My TCK Life

by LeeAnn Letourneau

I was born in Burnaby, BC, Canada on April 9th, 1956, the youngest of four children. My brother Reg was 7, sister Janet was 6, and sister Lorraine was 4. We lived in New Westminster, BC.

Dad worked in Forestry. Apparently he was away a lot of the time but

I don’t remember much of my childhood. I had my tonsils out when I

was three. I do remember watching out the window and seeing my

parents and Grandma walking back to the car and crying. One night I

woke up and had to go to the bathroom. I kept ringing for the nurse

(I was in a crib with boys pajamas on), and finally got desperate

enough to climb out of the crib. I somehow managed to get the strings

in a knot and was just about to give up and go anyway when the nurse came in. Don’t remember eating ice cream, but apparently when my parents came to get me, I didn’t want to leave.

I attended St. Peter’s School in grade one. We wore tunics with ties and had nuns as teachers. I loved my first grade teacher.

Despite my brother’s teasing, I was a happy kid. I can’t remember how old I was when he told me I was adopted, but I was less than seven. Not only that I was adopted, but that nobody wanted me and the police took me door to door and Mom and Dad felt so sorry for me they took me in. Apparently my brother picked on us girls a lot. I found out later in life that he used to pin me to the floor and fart in my face. Ah, older brothers.

Dad accepted a position in Khulna, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) for my grade 2, which was 1963. Can you imagine my Mom with four kids in tow, ranging in age from 7 to 14, travelling from Vancouver to East Pakistan back then? Airline travel wasn’t the greatest for connections. I admire my Mother for that. However, we took a leisurely route through Europe.

We had to have tons of shots. One needle was so long I thought it would go right through me. The nurse said the longer the needle the less it hurts. Not sure what shot I had that made me feverish and my arm swollen. I woke in the living room and screamed from the pain. Mom and Dad came running in from outside and weren’t too impressed with me.

London, England: Our bags didn’t arrive for two days.

Paris, France: My brother took the stairs up to the top. Wonderful sandwiches with salami. The waiter de-boned our fish and taught me that the finger bowl was not soup. The maid who hid my dress under the bed covers so she could have it for her child. Taking a huge pill that I couldn’t swallow, and asking Mom if I could chew it (I used to chew aspirin) and she told me I didn’t want to chew it. Being stubborn, I did. She was right.

Rome, Italy: Getting off the bus at the Vatican and deciding to walk that way when we should have gone the other way and walked around the outside wall to get to the entrance.

Cairo, Egypt: Only stopped here for a layover but it was a long layover which we spent in the airport. I seem to remember we could see the pyramids from the airport.

Dacca (now Dhaka), East Pakistan: Lifting the lid of the toilet to see a huge lizard in the water and screaming. Mom and Dad tell me today it was only a gecko. But I swear both its head and tail were out of the water that’s how long it was.

Khulna, East Pakistan:

We lived in a colony with high concrete walls, guards at the gate; the paper mill was next door. People rioted occasionally at the gate. There was also a slaughter house which I wasn’t too fond of after seeing an animal slaughtered. We had a communal swimming pool and a one room schoolhouse with one teacher who taught grades one through seven. There were two of us in the same grade. My older brother only spent a couple of months here then went to boarding school in India. My older sister was there for one year (mostly correspondence) then went to boarding school in Canada. We had about eight servants, including a guard who had to accompany us to town. I’m told I had an amah for a while although I don’t remember. We had two parrots, many small birds, a snapping turtle, and a cat. One day the turtle was missing from his pond and we found him lumbering along the road headed for the river.

The first time we went in to town, as we got out of the car all these people swarmed around us, touching us and hemming us in. I think this is where I got my slight claustrophobia. I was upset, but Mom told me it was okay, they haven’t seem many white people before so they want to touch you to see if you are a ghost. It was okay then.

Saw many children with big heads and large stomachs. I thought they were fat.

We used to go on trips to the Sunderbans. Dad shot a a cheetal deer. I cried

“You shot Bambi” and cried my way back to the motor launch. On that same trip I saw

a big bird on a log floating down the river. As we got closer, we saw that it was a

vulture and the log was really a dead body.

We also used to take trips to Calcutta, India. That was a big city for us. We could get

milkshakes and candy. We also bought our turkey there for Christmas. People

“sleeping” in doorways were what I saw. Saw “cow patties” drying on the walls, the

skinny cows in the streets. One time, coming back through the border, the customs lady said I couldn’t take my doll through. So I started crying. Mom tried to reason with her, and then asked for her

Supervisor. The Supervisor came out and got it all settled. Apparently the woman

wanted the doll for her child.

In 1964 we visited my brother in Darjeeling. We rode burros up the mountain roads.

We travelled to Benares (Varanasi), Agra, Gwalior, Jaipur, and New Delhi. The Taj

Mahal was beautiful even by eight year olds standards.

