For Smokey...

It's been one year today since we blew up our London lives and decided to give everything up (including the best cat ever) to travel and experience the world again. I’ve given up countless houses and cats over the years but these were finally my very own. There has been severe heartache, regret, soul-searching and sleepless nights. I didn’t know how heart breaking giving up my own home (finally and against our will) would be. For a TCK especially, it was devastating. Some days I’m still reeling from that...overcome by a deep sadness, and that’s okay. It’s more that we didn’t get to enjoy the finished article before putting it on the market that was, and still is, deeply painful. Our blood, sweat, tears and laughter are all over that flat. It was our home.

And yet, the world is my second home and I will always feel a sense of belonging to remote corners of this great planet. Which is where we find ourselves today. The Gili islands of Indonesia...I was first here 15 years ago with Ben and parts of my spirit are scattered all over this beautiful nation, full of smiling people. 

We worked bloody hard to save up for this trip, but as every TCK knows, you’re always sacrificing something. In many ways we are rich; we have traversed this planet to the point of exhaustion this past year. 20 countries, 42 flights, 67 beds. We have seen great things and felt flashes of true happiness. We have felt alive and wanted more of this free, bohemian lifestyle. But today of all days, it’s important to take stock of what we left behind. And shed a tear. For Smokey...

It's okay to like where you live...

I wrote a guest blog post for a local website on why I love where we live in London. Check it out:

Falling In Love With Tooting: A Guest Blog by Heidi Sand-Hart.

I first fell in love with Tooting whilst sitting in Sarashwathy Bavans, enjoying a masala dosa that transported me back to my childhood.

I grew up in South India for five years, surrounded by Tamilians – both Sri Lankan and Indian. The memories conjured up over that dosa made me feel at home and homesick at the same time. Back then my husband and I lived in “white, safe” Southfields and only ventured down Garratt Lane when I needed an “India fix”. More than once we breathed a sigh of relief at leaving the madness of the Broadway which we viewed as quite chaotic at the time.
Merely two years later we were excited Tooting homeowners, primarily due to how much more bang we got for our buck in Toots!


Continue reading here !!

Citizenship troubles...

The BBC has run a few articles this week about people giving up their nationalities for tax (and other) reasons. It reminds me of how I nearly lost my Norwegian citizenship two years ago...

My relationship with Norway has always had its complexities but because of my father, I was given Norwegian citizenship at birth. I travelled the globe on my Norwegian passport despite only living there for a year and a half (when I was 16).

It was while living in Canada (age 20) that I first realised it wasn't so simple. I was trying to renew my passport at the Norwegian consulate but they would only give me a year's extension. I learnt that for Norwegians born abroad (like me), there was an application process that needed to be done before turning 21 to keep your citizenship.

The summer before I turned 21, I visited my parents (who were living in Norway at the time) and slightly nervously went to the passport office. No questions were asked and they issued me a new 10 year passport immediately, a very good thing since otherwise I would have been stateless!

I completely forgot about the episode but decided to apply for dual citizenship while living in London a few years later. Mostly, I thought it would be cool (and useful) to hold two passports and I'd always felt more British than Norwegian. I got my UK passport without a hitch and life continued.

In 2011, however, my Norwegian passport was up for renewal again. Early one morning, I went to the Norwegian consulate in Knightsbridge thinking it would be plain sailing. How wrong was I?! I suppose it didn't help that I chose to speak English (a trait I've possessed since childhood, much to the dismay of my Norwegian relatives!) but the women were rude and hostile and continued to speak to me in Norwegian. I had my photo taken, finger print scanned, handed over the money and went on my merry way.

It was only when I returned to pick up my new passport that I realised those early complications of my transient upbringing were back. The lady told me that they were trying to contact the head of police in Stavanger (where my last passport was issued) to confirm whether I had applied for the right to keep my Norwegian citizenship. This all was news to me! Apparently I was supposed to have applied for the right to remain Norwegian before I turned 19 - during which, I was living in North America and my parents in India. 

