The Invisible Third Culture Adult

By Camellia Yang

Nora's home is everywhere and nowhere - from China to New Zealand, and from the UK to the world.

Born in China as a descendent of Confucius, she grew up influenced by western culture. Now living in New Zealand, Nora constantly struggles with the inner conflict of embracing dual cultures. She decides to travel the world to discover her multicultural identity, find a sense of belonging and fight the battle against discrimination.

Eleven stories on stereotypes, identity, loneliness, relationship, sexual harassment, race, media manipulation, and the hidden history will resonate with ethnic minorities who may have experienced the cultural similarities and differences between East and West.

This book will encourage and inspire people to learn from each other with a curious and open mind.

Eloquent, pure and entirely stylistic, here lies a fresh voice in fiction from a Chinese New Zealand writer. The Invisible Third Culture Adult is the perfect read for anyone who feels they are not being seen or heard.

Everyone has a story to tell - let's listen to one person at a time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Camellia Yang
• Release date: Jun 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463401378

Camellia Yang

Camellia Yang was born in Jinan, Shandong Province, China and lived in Auckland, New Zealand for 9 years before she moved to London, UK.She worked as journalist, blogger, social media specialist, communications manager, public speaker, podcaster, and media columnist in different countries.Camellia started her own blog since 2004 and have shared her thoughts, learnings, and ideas on it, as well as multiple social media platforms since then.Camellia launched her Podcast channel, The CJ Show, in 2017 and now has 10,000+ subscribers all over the world.To know more about Camellia please check her website at https://www.camelliayang.com

Book preview

Preface

S

he was not waving but drowning.

The fearsome currents barrelled towards her, crashing into her, and throwing her body underneath the sea again and again.

No one heard her voice. No one even noticed her existence.

This island was overpopulated with locals and tourists. However, no one paid her any attention.

Even if someone had noticed her bobbing head with silky jet-black hair, they would probably think that it was some seaweed rippling in the current.

The restless waves pushed down on her from all sides, trapping her, and keeping her from getting the oxygen she needed.

‘ Is it the end...? ’

She still held a glimmer of hope that someone was going to rescue her.

But this expectation was shattered instantly.

As she struggled, an intense pain hit her chest, making her lungs burn as if on fire. Her limbs felt heavy and her body was numb. She could see the surface above her so close, yet so far away.

When the darkness finally enveloped her, she felt an unprecedented sense of calm, painful, but quiet.

‘ Isn't this the feeling I've been looking for? ’ was her last thought before she lost consciousness.

And then, the indigo water swallowed everything, including all her memories of living in this world.

Chapter One

An Unexpected Journey

J

ia Qiao, aka Nora, was from a relatively small-size city in East China's Shandong province. Her hometown Qufu was best known as the birthplace of Confucius, the ancient philosopher who founded Confucianism of the 6th – 5th centuries B.C. The Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. In the same year, Nora was born.

Nora ’ s father Kaiping Qiao and mother Yuying Kong were expecting to have a docile and sweet girl. Yuying had been focusing on her prenatal training since the day she found out she was pregnant. She read The Four Books and The Five Classics , the most well-known ancient Chinese books to prepare her for this baby.

‘ I ’ ve always wanted to have a baby girl, ’ Yuying told Kaiping when she first found out her baby ’ s sex. ‘ She will grow up as a fair lady and represent our Kong Family on the world stage. ’

Yuying was imagining how elegant and noble her future daughter would be, day and night. She followed the instructions on foetus education and believed that under the influence of her ancestor ’ s wisdom, her child would stand out in any crowd.

During her childhood, Nora easily caught others ’ eyes as her mother expected, however, in an unexpected way. She painted the windows with toothpaste, cut her Barbie dolls ’ hair, bullied other kids from the neighbourhood, locked her babysitter outside the home and knocked neighbours ’ door and ran away several times a day.

‘ Oh, dear Kaiping and Yuying, Jiajia is too wild to be recognised as a Confucius descendant, ’ neighbours complained to Nora ’ s parents. ‘ Those babysitters you hired had no control over her. ’

‘ I highly suggest you take more time on Jiajia and discipline her behaviours. ’ Nora ’ s teachers felt helpless in dealing with Nora ’ s bullying behaviours.

Haha, my parents will spend more time on me now, Nora thought, feeling proud about her strategy on getting her parents attention.

Since they lived in a highly populated country and where they competed with millions of people for jobs, Nora ’ s parents went back to work when she was a three-month-old. They were too busy to look after her, let alone pay attention to her feelings and thoughts. After all, like many other Chinese parents, not many of them could afford to take annual leaves or finish work on time to enjoy family life.

