The student-led Global Student Association at the American School of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is a mix of Third Culture Kids (TCKs), cross-border citizens and cultural nomads. Some of them have penned glimpses into their lived experiences and reflected on identity, belonging and displacement. As global citizens, they’ve grown up navigating the space between countries, customs and selves. This four-part series highlights youth perspectives at a time when cross-cultural empathy has never been more crucial.
Gustav Duarte-Tykhelle on ‘From Cold to Warmth – And I Don’t Just Mean Temperatures’
(Gustav Duarte-Tykhelle is a half-Norwegian Brazilian boy with roots in the latter country’s northeast. He was raised in a small Norwegian coastal town, but doesn’t intend to return anytime soon. His eyes are on universities in Britain that offer courses in international relations and diplomacy.)
Have you ever tried observing a map of the world’s different climates? What are the coldest countries, and what are the warmest ones? I strongly suggest you look into it; there’s LOTS to uncover.
Observe the map. Not just the kaleidoscopic rainbow imagery, but any cultural or geographic context you’re able to associate with it. Are there any cultural or traditional parallels you can draw between the redder regions of the diagram? What about the blue regions? I’ll be strictly verbatim, at the risk of sounding superficial.
I’m a 16-year-old Norwegian boy from the country’s southwestern coast. Consult the map, and you’ll see I hail (pun not intended) from amongst Europe’s chilliest corners. I’ve frequently experienced the hardships of being isolated by meters-deep snow that make opening the door feel like an arm-wrestle against polar bears — and yes, they do actually exist in that country!
What I’m trying to convey is that whatever stereotypes you’ve canonized about Norway drawing from tales of Vikings and winter may very well be true. But whatever bitter frigidity comes with growing up in the Norwegian culture and climate is balanced by the fact that I am also Brazilian and have lived through extended exposure to that culture. In fact, I originate from one of the reddest parts of the country. This is to say that if Norway makes me cold and blue whilst Brazil makes me red and warm, then I’ll be some eldritch lukewarm violet.
But all this talk about temperature may seem unfocused or abstract, so allow me to reinforce the aforementioned. What comes next is an exploration into what it means to be cold as Norway, and what it means to be warm as Rio de Janeiro — my home city in Brazil.
COLD vs. WARM
When your door is snowed in, your car barely exposed through the thick veil of snow, you don’t do very much. You don’t go anywhere — because you can’t — and you don’t broaden your social circle very far beyond the perimeters of your own home. In days white and gray, when the concrete streets were beclouded in icy canopies and when after fifteen minutes your buttocks would begin to ache from how often you had fallen upon them, you’d prefer to just stay home. That’s just the Norwegian winter.
Moving to Rio de Janeiro in January 2022 turned that phenomenon on its head. Now the new phenomenon became FOMO, a Fear Of Missing Out, which, in my opinion, passes with flying colors as a form of psychological torture. That language might sound a little precipitous, but imagine it’s 2:00 p.m. and you have an essay due tomorrow. But from your window you see the beach, sprawling with families, beach-volleyball players and groups of friends, caressed and sunkissed by the frantic rays of a cloudless blue sky.
To stay inside and isolated feels like a waste of the beauty that is Rio’s scenery and weather. And so, controlled by FOMO like a mouse to cheese, you go outside and socialize.
What do I attempt to convey here?
The red and blue on the initial map represent more than just warmth and cold in a climate sense. They also represent the warmth and cold of entire cultures: From the introversion of Norwegians that have become accustomed to house-arrest, to the warmth of Cariocas (inhabitants of the capital of Rio de Janeiro) that illuminate the streets of their marvelous beach city with smiles and unabashed hospitality. And then there’s me, a mix of both, who can best be described as lukewarm.
Allow me to further put this into perspective.
Leaving the airport upon arrival in Norway for the first time in three years, I sat in a bus decently filled with people, but from the atmosphere and silence you’d swear it was empty. Having forgotten Norwegian public transport norms, I violated a sacred law by sitting next to a middle-aged lady whom I gently greeted with “good evening.”
To reciprocate, she responded ever-so-welcomingly with complete silence: Then, to make matters even more hospitalizing, she scooted an extra seat away from me without so much as eye contact. I peered over at my friends — two girls from Southern Asia — both of whom were so accustomed to Norwegian coldness in public transport that they paid it no deed.
If this first impression of my own town wasn’t remarkable enough already, an older man attempted to pass in front of me, tragically blocked by my suitcase. And so, naturally, seeing that he would try to pass, I pulled that luggage towards myself in an attempt to make space for the man: Alas, he had his own convictions, instead ramming his own body against the suitcase letting it fall over, without so much as an “excuse me” (and no, he was not in a hurry). Yes, this is the rule and not the exception.
The unspoken laws in Norwegian indoor public spaces are as follows: Do not interact with anyone and never say “excuse me.” Get the gist? To survive in Norway, it’s not simply a matter of accustoming to a cold temperature; it is also to adapt into a cold culture.
