The Fourth Culture

I know some of you won’t believe me, but there is more to life then pursuing an education or thriving in a career. I know some of you don’t even realize it, but your stuck between two worlds, and these worlds confuse the heck out of you. I know some of you don’t even know who you are -- you get up from your bed, day to day, and simple try to “move forward” with life and do, do, do. Your not satisfied with being. You probably never take the time to get messy by cutting your heart out, examining it, and figuring out who you are and what you believe.

For those of us caught between two cultures, its time we step back and understand how God has created us. We are called “Third culture kids,” “biculturals,” and “multiculturals.” These labels simply mean we have two “filters” that we think through, and it sure causes us a lot of trouble.

Casey and I got together and decided to create a blog to tackle some of the issues that TCK’s face. From personal experience and education, we want to discuss God’s perspective on it all. If nothing else, it’s a journey that two bicultural kids want to explore for the sake of their own personal growth. Our parents are Chinese/Indian (first culture), our “host” cultures are Canadian/American (second), yet we combine these two cultures to create the third culture. As we have gone through life in our young years, we have learned that combining these two cultures creates misunderstandings and issues.

As we walk this journey, we will explore what it means to be a “fourth culture kid.” A fourth culture kid is one who removes his ethnic identity as his primary identity, and choose the cross as his identity.
We choose God’s love as our identity.
We choose to be son’s of God, rather than slaves of culture.
We understand that who we are is not rooted in our ethnicity, but who we are is rooted in who Christ is.

A lot of TCK’s are bitter towards their parent’s culture. As a fourth culture kid, we decide we strip ourselves of our “rights” for the sake of the Gospel. That means we don’t culture bash. We learn about our two cultures so that we make share the Gospel more effectively.

We put down our rights, take on cross, and learn to love.
Simply put, that’s the heart of the fourth culture.

--Jason