Tourism gets in the way

When I came to the United States, it was to do a Master's degree. I could have done that in the UK, though quite frankly at the time it would have been harder to find the funding to do it there. One of the main reasons I chose to do it here was because it gave me the chance to live in the United States for a while. Having spent a year living and studying in France, I realized that being a tourist and living somewhere were very different experiences. My family had never gone on package tours when we travelled to France. We went camping and shopped locally. We had more of an 'authentic' experience than many tourists. But it still wasn't the same as actually being immersed in the language and culture.

Rick Steves, an American travel writer, is the antithesis of ethnocentric and his mission is to encourage people to travel and learn that the way they live is not the only way to live. He writes guidebooks and has a travel show on TV encouraging people to travel independently, off the beaten path, and get to know the place they are visiting. (As a savvy business man, however, he does offer guided tours to Europe whilst touting how different they are from 'regular' tours!)

When asked in a recent interview , "What's the most important thing people can learn from traveling?" he responded:

A broader perspective. They can see themselves as part of a family of humankind. It's just quite an adjustment to find out that the people who sit on toilets on this planet are the odd ones. Most people squat. You're raised thinking this is the civilized way to go to the bathroom. But it's not. It's the Western way to go to the bathroom. But it's not more civilized than somebody who squats. A man in Afghanistan once told me that a third of this planet eats with spoons and forks, and a third of the planet eats with chopsticks, and a third eats with their fingers. And they're all just as civilized as one another.

In the same interview, he commented:

A lot of Americans comfort themselves thinking, "Well, everybody wants to be in America because we're the best." But you find that's not true in countries like Norway, Belgium or Bulgaria. I remember a long time ago, I was impressed that my friends in Bulgaria, who lived a bleak existence, wanted to stay there. They wanted their life to be better but they didn't want to abandon their country. That's a very powerful Eureka! moment when you're traveling: to realize that people don't have the American dream. They've got their own dream. And that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.

And that's why I call myself 'Almost American' - because so many of the Americans I've met have never travelled and simply cannot understand why everyone wouldn't want to be American. (Yet, at the same time they are angry at the number of people who want so badly to be here that they enter the country illegally!) Rick Steves wants Americans to

get over themselves. He wants us to please shed our geographic ego. "Everybody should travel before they vote," he has written.

It's unrealistic of course, but wouldn't that be nice?

Learn to speak English, why doncha?

As evidenced by my blogroll, I love to read about other people's ex-pat experiences. I have a lot of ex-pat Brits listed here, but that's mostly only because I followed links from one to the next, to the next . . . However, most of the ex-pats I encounter in my 'real' life are not Brits. In fact, most of them do not speak English as their first language. Some speak almost no English at all. I remember being in that situation when I was in Asia - the foreigner who doesn't speak the language. The grownup who is treated as a child. The college-educated adult who is treated like an idiot. It's frustrating, and it's not a situation you can remedy quickly. It takes time (and a lot of effort) to learn a language, and some languages are harder to learn than others. Even when I lived in France and spoke the language well, I was always an outsider.

When I think of what new immigrants with children have to deal with in terms of language - specifically communications from their kids' schools - it makes me really angry when I hear people complaining "Why don't they learn English?" "Why should we have to provide interpreters and translations?" "They should just go home if they don't want to learn English!" These are all legal immigrants, and the United States government did not require a language test of them. They are hard-working members of society and the reality is that many of the parents are so busy working in menial jobs that people born here won't do that they have no time now to take English classes.

I met a teacher last year who has been in the US as long as I have - over 20 years. Originally from Germany, her English is excellent. (In fact, she teaches English to new immigrants.) Yet even she - a fluent English speaker, familiar with the public school system - said she felt discombobulated trying to navigate the system trying to get support for her special needs child. The people who are complaining that parents in our school system should make more effort to learn English clearly have no experience themselves of having to navigate real daily life (not just tourist life) in a second language and culture. I'd love to drop some of those complainers off somewhere like China or Russia for a year and see how they fare! Sadly, the experience would probably do nothing for them except to 'prove' to their blinkered satisfaction that the United States is the best place in the world to live.

Wordless Wednesday

Are Time Lords British?

The article Are Time Lords British? on the BBC site today is more about accents than the question of whether Time Lords are really British.

Accents clearly matter to the way we see people because we think they tell us something about their upbringing and influences. Geographical accident of birth seems less influential than the values and social background we interpret from the way they speak.

The author is surprised that John Barrowman's American accent disappears when he is talking to his parents, to be replaced by the Glaswegian accent of his childhood. DH wouldn't be at all surprised by that as he's often heard my accent change. The author comments:

We all do it a bit, I suspect. Chameleon-like, we change our tone slightly to fit in with our surroundings.

Of course, if your British accent is changing to another British accent and you're still in the UK, it's not particularly noticeable. Change your accent to a 'foreign' accent, and it stands out like a sore thumb.

as Barrowman's voice changed to broad Glaswegian, I couldn't help myself seeing the actor in a different way. Even though he describes himself quite correctly as a British actor, his Illinois intonation is perplexing. Despite the illogicality of the argument, something inside me suggests he can't be properly "British" with a voice like that.