One of the staples of Brazilian cultural warmth is the experience of taking elevators. Strange? Bear with me. A total reversal of the Norwegian principles of social introversion, you must greet each person that enters the elevator with you.
My first impression of my apartment complex was entering the elevator for the first time, accompanied by an elderly lady who greeted me with “good morning, darling” (bom dia, querido). And indeed, this was only an introduction to the unspoken rule of always directly greeting strangers in public spaces.
What made me feel so estranged from the “bus incident” in Norway was how profoundly I had found myself adapted to Brazilian culture of always addressing other people with sympathy and consideration. The very job of an elevator attendant is so uniquely Brazilian in that it encapsulates the cultural tendency to chat and conversate in elevators, a representation of wider Brazilian culture. More than just a warm climate, Brazil has a warm culture.
Thus, returning to the initial map, what do the blue regions have in common? What do the red ones have in common?
It’s superficial, but my conclusion is that the map displays not only real temperature, but also cultural temperature. Brazil, drawn in red, is notable for its open and hospitable culture, whereas Norway, in blue, is notable for its introversion and self-reservation.
The transition to life in Brazil has been a transition into a warmer lifestyle — in every sense of that word.
Mikael Byrkjeland on ‘Becoming Internationalized’
(Mikael Byrkjeland was born and raised in Norway. His father is Norwegian and mother is mainly Portuguese. His family moved to Brazil in 2024.)
Now after reading that title you are probably wondering what in the world becoming “internationalized” means and I hear you, it sounds strange.
Before I tell you however, I’d like to tell you a bit about myself first and my upbringing. I come from a city with a population of around 150,000 people.
If you’re from the United States, you’re probably thinking, “sounds like a midsize city in the U.S. Midwest” but you’re wrong: I’m from Norway and Stavanger is the third-largest city in the country.
Can you imagine that? A city with probably one-tenth the population of the average U.S. city is the third most populous city in Norway.
It sure tells you a lot about Norway: it’s small and it’s not only the cities. Friend groups, schools, communities are all smaller in Norway; mountains might be the only case where we have something and you can’t forget the Norwegian alphabet which has 29 letters instead of the English 26.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, what does it mean to me to become “internationalized?”
Friend groups, schools, communities are all smaller in Norway.
To me, it’s what happens when you move to another country at a young age not knowing anything about the culture of that country and enroll in an international school.
I was born in Stavanger, Norway on June 13, 2007 so if you do the math, I am 17 years old.
Although I was born in Norway, I am a multinational and bilingual kid with a Norwegian dad and a Portuguese mom. I am fluent in both English and Norwegian and consider myself pretty good at Portuguese (this will come in very hand later, trust me).
Other than that, I’m all right in speaking Spanish which I learned in the Norwegian school system. Additionally, since I am fluent in Norwegian and the Scandinavian languages are pretty similar, I am basically able to understand and communicate in Danish and Swedish.
One of the advantages of being born outside an English-speaking country is that you are automatically forced to learn English if you wish to travel internationally, so while you might not have two mother tongue languages you learn two languages growing up either way.
This is what I consider to be one of the first steps to becoming “internationalized” is learning to speak English or being born speaking English.
The way I learned the most English growing up was actually watching YouTubers who spoke English, and learned more from watching them than I ever did in the Norwegian school system. Learning English is the first step because it opens the door to connect with people from countries which have a language you don’t understand.
It also obviously unlocks the door to speak with people that are from English-speaking countries but more importantly, English is THE international language. So if you wish to become “internationalized” you need to learn English first.
I had lived in Norway for most of my life and believed I would continue to do so for the years to come. That all changed in February 2024 when my family decided to move to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (You see now how that Portuguese is gonna come in handy?).
I came to Brazil with a sense of excitement over what I would discover, who I would meet and how that would change my life.
Brazil is an incredible country, especially Rio. The weather, nature and people are all amazing. However, Rio is a city where class struggles are apparent and very visible, which is something that shocked me.
One of the advantages of being born outside an English-speaking country is that you are automatically forced to learn English if you wish to travel internationally.
In Norway, most people are middle class and the lower class is almost non-existent. So I definitely learned how different the world is and its flaws.
When you live in a country like Norway, you are in a way living in a bubble, away from all the hardships of the world. I think of this as the second step of becoming “internationalized” — seeing the differences in our world firsthand.
The second thing that struck me was enrolling in an international school, where I was suddenly introduced to people from all around the world. People with French, Chinese, Mexican, U.S., Sudanese, Moroccan nationalities and many more.
If I wanted to know something about a specific country, I could simply ask someone that was from there.
Despite this, there was one incremental idea that I saw being shaped at the school: With all the different cultures and identities that were present, I felt as if the school acted as a big melting pot, mixing all the backgrounds together. The result being a sort of international identity bringing everyone together, which is the last step of becoming “internationalized.”
But that’s just my take.