She asked if I had applied and I told her I think my dad did it for me but I couldn't remember. She asked me for the paperwork to prove it which I said I couldn't provide. She told me to get it from my parents, at which point I gave her a little breakdown of the complications of locating a piece of paper while most of your possessions are in boxes scattered around the world! She told me that unless the proof could be found, I would lose my Norwegian citizenship. I could not believe it. That a nation could take away your nationality! That you had to apply to keep your citizenship and that they PUNISHED people for being raised abroad! I was gobsmacked. I always had my British passport to fall back on but I was quite hurt with the way I was treated by my fathers homeland. And their inability and lack of desire to understand a TCK/global upbringing. It was as though I'd betrayed Norway by growing up somewhere else - a decision of course, that was out of my hands.

Luckily for me, the chief of police in Stavanger came through and for some reason confirmed that I was living in Norway when I turned 19 (not entirely true but I did spend my birthday there!) and all was well. So my Norwegian citizen status remains intact and I have my shiny new passport...although for some strange reason, I haven't used it since...


Note: This drama occurred a few months before the Oslo terror attacks, which helped soften my heart to Norway considerably. You can read that entry here (it was actually published by The Telegraph).

TCK Art

Really like this and wanted to share it: so creative!!

East Meets West: An Infographic Portrait by Yang Liu

The artist and visual designer Yang Liu was born in China and lives in Germany since she was 14. By growing up in two very different places with very different traditions she was able to experience the differences between the two cultures first-hand.

Drawing from her own experience Yang Liu created minimalistic visualizations using simple symbols and shapes to convey just how different the two cultures are. The blue side represents Germany (or western culture) and the red side China (or eastern culture):

Lifestyle: Independent vs. dependent

                                                Attitude towards punctuality

                Click here to see the rest!!

New excellent resource

I am honoured to be quoted in this fabulous new resource for the expat/TCK world by Linda A. Janssen.

I have only started reading it but can already see that it is crammed with incredible stories and tools for transient people. Anyone who has experienced difficulties connected to a move will find this a comforting and resourceful companion.

The Emotionally Resilient Expat - Engage, Adapt and Thrive Across Cultures by Linda A. Janssen can be purchased on Amazon.

"Points of Origin" short-film

A really interesting TCK short-film by Erin Sinogba. Definitely worth a watch!

My favourite quote: "I find that being TCK makes me much less interested in Filipino culture, much less interested in American culture and way more interested in the base line humanity that connects us all. What joys do we share, what pains are universal?" - Pauline. 

Watch it now: 

Airports and home...

As you may have noticed, I was recently featured in a TCK short-film: "I am home: thoughts of a nomad". Not all of my transcript made the cut so here is the full version, in two parts:

Home

"Home is the red earth and mountains of South India; the smell of tea plantations and eucalyptus trees being kissed by monsoon rains. It is having a delicious feast of curry and chapattis at 10 o’clock in the evening, being waited on by attentive, loving Asian ladies in England. It is summers spent traversing through beautiful Norwegian meadows, drinking from waterfalls, eating grandma’s home-cooked food....armed with the spirit of freedom and adventure. It is the exhilarating midnight run from a steaming sauna into a crystal clear Finnish lake. 

Home is a feeling that doesn’t come around all too often.

Home is motion. Home is change. Home is a contradiction. I feel more at home in chaos and dirt than order and cleanliness. I feel at homehere, there, and everywhere yet belong nowhere. 

I don’t have a special doll from my childhood or clothes from when I was a baby. I have lost a little more with every move. All I have to hold on to are photographs and memories, but even they fade with time. 

Home is a place within me that my heart always longs for. A treasure I’ve never found. A myth that is spoken about with such ease and normality yet something I can’t even put my finger on. Home keeps moving."

Airports

"Departures. Arrivals. Farewells. Hello’s. Tears and Laughter. 

Airports encapsulate the emotions of my life.

So many of my childhood memories are intertwined with airports, so much of my life has been spent in random terminal buildings. 

The moment I enter an airport, I flick in to autopilot and am embraced by a sense of familiarity and safety. They are portals to the outside world. A gateway to freedom. The possibilities are endless, the world at your fingertips. Airports propel us onwards, to the next chapter of life. And in that motion, I find comfort. In the transition, I find home.

