US, US, baby

The whole group didn’t fit in the home’s van, so some of us elected to walk back to the home after the prison visit. A kilometer or so into the walk, the van pulled back around and stopped right next to me. “Jayna, you have to come back to the office and take care of something,” said the home’s supervisor. As there’s very little we volunteers “have” to do, I immediately got a bit apprehensive. “There’s three men at the office who need to speak with you,” he told me as I closed the passenger door.

“Maybe they’re your friends? They pulled up in a white truck,” he said, trying to give me more clues. Now I was starting to get really confused. I didn’t know anyone else in the town other than the people who work at the home/office. The only other people I’d talked to were the cashiers at the grocery store. Who in the heck could be waiting for me?

When we stopped in front of the office, there was the aforementioned white truck. And three Chinese guys standing on the porch. “Nee how,” one said. Although I know he was saying “hello,” in Chinese, I still responded in English. No need to get the guy confused with my ability to speak the language. He still started speaking to me in Chinese. I responded in English that I didn’t understand.

“But you are from China…”

“No, I’m from the US.”

Blank stare. Confused look. “Where?”

“I’m American.”

“Ah…but your family.”

“No. My family is American.”

Head nod. “I own business here, and I don’t speak good English. Need someone to translate Chinese to English. You help?”

“I don’t speak Chinese. Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“But your father. He is Chinese.”

“No. My father is German.”

At that statement, there was a moment of understanding on his face. So I said “sorry” one more time and walked away. I came back into the office to the curious questions of the office staff. In the middle of explaining, old boy walks into the room asking, “So you’ll help?” Uh…no.

The really creepy thing is I have no idea who this guy is. Nor do I know how he knows where I stay/work. The only way is if he sat around and watched me one day. I get the willies just thinking about it.

I grew up an Asian in rural Missouri. To say I’ve learned to deal with racists and racist comments is a bit of an understatement. Eighteen years of living in small town Midwest kind of made me prepared to brush off all sorts of racism. That’s not to say it doesn’t affect me or make me angry or upset me. But you know, I learned about racism by the time I’d reached school, and so I estimate I’ve been dealing with racists for about 22 years now. Still, though, sometimes the calm, cool (OK, cold, some might say) exterior I throw up to racism comes tumbling down, and a torrent is unleashed.

That’s what happened yesterday.

I was ambling about the markets buying some fresh veggies. Getting some corn, I was approached by a rather tipsy fellow requesting that I give him money “to buy a drink.” Although I appreciated his honesty, I a) don’t give money to beggars who can clearly take care of themselves and b) had barely enough cash to buy the corn I’d just had packed. I told him “no.” He asked again. “No,” I replied again. “Fuckin’ Chinese!” He yells at me. “I’m not even Chinese.” I snottily retort. “Japanese…whatever,” he barks over his shoulder as he stumbles off.

Back at the guesthouse, I unload my veggies and laughingly relate the story to my new friends who live/work there. Like I said, I can deal with racists…usually. But as I related my story in one room, I groaned as I turned the corner to the kitchen and was confronted by a nosy fellow who’d been eavesdropping.

See, this guy, well, remember “Fat Bastard” (”Get in my belly!”) from the Austin Powers movies? This guy basically acts and looks like him but with a white beard and a South African accent as opposed to a red beard and Irish accent.

After being introduced to me (and being told I was American) he had waddled up behind me and breathlessly and proudly stated in my ear, “I was in China one winter.”

OK…if you don’t know me, let’s just say invading my personal space is not a great way to start off a friendship. Nor is telling me stories about yourself in China, thinking I will be impressed because I’m Asian. Seriously. I mean, when I go back to the US, am I going to walk up to the first black person I see and say, “I was just in South Africa”? Or do I walk up to a white person and say, “I went to Australia”?

But FB’s comments didn’t stop there. No. And I say “comments” because we never have had a conversation. Our interactions always involved me walking into a room and him immediately starting with…”You should go to the Chinese restaurant across the street.” or “I went to the Oriental part of the city today.” or some other Chinese/Oriental shit he decided to spit out that day.

So yesterday…after clearly eavesdropping, he asks me to repeat my story as I pull out the avocado, tomato, and onion for my guacamole.

And out starts the torrent.