Nora realised that if she behaved well, she wouldn ’ t hear a word from her parents. However, if she made a scene or caused drama, she would get her parents ’ full attention. Thus, she started to become a troublemaker and executed a plan to win her parents ’ hearts.

Nora ’ s parents did not enjoy becoming the gossip centre of their neighbours ’ conversation. They took the hint to correct their child ’ s behaviours and found out bedtime reading would play a big part.

Most of Nora ’ s happy childhood memories were linked with listening to her parents reading to her before bed. Although the joyful moments did not last too long as her parents were busy with business trips, Nora developed a habit of reading and switched her desire for attention from her parents to reading more books. She loved to find herself and her feelings reflected in literature and poetry. The authors of books became her virtual friends and mentors while her parents were absent.

Soon, Nora became a frequent visitor to her local libraries. At that time, people from her community began to think she had changed from a wild girl to a quiet bookworm. Nora ’ s talent in writing betrayed her for the first time.

As Nora built up the habit of reading at least ten hours a week, she also started to mimic authors and write stories. Her first story was a sci-fi crime fiction hybrid about an alien ’ s adventure on earth to steal books from her ancestor Confucius. Back then, all headlines in Qufu ’ s newspapers were about the loss of books from the collection cabinet inside the Temple of Confucius. A special investigation team had been formed by the local police department. When Nora ’ s literature teacher read a story she wrote as homework, she was amazed by all the details Nora wrote down on breaking through the cabinet door of the Temple and stealing those books.

‘ Look at this article from one of my students, ’ her teacher passed Nora ’ s story to her colleagues. ‘ Read through and let me know your thoughts. ’

‘ How come this kid knew so many details? ’ one of the teachers said. ‘ It seems like this kid witnessed the whole stealing process. ’

‘ I can ’ t believe a kid could write down such a vivid and real story unless she saw what happened, ’ the other teacher said. ‘ Let ’ s call the police and let your student help them on this case. ’

⁂

‘ Don ’ t be afraid young lady, ’ One of the police officers asked Nora in a comforting voice. ‘ Can you tell us how you wrote this story? ’

‘ I wrote on my dad ’ s computer. ’ Nora was surprised to see so many people in uniforms were interested in her story.

‘ Good, good. ’ That is not the answer the police officer was looking for. ‘ Have you been to the Temple before? ’

‘ Yes, I went there very often. My ancestor ’ s history was in there. ’

‘ Before you wrote this story, did you go there and find anything unusual? ’

‘ Well, I didn ’ t see a UFO landed there and there were no aliens, of course. I created this story by myself after watching E.T. ’

‘ So, have you seen anyone steal the books inside the Temple? ’

‘ No one steals the books, but I borrowed them. ’

‘ Wait a minute … what did you say? ’

‘ I borrowed the books from the Temple. Although I didn ’ t see any librarians around, I just took them from the shelves and brought them back home. ’

‘ So, do you mean you had those books at home? ’

‘ Yes, of course. I promise you I would return them on time as I always do. Normally it takes me a few weeks to finish reading them. ’

The police officers were shocked by Nora ’ s statement. They were expecting this young girl to provide a clue on this case. However, they were not expecting this truth, a truth even more surreal than her alien story.

‘ OK. Thank you very much, Qiao Jia, ’ the police officer was still trying to persuade him to accept this fact. ‘ I ’ ll call your parents and collect the books. ’

‘ Am I in trouble? ’ Nora did not understand why they needed to call her busy parents. She knew every time her neighbours and teachers called her parents they would be very upset with her.

‘ Not in big trouble but the Temple is not the library which means you can ’ t borrow books from there. ’ One of the policemen explained to her, feeling amused by this kid ’ s innocence and honesty.

‘ Why? I thought books were for everyone. ’ Nora was still confused about everything happening, but, at the same time, she was happy to see her parents arrived home earlier that night.

Nora was again standing out from the crowd as Yuying wished. Although she did not face any criminal charges under the Minor Protection Act, she thought her punishment was bad enough back then because it led to her first separation from her parents.

Kaiping and Yuying were both too busy and too tired to look after their troublemaking daughter.

‘ I don ’ t know what we did wrong, ’ Yuying complained to Kaiping, almost in tears. ‘ Why didn ’ t we have a normal girl like everyone else? ’

‘ I don ’ t worry too much about our daughter, ’ Kaiping reassured Yuying. ‘ She ’ s smart and full of curiosity. I think those are her most important traits. With a good school, she could achieve a lot. ’

‘ Are you thinking to send Jiajia to Qufu International Boarding School? ’ Yuying asked, immediately thinking about the expensive tuition fee.

‘ Jiajia is easily influenced by others. I think that school would be her best choice with so many good peers, ’ Kaiping said.

‘ But … how can we afford that? ’ Yuying raised a practical question. ‘ Those kids are either from government