Naelle Song is a content creator who grew up in Korea, the U.S., Canada, Morocco and Kenya. She speaks English, Korean, French and Arabic, and has been exploring topics related to her very multicultural life on her eponymous Youtube channel, 나엘쏭Naelle Song since 2017. I was very happy to meet a fellow Korean TCK who spent a third of her life on the African content.

In this episode, we talked about the cultural diversity of Africa, fitting right in at international school, parents of TCKs needing their own box, missing Moroccan spices, and having an affinity for that danceable, Arabic beat.

#ProjectBetween #podcast #thirdculturekid #Morocco #Kenya #Canada #Korea #NaelleSong #Africa #Arabic #French #Montreal #المملكة المغربية  #كوريا #팟캐스트 #나엘쏭 #모로코 #아프리카 #모로코여행 #아랍어

Sharon Choi is a filmmaker who became one of the most beloved faces of Oscar season when she interpreted for director Bong Joon Ho and the "Parasite" team in 2020. She's also a third-culture kid who, after spending two years in California as a young girl, had to relearn her mother tongue when her family moved back to Korea. She spent the rest of her childhood yearning to leave her native country, dreaming of one day telling her own story through the language of cinema.

It was an absolute pleasure chatting with Sharon about art, movies, American culture, living between worlds, childhood trauma, interpretation and finding the right words for our experiences, and building our ideal homes. 

As I mentioned at the end of the interview, I loved being in the space created by our dialogue. I hope you'll enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

#ProjectBetween #podcast #thirdculturekid #SharonChoi #filmmaker #film #Parasite #BongJoonHo #Oscars #Korean #Americanculture #interpretation #cinema #팟캐스트 #샤론최 #봉준호 #기생충 #TCK #art 

Jean Go is a third-culture kid who grew up moving between Korea, the U.S. and Sweden. Since 2011, she's been based in L.A. working in the game industry as an artist, creating characters and concept art for videos games such as League of Legends. 

In this episode we talked about being the tallest kids in Korean school, art classes and learning about proportions from Western textbooks, struggling to fit in, playing online video games with friends in the metaverse, and finding a place to call home with neighbors who bring over cookies.

We didn't hang out much in high school but we should have; we have so much in common! If you're a TCK who grew up playing video games, this one's for you.

#TCK #thirdculturekid #podcast #projectbetween #internationalschool #Sweden #Korea #LosAngeles #culturalidentity #videogames #LeagueofLegends #conceptartist #Korean-American #한국 #국제학교 #정체성 #미국 #스웨덴 #게임 #리그오브레전드 #롤 

Happy New Year! 

My first guest of 2023 is Henry Hwang, a dear friend from my high school days in Korea. We've known each other now for over 17 years, so long in fact that I forgot that he was a third-culture kid. We became friends before we even knew what being a "TCK" meant, so this episode felt like opening up a box of treasures in the attic.

Henry spent his childhood in New York, Hong Kong and Seoul. Having attended college and grad school in the U.S., he is currently a biomedical engineer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

When I asked him the identity question, Henry said Korea contributes about 60% of his cultural identity, primarily because he thinks about it a lot. "I think about whether I'm living up to my self-imposed ideal of what it means to be a Korean." I wonder this too, in no small measure.

#TCK #thirdculturekid #podcast #projectbetween #internationalschool #SIS #HongKong #Seoul #NewYork #culturalidentity #livinginthehyphen #Korean-American #motherland #한국 #국제학교 #정체성 #미국 #홍콩 #서울국제학교 

Aurélie Knecht is a French third-culture kid who spent her childhood in the Netherlands and Germany, and an enriching four months in Spain. She attended university in London, and now lives and works in Mexico City. 

Though she grew up quite immersed in French culture, raised by French parents and attending French schools abroad, she quickly realized when she met other kids who only grew up in France that she was not like them. 

As an adult, she said different parts of her personality like different cities better. She also regards many places to be her home.

Aurélie was the first person express interest in Project Between via email. If you'd like to share your story or even just say hi, you can send letters to thebetweenproject@gmail.com 

Maiya Li was born to a Koryoin (ethnic Korean) dad and a Kazakh mom, and grew up in a small town in rural Kazakhstan with very few Koreans around. Born the year Kazakhstan declared independence from the USSR, Russian was her first language and Kazakh her second. She came to Korea to study in her early twenties looking for some answers to her heritage.  

When I approached her for this interview, she told me "she sometimes feels like she belongs nowhere in particular" since she's considered Korean in Kazakhstan while in Korea she's seen as a foreigner. I immediately knew her story would fit right into the spectrum of third-culture kid narratives here on the show. 

Maiya talked about her multicultural upbringing, her comfort food beshbarmak (бешбармак), living in Korea, and how Russia's war on Ukraine has been troubling post-Soviet countries including Kazakhstan. 

You can find Project Between on Anchor, Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts.

#TCK #thirdculturekid #podcast #projectbetween #Kazakhstan #Goryeoin #ethnicKorean #halfKorean #postSoviet #CentralAsia #warinUkraine #USSR #팟캐스트 #카자흐스탄 #고려인 #중앙아시아 #beshbarmak

Born in Tucumán, Argentina to Korean parents who met and got married in the Latin American country, Elena Suh spent her entire childhood there until she moved to Seoul to attend university. After living in Korea for over a decade in her twenties, she moved to Shanghai and was happily settled until the pandemic hit, and her short vacation to Argentina turned into a prolonged stay.  

We spoke about being raised by Korean parents in a different culture, and learning to embrace our Korean heritage and pungent foods later in life. Elena also talked about the culture shock that accompanied her move back to Korea, and finding comfort in Asian cities. Having lived in Asia for so long, Argentinian dinner time is now a tad too late, meaning snacking before 10 p.m. dinner parties.

Tune in to hear about two separate lives, lived on opposite ends of the world.

#ProjectBetween #podcast #TCK #thirdculturekid #Tucumán #Argentina #Seoul #Shanghai #Spanish #LatinAmerica #KoreanLanguage #Asia #asianpride #팟캐스트 #프로젝트비트윈 #아르헨티나 #한국문화 #서울 #상하이

Beccy Lee is a third-culture kid (TCK) with a Taiwanese heritage, and U.K. and Hong Kong citizenship. Born in the U.K. to Taiwanese immigrant parents, she moved to Hong Kong at age 7 and attended British international school, later moving back to England for university.

She describes her upbringing as a fringe case, having been raised strictly British by parents who didn't encourage learning or speaking Chinese. She says she hasn't met many TCKs who have a similar situation, as most of her friends are bilingual and have more of a dual identity than she does. She says her TCK experience was much more conscious as a result. 

Beccy is an occupational psychologist specializing in culture and personality, and publishes a newsletter called Multicultureland about modern identities. Sign up to read stories and learn theories and concepts that aid with self-discovery. 

#ProjectBetween #podcast #TCK #thirdculturekid #Taiwan #UK #HongKong #Multicultureland #Chinese #identity-negotiation #British #personality #occupationalpsychologist #팟캐스트 #프로젝트비트윈