In May of 1965, we were going in to town. The old car had

bucket seats in the front, no locking mechanism. I was in the

front next to the driver and watching his feet so I could learn

how to drive. Suddenly he hit the brake; I looked up to see a big

jeep coming across the median right at us. Mom leaned forward

to try to hold me back, which only made the force much stronger

when I hit the front of the car. I got out of the car and realized

I couldn’t breathe. As I was trying to tell bystanders that I

couldn’t breathe, all of a sudden I was able to. I had a small cut

to my forehead which bled like crazy. I was also hit in the

stomach and chin. My chin swelled up like a pelican and I had

tiny shards of glass all over me for a couple of days. I still have

a slight scar under my chin.

In July 1965, my sister Lorraine went back to Canada to boarding school with Janet.

On September 6th, 1965, Pakistan declared a state of emergency. India had crossed the border into West Pakistan. We went into black out routines. The bearer and I had a ball cutting strips of paper and pasting them on the inside of the windows. I didn’t realize it was so if a bomb exploded the glass wouldn’t fly into the house.

We were evacuated from Khulna on September 13th, Dad’s birthday. Women and children first, I was nine years old. The boat sailed at 10:30 p.m. and Dad had to jump off. I remember crying my eyes out and being scared. We sailed to Dacca. On the way, we anchored somewhere and thieves came in and stole as much as they could before the alarm sounded. All of Mom’s jewelry was gone, including the pink pearls, but my pink pearl ring survived for some reason. These are pearls from Pakistan, kind of rare but not worth a whole lot. The whole trip took 20 hours. We flew out of Dacca on September 21st on a Royal Air Force plane to Singapore with a stop in Butterworth, Malaysia. The seats on the plane face backwards.

We stayed at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for a couple of weeks, waiting to see if we could go back to Khulna. Mom went to a hair salon one day and I asked her if I could have my hair done. She said no and they took her back to do her hair. Next thing I know, two ladies come out and shampooed and curled my hair. When Mom got back, I thanked her. Mom had not told them to do my hair; they just wanted to play with it as it was long and blonde. I danced with the dancers at the Raffles. I got my first Barbie doll.

We left Singapore and flew to Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, and Shannon. The only thing I recall from this trip was meeting a lady with a dog on the beach in Ireland. I was always a dog lover, and used to scare my Mom as I would go up to them and throw my arms around them. I’ve been lucky not to have my face bitten off. The “war” had officially ended September 23rd; Dad stayed on in Khulna and returned to Vancouver in January 1966. On his return, he stopped in Rome and was offered a job with the UN, FAO, which he eventually accepted.

We stayed at a motel until the people we had rented our house to found a new place and moved. I was back at St. Peter’s school for the rest of grade 4 through 7. I was still young enough that I didn’t notice if there was any difference in me upon my return. I settled back in to school and friends easily. Perhaps it was because there was so little to do and see in Khulna.

Quito, Ecuador:

In January of 1968, Dad was sent to Quito, Ecuador for a year. They didn’t want to

break up the school year for my sister Lorraine and I (Reg and Janet were in

University by now), so we stayed in Vancouver and visited Dad in the summer of 1968.

I guess the forestry business is pretty tight knit, as they were families there that we

had known in East Pakistan. We went to the Equator. I saw llamas and a river that

appeared to be flowing uphill. I loved the potato chips they had, and the nuts they

served with the seviche. This is where I first tasted escargots. My Dad always made

us try new foods, if we didn’t like it we didn’t have to eat it, but we had to try it.

Love escargots! I was out of breath walking up the 20 steps to our floor in the

building, and I was only 12. We were definitely at high altitude. I used to walk to my

friends house, and on the way would pass a house with gates. Two dogs (Rottweilers?)

would race up and bark ferociously at me. I talked to them every day, and eventually

got to the point where I could pet them through the gate.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

In 1969, FAO offered Dad a job in Jamaica for one year. In April, they

offered him a two year stint in Malaysia in lieu. They thought long and hard

about it, and finally decided to take Malaysia. I was upset about this move,

as I was to go on to secondary school where you didn’t have to wear

uniforms. I also didn’t want to leave my friends and my home. But, like all

TCK’s, we didn’t have any say in the matter. Dad went ahead, them Mom,

Lorraine and I arrived in Kuala Lumpur on September 13th, 1969, my Dad's

birthday again. I heard about the riots from others who were in KL at the

time. My sister was a senior and I was in grade 8. We were enrolled at ISKL.

I got eaten alive by mosquitoes for the first year.

