The Blue Mountains

From Sydney, we took a day and hopped the train out to the Blue Mountains.  As we had successfully trained our kids to stay up late and sleep in mornings, we arrived around lunchtime and had to take the easy hike along the top of the canyon, instead of the more difficult hike along the bottom.  Dave was disappointed - I was relieved.  The entire walk was gorgeous - from the dramatic vistas to the bird calls and flowers, the cold waterfalls and the sweet conversations.  Because somehow, our time in Australia made us all like each other better, too.  By this point in the trip, Lilly and Sophia had imagined themselves into complicated worlds with many characters and loads of dialogue.  They played well on trains and on hikes.  Annika had proved herself as a world class hiker, and was only carried once on this hike - on a mad rush straight uphill to the nearest toilet.  Dave and I had relaxed to the pace of the trip, rarely having a reason to snap at the kids or insist that they hurry.  Australia was gorgeous - every aspect.  But this relational aspect may have been my favorite.


But notions of positive relationships do not good photos make.  The Blue Mountains, however, make incredible photos.

Sydney

We fell in love with Sydney.  The city is filled with water, as the harbour creeps its fingers in and out of so many corners.  The sun shone the entire time we were there, and the Sydney Opera House sat gorgeously in the middle of everything.  We stayed north of the city and crossed the Harbour Bridge on our way in and out of town every day.  I just couldn't stop taking pictures.

Being a city on the water, Sydney also has a fun aquarium.  We spent a good morning checking out all of the strange creatures that live in the seas down under.  It was well worth the visit.

And, being a city on the water, Sydney boasts one of the largest fish markets in the world.  We scared the girls with the live monster crabs crawling on the floor, and then feasted on fried fish and cheap sushi.

We were in Sydney during the winter holidays, and the city had a very festive air about it.  As Sydney is a major tourist destination, it may always carry a bit of a chill circus vibe.  Certainly it did while we were there.  We saw some talented street performers, and Dave was even enlisted to help with this guy's stunt.  As he was less performing magic and more performing feats of strain and danger, it made me awfully nervous to see this man's balance relying on Dave as he juggled flaming swords with spoons jammed over his eyes.

As we were in Australia for the winter holidays, we chose to celebrate New Year's Eve at the year's first party - in Sydney.  We spent the afternoon on a large and fabulous playground in Darling Harbour, and then boarded a boat for an evening harbour cruise.  The cruise finished by parking in the middle of the harbour, facing the bridge for the 9:30 family fireworks.  It was loads of fun, and we were back in our hotel room and our jammies in time to watch the midnight fireworks on tv from our hotel room.  They were much more dramatic, but our timing was better.

Featherdale Wildlife Park on the way to the Blue Mountains from Sydney was another family highlight.  The park is a wildlife rehabilitation center and makes a home for many of Australia's native and unique animals.  We pet plenty of wallabies, snuggled a sleepy koala, and saw dozey wombats, noisy emus and dozens of other animals.  The park was small but well run, and the staff gave fabulous little talks about each animal while they fed them.  We now consider ourselves experts on dingoes.

It wouldn't be a week in Sydney without a day at the beach, so we hopped the train out to Bondi Beach on our one overcast day.  The beach is gorgeous and full of people on a summer Sunday afternoon.  We walked a seaside path from Bondi to Coogee Beach, popping into the water every so often and otherwise taking in the views.  We did not, I'm afraid, swim in the Icebreakers pool, showed below.  But doesn't it look fun?  Ocean waves crash up over the side even on a quiet day like ours, and the pool is filled with sea water.

We spent a week in Sydney, and easily could have spent longer.  In fact, given the opportunity to live on Sydney Harbour, I would go in a minute.  I'd even consider a home without views of the water.  Such a fun city.

Wilson's Promontory

We drove away from Melbourne in rental car, and spent the next 2 hours getting miles and miles away from the city.  Wilson's Promontory is a national park where the landmass of Australia reaches down to the island of Tasmania.  It is gorgeously untouched, with vehicles only accessing a small corner of the park.  The land is wild and windswept, the sky is big and blue, walking along the paths might bring sightings of wallabys or emus, and everything is gorgeous.