By that standard, despite their British passports, I doubt anyone in the UK will ever consider my children 'properly' British. I don't think I am anymore either . . .


POSTSCRIPT
Commenter Emjay mentioned Jeremy Clarkson's article from today's Sunday Times on exactly this topic of accents.

According to the scholars, you can zigzag across America for a year and encounter only four different accents (I find that a bit hard to believe, but whatever). In Britain you can drive for just one day and each time you stop for petrol, the cashier will sound different. It’s Punjabi in the morning, Hindi at lunchtime and Tamil in the evening.

He's far more entertaining than I am on the subject!

. . . when the world finally realises French, German and, yes, even Mandarin Chinese have no place in a modern English-speaking world, we can continue to have our national, and indeed regional, differences highlighted every time we open our mouths to order a McDonald’s.

The Post American World and the Future of Freedom

I have a book on hold at the local library - The Post American World and the Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria. I'm not holding my breath, as it appears 27 other people have put the book on hold too! If the author's talk at the Commonwealth Club of California is anything to go by, it will be a very interesting read. He speaks of Americans' lack of awareness of what is going on outside their borders, and of how the balance of economic power has shifted over the past few years. He is extremely articulate and to summarize his talk here would not do him justice. Here's an extract from his book:

Look around. The world's tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. Its largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn't make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world's ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.

These factoids reflect a seismic shift in power and attitudes. It is one that I sense when I travel around the world. In America, we are still debating the nature and extent of anti-Americanism. One side says that the problem is real and worrying and that we must woo the world back. The other says this is the inevitable price of power and that many of these countries are envious—and vaguely French—so we can safely ignore their griping. But while we argue over why they hate us, "they" have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.

If the topic is at all interesting to you, you can buy or borrow his book, read an excerpt online or download the free podcast of his talk at the Commonwealth Club here.

Apparently Zakaria has a show on CNN on Sundays and I think I might make the effort to watch it.

Seeing in color

When I was in graduate school here in the United States, I dated an African American for a short period of time. I was absolutely furious when we had an argument and he then accused me of not understanding him "because he was black". He was absolutely right, I didn't understand him - but it had nothing to do with the colour of his skin. I had had similar misunderstandings/arguments with white boyfriends, and the Iranian I lived with when I was living in France. It had everything to do with the fact that we had been brought up in different places, and to my mind using the color of his skin as an explanation was racist on his part.

It is too easy to explain differences of attitude as racial when in fact they are cultural or personal. There are people of other skin tones I have no desire to associate with, but it does NOT mean I am racist. There are many white people I would not want to associate with - am I racist because I don't like their values? (Prejudiced? Yes. Racist? No!)

My maternal grandmother lived for many years in South Africa and although she tried hard, the racism of the white South Africans rubbed off on her. When she had a dark tan (which she worked very hard at getting), with her dark curly hair and dark eyes, she did not look 100% white herself. I am sure she never realized that, but it made a great impression on me. If it was so difficult to tell someone's race, then what was the point in judging someone by the color of their skin? The chairperson of the African American studies department at Harvard recently found out that genetically he is 50% white. He and his family were stunned! I just don't see the point in deciding in advance if you are going to like someone or not based on the way they look. Of course we all do make snap judgements - not just looking at skin color, but the way people dress or the way they sound. It doesn't make it right, but neither does it make it right to accuse me of racism when I decide that I don't like someone because of who they are as a person.

I am delighted that both my kids are in classes that, although not as diverse as I would like, are not 100% white. Already it is clear that neither of them really understands why anyone would be racist. They are way ahead of me at the same age as I grew up in a town where there was precisely one adult who was not white! It took me many, many, years before I was comfortable talking to people of other races and not constantly thinking that they were somehow different.

My biggest eye-opener was the summer I lived in Taiwan when I truly experienced what it is like to be one of the minority. I lived with a Taiwanese family, I took the bus to work every day, and I taught in a Taiwanese school. For days on end the only Europeans I saw were at a distance in the restaurant at the Lai-Lai Sheraton as my bus stopped outside it. I went through all the usual stages of culture shock even though I knew what to expect. I loved Taiwan, I hated Taiwan, I slept too much . . . I remember one day I went out for lunch with some Taiwanese acquaintances. We went to KFC. For them it was a treat. For me it was torture. It made me violently ill, in a way Taiwanese food never did at any point in my stay. Shortly after lunch I was suddenly absolutely desperate to get to a toilet - preferably clean and with toilet paper, though at that point I wasn't fussy. My friends thought fast and recommended we get off the bus we were on at the next stop as there was a McDonalds. That was one place where I was guaranteed there would be toilet paper. After I was done being ill (for the moment at least), I washed my face as well as my hands because I was sweating profusely. When I looked up at myself in the mirror I realised how sick I really was as my eyes were a strange shape - they were round!

It took me several minutes to realize there was nothing wrong with my eyes. I simply hadn't seen any Western eyes in weeks, there being no mirror in the bathroom at the apartment where I was staying. If being in the minority for only a few weeks made me feel as though I had something wrong with me when I looked in the mirror, I could barely begin to imagine the effects of years of not seeing people like myself . . .

