Where I grew up, there are huge elephants to the left and furious muay-Thai fighters to the right. Yes, Bangkok, Thailand is where I spent my childhood. I was always questioned by others, “Where are you from? What is your nationality?” and I would always answer, “Korea! I am from South Korea.” During my childhood, I had a firm belief about my identity as a Korean and I was proud of it. Even though I had spent almost all of my childhood in a foreign country, I was Korean, I thought at least to myself. However, this didn’t last too long; that fundamental basis that I had established broke down completely and left me lost in the cold gray city of Seoul. I learned that it wasn’t the nationality that shaped the person’s identity, but the ideas and the values that they have is what shapes a person’s true identity.

The life changing incident all happened when I visited my home country three years ago. My sister and I were excited to go back and smell the atmosphere of Seoul. The five hour journey to my dear home country was quick as teleporting. I can still vivid and emotionally remember the moment when I stepped out of the airplane to the gray scale platform of Incheon International Airport. The cool refreshing breeze and the announcements in Korean welcomed me on my historical return to Korea. The air sure did smell like home, everything was perfect just the way I dreamt it.

In Korea, everything was so nice, but there was this feeling that everyone was different than me. Their clothes, way of talking, and all the high technology gear made me feel left out. The cities were packed with cars that were busy trying to make their way. The skyscrapers stood up to be like Goliath to me. The most uncomfortable part was the transportation systems. The ten years of missing out came back to me as homework to catch up with the trend. Back in Chiang Mai, Thailand we had a truck with two lines of seating, called a song-taeow, but in Korea there were 6 different metro rails, different kind of busses, blue, green, yellow and orange. It was very complicated for me to get from one place to another. I had to memorize the bus number and the route of the bus. However, the Metro was the worst; I had to change between 5 trains to get from a station to the place I wanted to go. Koreans were already adapted to this transportation system that I wasn’t known of. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel Korean. It was simply impossible to memorize the routes of the public transportation.

Unfortunately, public transportation wasn’t the only thing that made me feel out casted. Almost everyone from a seven year old child to a 70+ year old adult had a smart phone, whether it was an Iphone or a Galaxy. I would look to my left and right, front and back everyone was busy using their high-tech smart phones. Kids on mobile games, teenagers on social network, and adults on their own interests. I was the only one with a folder 2G phone, while others had 3G smart phones. When I heard boys and girls, men and women talking about the new app on the phone, I had no idea what they were talking about. Koreans in the 2000’s became insane with the newest and the best IT gadgets. To these standards, I wasn’t really a Korean after all, but I wasn’t a Thai nor any other ethnic group, I didn’t belong anywhere at this point.

The longer I stayed in the place I called “home”, the more awkward I felt towards the society. The “Bubble” of a TCK (Third Culture Kid) had finally popped. I struggled to seek my identity from the advanced country of South Korea. “Real” Koreans were making me an outsider; their different thoughts, idea, lifestyle, education, transportation, and usage of language. The conversation of the people that I didn’t understand made me an outsider. For the first time, I wanted to go back to Bangkok. I didn’t fit as a Korean. As a child, it was just too much pressure to be different from my own peers. Other children went to academies after school which I didn’t go; I felt that I was falling behind. I really wanted to go back, after a couple of weeks I finally did.

Bangkok didn’t fell welcoming like home at all when I, but I feel peace and comfort from the city. Although Bangkok wasn’t a place I would call home, it was the most elaborate place for me until I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Chiang Mai was a decent place to move to. I personally loved the cool breeze of the winter and especially the community and the school. At that point I realized that I could call any place home as long as I could adapt to the society. As for a TCK, it is their unique ability to adapt easily to a different environment. And now I am confident that I can adapt to the trend of not just only my home country but others as well. I value the experiences of living outside of my own country and interacting with people of different culture. I value most being a TCK, I believe that it is my true strength and my true identity.