My first year there, I tried to fail every subject so Mom and Dad would send

me back to Canada to boarding school. I made a few friends, but some kids

were a bit evil. One girl found my notes I was passing to a friend under the

wall and after seeing I was talking about a boy, she pretended to be this friend and asked me who it was. She then took the note up to the teacher who read it out load. The boy I was talking about was in that class. Talk about embarrassing. This same girl told me they were all wearing dresses to a party. I showed up in a dress and they are all wearing pants. She had a good laugh about that one. One of the cutest boys at the party saw what was happening and asked me to dance. That wiped the smirk off her face. I realized that in order to be accepted you had to be yourself.

The school was mostly American students. The curriculum was also American. I soon learned to speak “American” after asking for a rubber band. I even had one American ask me what language we spoke in Canada. When I told her we speak English, she insisted. She explained that the French speak French, the English speak English, and the Americans speak American. What can a 12 year say to that? I also lost a spelling bee for spelling “neighbor” as “neighbour”. When I told the teacher that was how we spelled it in Canada she replied “This is an American school!” So why is it called the International School of Kuala Lumpur?

I started coming in to my own though. I got involved in sports and

excelled at them. I remember beating my sister in a long race. Mom and

Dad erected a back board and hoop for me to practice basketball.

School was for sports, I wasn’t interested in what I was learning. We

actually beat SAS a few times.

There was one time that I was going for a fast break, with a tall SAS

girl and Janis Moss with me. I started to slide on the key and threw the

ball up and over this tall girl to pass it to Janis. Then I slid under the

SAS boy’s bench. When I got up, an SAS player said to me “I hate you.”

I asked why and she said because I made the basket.

Another time a player hit me so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I walked

over to the sidelines to tell Coach Stewart that I couldn’t breathe,

signaling for a time out. Coach kept telling me to get back in there.

When he finally realized what was wrong he put me on the floor and

lifted my waist up which got me breathing again. I wonder if that accident in Khulna had anything to do with it.

In one basketball game vs. Dalat, I scored more points than their entire team. My whole life on the court was fast breaks, lay ups, and shooting from the top of the key.

I was also a swimmer for the first year. I had been in pools since I was 6 months old and loved to swim. I went to the Nationals representing the State of Selangor. These were held in Penang, in a salt water and chlorine pool. Back then we didn’t have goggles, talk about sore red eyes. I placed fourth in all my events. Don’t think I did well; there were only four of us entered!

Besides basketball, I also played volleyball and field hockey. I eventually became the goalie. It was a horrible job, as there was usually a huge puddle of water and mud in front of the goal. So when the ball got lost in the puddle and everyone was slashing water at me, I would walk over and lay down in the puddle so they would call a short corner. The Malaysia Women’s National Team asked me to be their goalie. I declined and Mom was spitting mad at me. In my senior year I chose not to play goalie any more and got hacked in the shins so much (no shin guards back then either) that I quit.

We also had a stint with softball, but the only team we could play against was SAS.

Back in those days, there was no drinking age for Caucasians. Drugs were easy to obtain and cheap. Luckily, I was never drawn to the drugs; alcohol (beer) was my drug of choice. At least you knew the strength of what you were getting.

We were members of the Lake Club. After school and sports (school was from 7:30 to 12:30), I would walk to the Club and swim, then Dad would pick me up to go home. Lots of kids were at the Club, others belonged to the RSGC. I used to go to the RSGC a lot until they realized I wasn’t Cheryl’s sister! At the Lake Club they had a Sunday curry. I had never liked curry in East Pakistan but loved this curry. Still make a Malaysian curry for Mom and Dad once in a while.

In senior year, I had so many free classes that some of us would run down the back of the school to the soccer/field hockey field then along Jalan Parlimen to Batu Road. The first store was an Indian restaurant where we would have chapatti and curry gravy with a beer. Then run back to school. Oh to have that energy now.

Also in my senior year, the US gave arms or money to some non-Muslim country so the Muslims in KL were against anything American, which for us meant any Caucasian. They bombed the US Library, they pulled people out of their cars and beat them without asking their Nationality. I made sure I wore my t-shirt with the Canadian flag on it. Three American classmates were walking along and they were asked their Nationality. Two of them spoke French, so in a French accent they explained they were French. When they were asked why the third didn’t speak at all, they told them that he was deaf and couldn’t speak. They were allowed to continue.

Everyone socialized together. There were the jocks, druggies, bible thumpers (please don’t take offense!), but we were all friends and accepted each other and our differences.

Friends came and went, it was a fact of life. You learned to make friends quickly and forget them quickly. You didn’t have long term relationships of any kind. You never had to break up with a boy, they just left the country. To this day I still don’t know how to break up a relationship. And I find that I don’t have any long lasting friends either. My only true friends are ISKL alumni.