I began writing this post months ago, before the American presidential race had narrowed itself down to two candidates. Clearly race will be an issue for many people when they vote this year. I wish it weren't. I am confident that my decision will be based on who I think will do the best job and not on the race of the candidates. Hopefully within my lifetime race will no longer be an issue in these elections - or gender either!

I'm the greatest (maybe)

DH says I am often too self-deprecating and that I lack self-confidence. I tell him that it is a cultural thing. Remind him that I grew up in the UK, and our attitudes there were different. Lucy Kelleher wrote a good article on this phenomenon:

When I was a child, we were taught never to boast. For a start it was bad manners. If you went around saying I got 97% in my algebra test, you made the dunderhead who only got 23% feel even more wretched than he was feeling already. To boast was to let your achievements get out of proportion, and it clashed with that very English idea that everything had to be effortless. Trying was fine - so long as no one caught you at it.

I remember a family friend who used to visit our house. My parents would tell us how clever he was and marvel at the way he wore his intelligence so lightly. The great thing about him wasn't that he was brilliant, but that he hid it so well that no one would have ever suspected that there was anything special about him at all.

I didn't question this attitude until I went to university and took up with an American boyfriend. He looked a bit like Oscar Wilde - which pleased me. Yet what pleased me less was the way he used to tell me that his doctorate thesis on the economy of communist China was an important piece of work. It wasn't that I doubted that it was good. I was just mortified that he felt the need to tell me. Looking back I suspect he wasn't a particularly boastful person. He was just American, and so his mother had never told him that he must hide his light under a bushel at all times.

I thought I had learned to boast like an American quite nicely not long after my arrival here. I applied for a job that I was sure I was a shoo-in for. I didn't get it. One of the committee members was nice enough to tell me that a major reason why I didn't get the job was because I was TOO confident. Apparently, I sounded so confident that I came across as condescending and arrogant. Interestingly, a Kenyan friend who did get hired by the same committee reassured me that it was a cultural misunderstanding - "You just sounded too British." So his perception of the British was that we came across as overly confident . . . exactly the perception that many British people have of Americans! The experience traumatized me and ever since then I've been paranoid, afraid to admit that I know when I'm good at something. I get the job, but then wonder if I only got it because I was too good at bluffing my way in. Can I really do it? When are they going to discover that I'm a fraud?

At a recent meeting with other people in my field, the meeting facilitator made the point that if we don't toot our own horn, if we don't constantly remind people of what we are doing, we will be perceived as doing nothing. So, despite my lack of self-confidence, I will be doing just that, and trying to convince my colleagues that they can't do without me (even though I know they could replace me at the drop of a hat!)

Chinese food

Too many years ago now, I spent a summer living in Taiwan. I lived with a Taiwanese family, took the bus to work every day, and even ate out and went shopping on my own despite not speaking more than a few words of Chinese. I tried all kinds of food, including 'thousand year eggs' - which I was amazed to find I quite liked.

The only thing I was offered and decided I was not even going to try was chicken feet.


A few years later, I went on a package tour to mainland China. I was amazed at how reluctant the Americans on the tour were to try the food. One of their major complaints was that the food wasn't like the Chinese food served at their local restaurant at home in the US. Ironically, one of my complaints about the food we had on the first 2 days of the trip was that it was NOT typically Chinese! Fortunately, there were two Chinese-American families on the tour - I sat with them at mealtimes so I didn't have to put up with constant whining about the food.

On our last day in China we had lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant in Guangzhou. The Chinese-Americans and I had a GREAT lunch - the Americans were all not eating in anticipation of getting to Hong Kong and being able to eat western food again. We did the rounds of all the tables helping ourselves to all the goodies they were ignoring!

The Americans were ecstatic when we finally arrived late at night in Hong Kong and they headed off to the Hard Rock Cafe. One commented that she was looking forward to a milkshake - her first milk product in over 3 weeks. I asked why she hadn't had any milk, yogurt or cheese in China? Although many Chinese are lactose intolerant, they provided those foods for the Americans in the hotels. She hadn't liked the milk because it was served warm. She hadn't seen the yogurt because it was not served in little plastic containers with foil tops. She hadn't wanted the cheese because it was served at breakfast time and "cheese is not breakfast food."

While the others in the group ate bagels, cereal (with cold milk) and yogurt (from plastic containers) for breakfast in the hotel in Hong Kong, I delighted in eating things like teryaki salmon, rice porridge, and steamed buns with barbecued pork filling. Why go abroad and eat the same things I would have at home?

Riot for austerity

I'm contemplating joining the 'Riot for Austerity'. Not sure how far I'll get, but the goals are worthy ones . . .

Attitude

I remember someone telling me once shortly after I arrived in the US that a big difference between the US and the UK is the can-do attitude over here. If someone in the UK said they were thinking about maybe writing a book, the reaction would be, "What, you?" If someone in the US said the same thing the response would be "Go for it!"

I wonder how much that has changed with bloggers like Tom Reynolds, Petite Anglaise and others getting publishing deals now and becoming celebrities?