“Some idiot just yelled at me…but he was just stupid…especially because he thinks all Asians are Chinese,” I say glaring at the guy. Only partially annoyed at the drunk guy from earlier, my comment was just a way to tie in the day’s incident with the ridiculous days of comments from the FB sitting in the chair now. But he didn’t let up. He decided to try to prove to me why I was actually from China. I then asked (OK, asked is a bit mild of a description…especially as I had a cutting knife in my hand at this point and was gesturing quite vividly) if it’s appropriate to group all Africans as from Nigeria. Or if it seems normal to walk up to a white person and start talking about England. And if his little theory is so true, then we all came from the same ancestors way back anyway. “Well…your parents or your grandparents or their grandparents were from China,” he smugly tries to tell me. “Actually, no. My family is German. My family is from Germany. My great grandparents…they’re German. I’m adopted,” I practically screamed in his face.

At this point he sits down and says, “Oh…so you’re one of THOSE adopted o…” Trying to dice my onions at this point, I spin around, and angrily spit, “No. I’m not one of THOSE. I’m a human being. A freaking human being. And I really don’t want to talk to you right now. I’ve been dealing with racist comments today and…” FB interrupts me and says, “He wasn’t being racist…” Um…excuse me? When did “Fuckin’ [insert (perceived) racial group here]” not become racist? “I’m sorry,” I say in my completely unsarcastic voice. “YOU don’t really get to tell me when someone is being racist toward me,” I glaringly scream with my knife gesturing into the air. Silence filled the room. Even my friend who’d come in to see me make the guac stayed silent. FB sat there for another five or so minutes without saying a thing. And hasn’t since.

Geez. Glad to know that ignorance is all across the world.

North Indians have gotten a bit of a bad rap…from Westerners and Indians. Deserved? Well, you’ll just have to visit for yourself…But let’s just say North Indian men have been notorious for not making Delhi the most comforting city for visitors, especially those that are female.

However, grouping all North Indian men as one type would be completely inaccurate…just thought I’d give you a peek into two that I ran into…

It’s a short video, less than a minute long

In the village, I went with the family to a church service. When the other church goers filed out, we sat in the newspaper-wallpapered mud house talking with the pastor and a few others. I picked up a song book that the nephew had brought with him and was floored to see “If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you, Lord, for giving me wings” on the first page I opened the book to.

That line is the first in a children’s song I sang in the small Methodist church I grew up in. It’s one of those songs that as a child, I thought only we sang…and was surprised to find others at church camp who knew it. Then, when I moved to LA as an adult, I was even more surprised to find out my roommate who grew up in Detroit, Michigan also sang that song growing up. But, you know, we were all Methodists from the Midwest, so I guess now I can see that it’s not THAT surprising.

But seeing it in an English/Hindi/Assamese/Bodo songbook in a village in remote India — where I can safely say nobody is fluent in English — was definitely the biggest shock of all. This is missionaries at work, people.

Apparently, playground areas in India are a lot like the ones in the U.S. They even have the randomly placed tractor tires.

Another thought: The best part of touring the city with one of the girls from the office…having an excuse to play on all the playground equipment, of course. And I learned the Hindi word for “swing” too. Hopefully it will come in handy later.

…Little Europe. Cities can have a Little Italy, Little India, or Little Saigon. So, my trip, I’ve decided can have its Little Europe (what to others is known as “Malaysia”).

Why “Little Europe” you ask? Well, have you ever been to Melaka? If not, let’s just say the city definitely still shows it’s Portugese/Dutch/British heritage. Most of the city’s draws are the Euro-influenced architecture from the city’s past. (One tourist spot that isn’t Euro, however, is the shop that sells shoes — now banned — used in Chinese foot binding. Horrifying…)

And well, back in KL, my ever-so-integrating host was, as previously mentioned, French. As was his roommate. As were her coworkers (well, she did work for the French embassy…). And all their friends I met, too. So it was tout francais tout les temps — or all French all the time for you non-French speakers. And they were all tres (very), tres French. Well, you know, except that they did shower every day and not one of them smelled! (Which we actually did discuss…)

On Friday night we went to a going-away party for one of the Frenchies. The whole time we were there I kept thinking of the movie “La Boum,” a really low-budget educational language film set at a party I saw in 7th grade French class. In said film, the party goers danced to imaginary music and had super-social French conversation like, “My name is Marie.” “My name is Thomas. Where do you live?” “I live in Paris.” Oddly enough, the conversation skills I learned from “La Boum” didn’t come in handy at my Little Europe party. But I did recall enough early-language skills to be able to reply “I don’t speak French” when someone struck up a convo.