Airports breed stories. Everyone has one whether they are leaving or arriving..."

TCK short-film project "I AM HOME"

LONDONERS: The short "modern day nomad" film I was featured in recently - I Am Home - will be shown for the month of June at an exhibition in Central London. 8th June - 30 June 2012, WC2N 5BW. 

If interested, "like" my Facebook page and I'll send you an event invite: 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Home-Keeps-Moving/100736426650226

I am constantly amazed at how "Home Keeps Moving" continues to travel far and wide. I receive incredible e-mails from people it has touched and am alerted to positive book reviews such as the one below. Thank you all for taking the time to give me feedback and for helping spread TCK awareness.

Book Review: 

“Home Keeps 

Moving” 

by Heidi Sand-Hart

"Summary: Heidi shares her life as a TCK/MK from India moving from country to country from continent to continent, and from culture to culture. She shares the joys, the excitement, and the hard ugly truth of the pain from her experiences. She uses many quotes from other TCK related books and then shares stories as examples. Some stories are her own, others are from fellow TCKs who have written about their own experiences. She discusses issues such as loss, grief, education, and “rootlessness”.
My thoughts: Loved it! I checked it out from the library and had a hard time not writing in it – so I am ordering my own copy soon..." 

Continue reading: http://raisingtcks.com/2012/05/08/book-review-home-keeps-moving-by-heidi-sand-hart/

Empire

It occurred to me recently, whilst watching BBC's "Empire", that most of the countries I've lived in have a strong British influence. Whether colonised as India was, or a member of the commonwealth, the British influence is strong and recognisable. India. Canada. New Zealand.

But it is the entanglement of Indian and British culture that is of most interest to me. I often get asked which country feels like home and although I can never find the elements of my upbringing in just one place, I usually answer "England". In truth, it is both India and England that have always had the strongest semblance of "home" and since both cultures are laced with tangible traces of the other, it makes sense to my soul. I grew up in England wearing Punjabi suits and eating curry, surrounded by Indians...and lived in India surrounded by the remnants of British rule, attending a British boarding school, having afternoon tea and living in cottages built by the British. 





Although my parents' Scandinavian roots have been ever present in my upbringing, it is the combination of British and Indian which has the strongest connection to the fabric of my existence. They go hand in hand for me. It is while devouring a dosa in South London or riding the extensive Indian railway put in place by the British that I feel most complete.

Book Review

I recently received a book review from Expat Info Desk: 

"Home Keeps Moving - A Glimpse into the Extraordinary Life or a Third Culture Kid" by Heidi Sand-Hart takes a look at the how the pressures of living overseas can impact the lives of children and serves as a vehicle through which Third Culture Kids can deal with their emotions. 

Based on Sand-Hart’s own experiences of living overseas as a child, the book openly shares some of the frustrations and confusions that she felt as she tried to deal with life in a foreign country. In very simple terms she explains her own journey and experiences and uses them as a means of helping children to understand some of the emotions they may feel as Third Culture Kids and how they can deal with them. Throughout the book she interlaces excerpts that have been written by other expatriate children as they too share details of their experiences growing up abroad..."

Read more at: http://www.expatinfodesk.com/blog/2011/11/26/expat-book-review-home-keeps-moving/

Christmas....

It's that time of year again!

Looking for Christmas ideas for the special TCKs in your life? 
Look no further! 

Get a SIGNED copy of "Home Keeps Moving" at: 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/shops/heidisand-hart 

NEW WEBSITE!

Travelling? Hungry? Homeless? 


Introducing my NEW travel resource website, full 
of tips.


Constantly expanding....visit my new site here:


http://heidisandhart.blogspot.com/

"Home" is now...Putney, London.

My week in pictures [Berlin]...

This past weekend, we went to Berlin for a wedding. My husband's TCK cousin was getting married so it was quite a (culturally) mixed affair! I loved Berlin...here are a few of my fave snaps:

Interesting articles...

Here are a few interesting articles for you Kiwi-affiliated TCKs to read:

NZ Herald

and:

The Aucklander (thanks to Sarah Pellett!)