Jobs, Identity, and Defining Home: Former Third Culture Kids on Returning to Beijing as Adults

As parents of children growing up in an international environment, it’s natural for us to wonder how their experiences might shape their future. Very often, our children had no part in the decision to move to Beijing, and we hope that the advantages of learning new languages and gaining a global perspective will outweigh the challenges they face.

It might be reassuring then to learn that some of those former third culture kids return to Beijing as adults. We talked to three of them, about their experiences of growing up in the city, and what brought them back here to work.

Greta Bradford was not only a Beijing kid, but actually featured in the very first issue of beijingkids! Back then she was a teen attending the International School of Beijing (ISB).

“I moved to Beijing from Portland, Oregon, when I was 16,” she told us. “I went to ISB, and met many friends on the first day! Making friends from so many countries definitely changed my worldview. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan were underway and classmates would frequently discuss or debate the US role in global politics from many perspectives. Having friends from different backgrounds has enriched my empathy and world perspective.”

Lincoln Lin (pictured above) was much younger when he first came to Beijing. He was born in the US to a Chinese father and American mother, but as he told us, things could have been different.

This article appeared in the beijingkids May 2019 Identity issue. Continue reading the article here.

Images courtesy of Lincoln Lin, beijingkids