And if you knew me in LA, you might remember my frustrations with not speaking the language. While cocktailing in Marina Del Rey, I’d tried to small talk a two-year-old French-speaking girl. All I could remember of my nine semesters of French was “Comment appelle tu?” After nearly five years of French lessons, how is it that all I can remember is “What is your name?” Well, OK, I actually do remember a few other things from French class…like how annoying my high school French teacher was when she reprimanded me in front of the entire class for not wearing pantyhose to prom (um, hello! pantyhose do not look good with certain open-toed shoes…and when your date is a third-generation pig farmer, I don’t think one’s lack of hosiery is going to gross him out). I also remember that my college French 1 teacher was Lebanese and had a hairlip…causing him to get this gross foam out of the side of his mouth while speaking French (but not while speaking English, interestingly). My French 2 teacher from the Ivory Coast had a gap in his front teeth. My French 3 teacher looked like an elf and always seemed to get rosier cheeks than usual when he would get annoyed at the sarcastic musings of me and my partner Jenny R. Hmmm…so I’m beginning to think if I’d spent less time finding faults with my teachers (what? me find faults in others?) and actually truly learning the language, I’d have known when the company I was keeping this past week was talking about me (and perhaps about how I smelled).

But when the Frenchies would fall back to their home language I just tried to improve on what little French I still have or used it as my excuse to zone out and daydream, which I do regardless of what language people are speaking around me.

This past week, my daydreams often left me wondering if I should later try living in a francophone country in Africa or Europe (something I’d been half-heartedly considering since I finished Teach For America and decided a job with the UN would be fablous), so I can actually re-learn the language. Hmm…good question. If I did, do you think I’d be able to find a “Little New York” or “Little L.A.” there?

On this trip, I’ve been reminded of three stereotypes the rest of the world thinks of Americans:
1. We’re always politically correct.
2. We’re fat.
3. We’re stupid.

Over the last few days at my hostel, I think I’ve thoroughly debunked the first one.

Although I consider myself quite PC (even moreso than most Americans thanks to my two years teaching), I apparently surprised my fellow guests this weekend when I was talking with an English woman, a Scottish guy and his Irish girlfriend. We were discussing the differences in our common language when the term “ginger” came up. Apparently the Brits use it as a term for redheads. One of them asked if Americans had a phrase for people with red hair. Evidently, they weren’t talking about a phrase “like ‘beat them like a red-headed stepchild’?” I said it in all sincerity, but they were just tickled ginger. Although I beforehand hadn’t thought of it as being not-so PC, they definitely enjoyed the fact that the sentence came from a Yank’s mouth.

Then the next night, one of our new Norwegian friends was drinking a Guinness. I turned to the Irish girl and asked if she’d ever had an Irish Carbomb. “Oh, well, I guess it’d just be a carbomb for you…do you have those in Ireland?” Ummm…open mouth, insert foot and realize where the drink got its name. And be told that yes, Ireland does/did have carbombs, but they’re not drinks.

So, while I’ve done a good job debunking stereotype numero uno for us, I think I may have just reconfirmed number three. Sorry, y’all.

Returning to my land of study abroad, I can’t help but be SO glad I did it. In fact, I’d say my decision to study abroad is my second-best choice I’ve made in life.

Why don’t more Americans do it? Don’t know…but I do know plenty of 20-somethings who regret not doing it.

So if you know any young Yanks contemplating it, I’ve come up with a great list to convince them to go:

1. Making out with non-Americans. Remember in Love, Actually when Collin wants to go to the US because he thinks he’s “got a cute British accent”? Well, yeah, he does. And, yeah, you’ll have a cute American one too. Even in countries where they hate American politicians, there’s always going to be quite a few who’ll swoon over an American accent/face/fashion sense. And even if you hate dating, well, it’ll still probably happen.

2. A friend’s a friend forever…and wherever they live, you can visit. Visit your new international friends wherever they head back to — from upstate New York to Sydney (see photo below) to the Maldive Islands…

3. “Yes, I’m American.” Good, bad, hilarious…you’ll see how others see us. College students in any country aren’t known for being the most shy bunch. You may be asked how many times you’ve been sued, how many guns your family owns, or how many celebrities you’ve met in your life…all things related to, of course, how they see us.