I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Melbourne

Our Australia trip began in Melbourne.  I knew when I placed Melbourne in the itinerary that this would be a unique part of our trip - less vacation and more holiday.  Melbourne has a reputation as a relaxed city, full of art and beach and cafes and shops.  Less a tourist destination for keeping our kids happy, but more a city for exploring and eating and shopping.  So we scheduled Melbourne for the days before Christmas, where we could buy gifts for each other, visit Santa Claus and relax in some nice cafes.

 

Melbourne was chilly while we were there, so we used our jackets and found ourselves comfortable.  This was as close as we were going to get to a white jacket, so we snuggled up in our jackets and didn't complain.  Once we left the south of Australia, the weather warmed up considerably.  But it was difficult to get into the Christmas spirit without much of a chill in the air.  Going to the beach on Christmas Eve was lovely, but didn't feel at all like Christmas.

When we landed in Melbourne, our luggage was not on the baggage carousel.  It was four days before we drove back to the airport to finally gather our things.  So, we ended up spending our Melbourne time in some unexpected ways.  I sat in a GPs office to get a new prescription for my thyroid - and now always pack some pills in my carry-on.

We spent more time shopping than we otherwise would have, but we had planned to explore the streets and arcades of Melbourne anyway.  And we found many of the shops were thrift stores and Salvation Army shops, which Sophia gained a young love for.  And we still had plenty of time for the Royal Botanic Gardens,

...the amazing St. Kilda Adventure Playground...

 ...and to eat, wander and photograph our way through the parks, arcades and alleyways of the city.

We stayed in Melbourne through Christmas Day, enjoying a lovely Christmas Eve dinner from a corner deli, another corner bakery and yet another corner wine shop.

Our luggage didn't show up until we drove out of town, and the girls' Christmas stockings were neatly packed inside one of those checked bags.  So Santa had a task in front of him that each of the girls believed he was up to - deliver the Christmas presents in stockings anyway.

Santa delivered them in tall, festively colored bags.  The girls found them satisfactory, so it seems that Santa worked his magic again this year.

We left Melbourne in a rental car headed to a national park, after popping into a Hillsong church for Christmas morning worship.  We all enjoyed Melbourne, its mellow vibe and how pedestrian and walkable it was.  But the most striking thing of all may have been the brilliant blue sky, which followed us all through our travels.

Reentry to Jakarta

I've been trying to formulate this post since we got home on Friday night.  Now its Wednesday, and although I haven't formulating anything smooth, I have reached my first empty 10 minutes.

You see, reentry to Jakarta has not been smooth.  I mean, we faced no major challenges.  Our luggage did not arrive with us on Friday night, but it did arrive at our home on Saturday afternoon.  Our carbon monoxide detector beeped gratingly all morning yesterday, but the batteries were replaced by lunchtime.  The alarm goes off again at 5:30 in the morning and the routine keeps me running until I fall into bed exhausted by 10:00 at night, but that's just life.  No, nothing in particular has made rentry difficult.

Still, its been a hard week.

Chalk a bit of it up to exhaustion.  Our family regularly travels halfway across the world, so suffering from jet lag to me means waking up ravenous at 3:00 in the morning.  Dave and I didn't expect to notice the 3 hour difference between Sydney and Jakarta.  But together with the exhaustion of vacation, we have found ourselves sleepy through much of the day and starving by dinnertime.

Chalk it up a bit to the third world.  You see, we usually travel in the third world, and then coming home in the third world feels like a step up.  But this time we traveled to Australia, and now it annoys me that I can't brush my teeth with the tap water or find any sidewalks.

But those both oversimplify.  The bigger issue is that Jakarta is not home yet.  And that is depressing.

As it happens, we usually take a trip about 6 months into our new life.  And upon return, there's this lovely feeling that we are walking back into our home.  It is at that point that I always realize, I'm really happy here.  I am home.

Except this time, I didn't feel that.  Not really at all. 

I like our house, and it feels like my own.  We have spread and oozed to fill every space and I have loads of comfy little spots for reading and chatting.  The house is good.  And from Friday night until today, I didn't leave.

