flowers. We also shopped for clothes and shoes, because at the time I was growing really fast. Our neighbor right across from us even made a traditional dress for me to wear for weddings in China. We lived close to a toy store, too, and that made it easy to get Christmas gifts for my brothers.

One other fun thing we did was horseback riding. We had a stable close by and we went riding when friends came to visit, if we had a birthday party, or just for fun. Most of the time we rode ponies, not the big horses. I rode with my mom, my younger brother rode with my dad, and my older brother rode alone. When we got old enough, we all rode our own horses. One time we got there in time to see a horse that had just been born; it was only two hours old!

So, as you can tell, I have been reminiscing about China because I love it. What do you feel when you reflect on the country you grew up in? You probably have similar nostalgic feelings to mine, so surely you can understand how I feel. How do you handle comments some people in your passport country make about the country that grew precious to you? Many Americans think I was living a nightmare in China, but the truth is, I was living on top of the world. My childhood could not have been better, and it is hard to come back to America and not be accepted for the cross-cultural girl that I am.

What do you feel when you reflect on the country you grew up in? You probably have similar nostalgic feelings to mine, so surely you can understand how I feel.

Marit A. Strand was raised in China and lived there from age one to fifteen. She now lives in Fargo, North Dakota (US), where she works as an Early Childhood Educator at Hope Kids Day Care. Marit goes to Salem Evangelical Free Church.

Photos courtesy of Marit A. Strand.