We would take home leave every year (except the first year). These were lonely times for me as the bus system where my Aunt and Uncle lived was almost non-existent. This is when I first started to realize I was different than my “home” friends. We had nothing in common any more. My experiences were so different from theirs they could not comprehend and didn’t want to. Why should they? They weren’t going to have that life, and we were teenagers as well. I think I only saw one of my friends once in those four home leaves. One time, sitting on a bus bench waiting for hours for a bus, a lady asked me when the bus would come. I explained that I didn’t know, and after she asked me several times I told her that I didn’t live here so I didn’t know. Another lady asked me if I didn’t mind answering where I lived. When I told her KL, she said that she recognized me from the Weld Supermarket. Small world.

On one of the home leaves we travelled east then south. I got to visit some KL friends in Ottawa, New York, and Maryland. It was so much easier to socialize with them than my “home” friends.

I was accepted at two universities in the US. But, Mom and Dad said I had to return

home to Vancouver. So in 1974, off to the University of British Columbia I went. My

brother and one sister were out east, my other sister up north, my aunt and uncle

about 3 hours away by bus (now a ½ hour drive). My parents were still in KL. I

realized years later that my parents have been the only stable people in my life

(stable as in not leaving). I was so alone in such a strange world. It was my “home”,

but not one I knew. I think if I had approached it as yet another country it might have

been easier. Instead I felt so out of place and angry that I could not adjust. I was

taking Math and PE to be a teacher. It turns out some forms that I needed to fill out

had not made it to Malaysia so they enrolled me anyway and waited for the forms. I

was number 250 on a waiting list for housing. I was a Canadian citizen but was still

behind a ton of non-citizens for housing. I finally got one of the last two rooms.

I had to write an essay to see if I could pass the English exam. I had never been taught to write an essay. Plus, the subjects I was given to write on were subjects I had no clue about, like the politics of Canada or the “whatever” industry of Canada. So I sat down and wrote (ranted) about how unfair it was that someone who hasn’t lived in the country for five years should be expected to write about these subjects. Don’t know what happened, but they let me in.

I tried out for basketball. None of the girls would pass me the ball. I didn’t make the varsity of the junior varsity team, but they had a junior JV team which they let me play on. Half the girls couldn’t even bounce the ball. I walked in to my first Math class and there were more students in that one class than in the entire school at ISKL. They were teaching things I had already learned in Advanced Math.

I made a few friends in the dorm. When I tried to relate to them, I did what I usually did when overseas. Listen politely and try to understand their point of view. A diplomatic approach, which I still use to this day. However, trying to explain where I was coming from or my experiences was a different story. One girl even dared to say she understood, coming from a small town in BC. Oh boy, wrong thing to say. I had a friend from East Pakistan visit once, and when some of my friends said they didn’t understand what was wrong with me she ripped a new one into them about how different the experience is. Wish I could track her down. When people would ask where I was from and I tried to explain, I could see the eyes glaze over. After months of this I finally gave up trying. I shut down and cut myself off. I skipped all my classes. I think I must have been depressed. When my forms finally came in from Malaysia, the basketball coach asked me to move up to JV, but I had given up on everything by then.

I went back to KL in the summer of ’75. This was the wrong time to go as most kids were on home leave. So I was home, but it wasn’t my home, and neither was Vancouver. I didn’t belong anywhere.

I spent many years trying to deny there was anything wrong, trying to deny who I was. I went through a bad marriage and many bad relationships trying to fit in. It’s difficult to express the pain and loneliness I experienced.

In 1985, the Class of ’75 hosted a reunion in Houston, TX. I was hesitant, but I went. I found myself hanging out with friends I hadn’t really hung out with before. Everyone seemed so put together, moving on with their lives, not having any re-entry problems. I thought it was just me.

It wasn’t until the 1995 reunion in Tucson, AZ that I started asking other people about their re-entry. I wasn’t alone! I wasn’t nuts! These people spoke my language and understood me! I was home!

At the 2009 reunion in KL, there were several alumni who had never experienced a reunion before. ISKL taped some oral histories and it was amazing to hear the same struggle over and over from different alumni. It was heart warming to see the faces of alumni dawn with recognition that there were others that went through the same struggles and that they weren’t alone, that someone understood. Not having to explain simple abbreviations like KL, ISKL, and UN.

I have finally come to terms with myself and my world. It took a long time, almost 25 years and I’m still working on it! I now know that I have huge strength, and those experiences have made me strong. My only good friends are ISKL alumni. I love myself and my life but prefer to be alone. It was a long hard struggle to get here.

About ten years ago, my Mom and Dad asked me if I regretted going to KL. I told them no way in hell. Best years of my life.

                                             LeeAnn Letourneau

                                             New Westminster, BC, Canada '56 to '63

                                             Khulna, East Pakistan '63 to '65

                                             New Westminster, BC, Canada '65 to '68

                                             Quito, Ecuador '68

                                             New Westminster, BC, Canada '68 to '69

                                             Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia '69 to '74

                                             Vancouver, BC, Canada '74 to present