Well, that's not quite true.  We did try a new church on Sunday morning.  And that distills why I am sad.

By this time, we've usually got the routine figured out.  We've discovered who our friends will be, and we're looking forward to reconnecting with them.  We've found the places we belong, and our absence left a hole.  But when we left Jakarta, no one felt our absence and there was no one to welcome us home.

Okay, that's not true for my kids.  They have loads of friends who felt their absence - both in the neighborhood and at school.  Their return confirmed for them: Jakarta is a happy home.  And its not really true for Dave, either.  He needed to get back to work, where his absence was noticed and his return was appreciated.  He enjoyed reconnecting with people.  Its more for me.





Big space there... 'cause I've got nothin'.

{deep breathe}

I finally ventured out today.  Actually, I did go to visit with a neighbor yesterday - a neighbor who I really like.  A friend.  And I walked to the grocery store once, too.  But today I got in the car and went to a coffee shop across town.  And now I'm at the school with Lilly, waiting for soccer practice.  I had a coffee and I got a bunch of work done, and that alone has cheered me up.  But just getting back into the city has cheered me up, too.   As I worked in the coffee shop, I glanced out the large bank of windows to see sometimes driving rain and sometimes sun glinting off the wet cars.  I rode through the chaos and enjoyed not having to drive, not needing to navigate the sea of people and cars and motorbikes and snack carts and one-way streets.  I was able to look out the window and see people pushing their own little businesses on a cart, people helping each other park, little pocket houses in strange little pocket parks and all of the grit and life on display in a huge Asian city.

I don't have a community yet, and that pains me.  But I'm still working on it.  Sitting on soccer practice in 20 minutes, I'll be chatting with the other moms.  We are returning to that church again on Sunday morning, where three different people noticed we were new and came up to introduce themselves.  I'm joining language classes next week, and my music classes begin on Saturday.  I like my neighbors and the parents of my kids' friends, and I'm trying to be more intentional about getting together with them.

Its coming.  Its just coming slower than usual.  But by the time we return from our summer break, this will truly be home.

Of course, by then we will have less than a year left..

My Racist Kids

I've come to notice something rather troubling.

My kids sometimes talk in a very racist way.

Now, my background is in social work.  In fact, I studied and practiced social work in St. Louis and spent plenty of time in Ferguson.  My Facebook feed has been lit up with other social workers and community organizers and neighbors from St Louis - black and white, with black and white sons and daughters.  What happened in Ferugson is a tragedy through and through.  But I am energized by all of the conversations about race I have been reading.  All of the blog posts and editorials and so many people sustaining peaceful protests.  Reading and participating in these many conversations, I know I benefit from white privilege, and I know that I carry and sometimes propogate both learned and institutional racism.

Also, I am raising my children in foreign countries.

I expected that raising my children in foreign countries, where they consistently live as the minority, would make them more open to others, and slower to judge based on superficial things like skin color and language ability.

False.

My children say things like...

I don't like people with brown skin.

Will there be English people there?  Because I don't like Indonesians.

See that garbage on the ground?  I bet someone with brown skin threw that on the floor.

It makes me sad.  What am I teaching my children that they would say these things?  The only benefit - and this silver lining is huge - is the opportunity their language provides for conversations.  And I find those conversations fascinating.

Child:  I don't like people with brown skin.
Me:  Thats not okay - what if someone didn't like you just because of your blonde hair?  And its not even true.  You like Aaliya, and she has brown skin.  You have plenty of friends with brown skin.

Child: I bet someone with brown skin threw that on the floor.
Me: Maybe.  Or maybe someone with light skin.  We are always careful not to throw garbage on the floor, but some people don't care, and that has very little to do with the color of their skin.


I was thinking about these conversations this morning, and I put a few things together. 

1 - At their international school, they do not seem to judge anyone based on skin color.
2 - Outside of school, their categories are racial but are rooted in language.

I've got to unpack these a bit, but my new theory is that these judgements are based on my kids' otherness.  They are keenly aware of the differences between them and the typical Indonesian - this is not their culture.  Just hold onto this thought - we will circle back to it.