4. It’s all fun and games. Playing sports, especially American-invented ones, abroad brings a whole new appreciation for international sports competitions. Note to self: on international basketball courts, the lanes are trapezoids…

5. Parlez-vous francais? Instead of your only memory of French being that learning it made you wake up every day at 7 a.m. for three semesters, studying abroad can give you the chance to be fluent in it. And besides that…Americans really need to learn more languages. Really.

6. Money, money, money. Traveling on a student budget seems like a deal sure to break the bank, right? Well, maybe not. Non-need based financial aid can mean a profit if the school you attend has a lower tuition and lower cost of living. When I studied abroad, I took three week-long trips to see both of Australia’s coasts and a trip to Bali (see photo above); even with those trips and my international flight, I spent the same amount I would’ve just going to classes and living in Missouri for that semester. Of course, the exchange rate is not-so great here anymore, but there are still other places where it’s not so bad. Wherever you choose, though, even if it’s uber-expensive London, it will be cheaper to live there as a student than it will be to vacation there as an adult.

7. Let’s broaden our minds. Even if you go to a 25,000+ university, there’s classes there you can’t take. Australian Literature and Film? Definitely not offered at University of Missouri. Offered at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia? Yep. And world history in another country? Definitely not the same world history you’ll get back home.

8. Drinking! Not only can you legally drink in most countries before 21, but you’ll come back with: 1) new drinking games 2) new and different drinks you like and/or 3) new words for drinking…all which are great things to pull out back at college bars/parties in the states. (Or if you’re the goody-two-shoes like I was, only 2 will apply to you because you only had one drink over the whole six months…)

9. All the cool kids are doing it.

Away from the US, I’ve realized I really rely on my instincts to guide so many of my choices. In the end, I often shy away from things that are seemingly normal to others, or I’ll accept or do things that most people would never do. And in a foreign place where I don’t speak the language, sometimes my instincts are all I’ve got. In the end, I trust my instincts more than just about anything else. (And well, you know, I did once have a psychic tell me I had my own psychic abilities…)

Really, though. That’s why two days ago I peaced out on my room in Kanchanaburi before my reservation ran out, the first time I’ve done that on this trip. Something about my inability to fall asleep there that first night gave me the heebie-jeebies!

It’s also why I didn’t freak out at the Tiger Temple yesterday when a tiger cub pulled me down and started knawing away at my skin. Yeah, it hurt when he sunk his teeth into the back of my neck, but I knew he was just playing and not going for blood (the worried look on my face was due to the fact that I’d recently had my Missouri Football t-shirt go MIA…in Vietnam, nonetheless…and was afraid he’d bite a hole in this shirt, causing me to be down two good ones…).

And it’s why on my way to catch the bus back into Kanchanaburi, I accepted a ride with a group of Thai construction workers to the bus station. And why, when they looped back through on their way to Kanchanaburi 20 minutes later, I hopped back into the cab of their truck. The five men and one woman spoke little English, but something about them made me immediately aware I could trust them.

But as I got out and waved good-bye, I about died laughing. The four guys in the truck bed had slipped navy blue knit ski masks over their heads to protect their lungs from cars’ exhausts. Mmm…I have a feeling if they’d had those on before they picked me up, I may have doubted my instincts that riding with them would be OK…

In case you don’t read Hangul, I’ll tell you that this is my ticket for Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. After being in China, where all movies are dubbed, I’d resigned myself to probably not seeing any new American movies while on this trip. This ticket, however, is proof that I’d resigned too early.

Thursday I got to see Johnny Depp and crew swash-buckling there way through another Disney epic; and I must say, I was made quite homesick. Watching it, I remembered the day my Redondo Beach roommate came home and told us they were filming this movie off the shores of RB. For the next week, my (room)mates were often on Black Pearl watch and would be on the lookout to see it dock near Joe’s Crab Shack each night or talk about whether or not Orlando Bloom really had been hanging out on the Hermosa Pier or not. So watching this movie here, definitely made me think about “back home” (if I could call LA that!).

Aye, but at least I saw the movie with an Aussie bloke who brought LA a little closer to home that night when he bought me a churro from the movie concession stand.

Sidenote: Do any of you know why some countries choose to dub American movies and others choose to use subtitles? If you do, I’d love to know…