 

1 - At their international school, they do not seem to judge anyone based on race or skin color.
I am thinking about my daughters' closest friends at school.  Lilly's best friend is probably Angeline.  Angeline last lived in New York City, but her mother is Cambodian and she looks a lot like her mom.  Angeline and Lilly became friends because they were the two new girls in class, and stayed friends because they like to read.  Lilly has since become friends with nearly every girl in her class.  I believe she and Angeline are the only girls with US passports.

Sophia's best friends are white.  This is no coincidence.  She is one of a small crew of 2nd grade girls from the embassy who moved here at the same time.  She met these girls before school started, and plays with them regularly.  She has since grown her social circle to include primarily other girls who arrived this summer.  She talks about the girls from India in exactly the same way she talks about the girls from Australia.  She may describe them by their country or their skin color, but she judges them based on their actions.

Annika will tell you that she has one friend at school.  Ella is from Germany, and she is Annika's only friend.  Ella is white - but is also the most outgoing in the class, and the closest in both age and height to Annika.  But when I watch, Annika plays with Kyoka and Aaliya from Japan and India.  She never describes them as brown skinned, and she clearly likes them very much.

The theory: Although their closest friends seem to be Western, my children do not judge their classmates based on skin color.  Their classmates are not other to them, but members of the same general tribe.

2 - Outside of school, their categories are racial but rooted in language.
No doubt, my kids say racist things.  Especially my youngest.   There is no defense for that.

However, when you listen to their categories, they often fall into speaking or not speaking English.  In China, they said they hated Chinese people.  And in Indonesia, they say they don't like Indonesian people.  But in Venezuela, they said they didn't like Spanish people.  And they never say they do like Americans - they always say they like English people.  That is, my kids strongly (perhaps viscerally) prefer people who speak their own language.  It is one thing for a stranger to stroke her hair and tell her she is beautiful.  It is another thing for a stranger to stroke her hair and then talk with a string of words that hold no meaning for her.

But this is where racism takes hold, isn't it?  We take a set of assumptions and place them on everyone who looks the same way.  The fewer people we know in that category, the more rigid our assumptions become.  And that is the same problem we have all over America, isn't it?  Many black families and many white families are talking about the police this season, but the black families are saying very different things than the white families.  And none of them are at the same table.  In fact, most of them aren't even on the same Facebook feeds. 

The theory:  My kids do not enjoy people who can't speak English - this is bad.  My kids assume that people who look Asian will not speak their language, and so they want nothing to do with them - this is racism.  Interestingly, they assume that people with dark brown skin - African, or African-American - probably will speak their language.  Those folks are cool.


Other-ness

Okay, I'm saying nothing groundbreaking when I tell you that my children's racism is based on otherness.  All racism is based on otherness.  I mean, its practically the definition of racism.

But I think that my kids' racism is based on my children's otherness.  My children live as the minority most of the time.  They live as a racial minority.  They speak a minority language (internationally dominant, yes - but minority in our greater neighborhood).  They carry a minority passport.  Each of our minority categories carries power, and provides my children with implicit advantages; but they make them minorities all the same.  Children are quick to notice differences, and my children know they are different from most of the people around them.

But they see themselves the same as the kids in their international school. 

Ruth Van Reken, who coined the term Third Culture Kids (TCK), explains that kids who grow up in cultures different from their own home culture end up assimilating aspects of each of their cultures into their lives;  but, "the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of the same background, other TCKs."

I am fascinated.

I am fascinated to see this play out so broadly in my kids' lives, that their sense of belonging is in relationship to others at their school.  At this point, they still feel they fit in at an American public school, but I doubt they will by the time they reach high school.  And they are keenly aware that they would not fit in at an Indonesian public school.  And that they fit in perfectly at their international school.

So. 
So, we need to continue talking about race in our house, and not judging people based on others who look like them. 
So, living abroad has not made my children less judgmental.
So, none of my comments on race or on Third Culture Kids are profound.  But watching race and TCK dynamics play out around our dinner table and on our school bus is fascinating.