In 2006 and 2007 I traveled around South America with a heavy typewriter and a bag of film, intermittently working and settling in places I liked.

I came back with piles of papers and negatives, a strange Spanish accent, and a slew of projects to do. One of these which I’m finally getting around to now is a photo documentary project about the miners of Potosi, Bolivia. A place of superlatives both exciting and terrifying – highest city in the world, used to be richest city in the world, biggest silver deposit, poorest city in Bolivia now – Potosi is a historical wonder struggling to stay afloat both in reality and in our collective memories.

I want to tell its story as it stands now, keeping in mind its historical context and its uncertain future. But I need some help! Please help fund this project and get prints in exchange: you can find more information at Kickstarter.com. Below are photos from my last trip.

1. Two women look on during an homage to La Paz in Tarija, Bolivia. A giant military procession was led by a small Virgin Mary statuette dressed in camouflage.

2.A woman looks on during the Homage to La Paz, Tarija, Bolivia

3.A miner rests outside his shaft at the Cerro Rico mine, in Potosi, Bolivia. Although there are rails, most ore-filled trolleys have to be pushed along them manually.

4.Kids play during sunset in Potosi, Bolivia.

5.A man talks to a departing bus (not seen) in front one of the ubiquitous snack stands found throughout Bolivia.

6.During Mother’s Day in Cusco, Peru, children put on shows for the extended family’s mothers during a cookout.

7.Andres, from Chile, in front of a restaurant in La Paz, Bolivia.

8.A hostel in Uyuni, Bolivia.

9.Every year this bridge, hanging over the Apurimac River, in Peru, is rebuilt during a festival dedicated to it. The technique and location is the same as those used by the Incas.

10.A boy stops to pray at one of the stations of the cross at a pilgrimage festival held at the base of Mount Ausangate

11.Horses and people mingle in the camp that sits at the base of Mount Ausangate, during a pilgrimage festival.

12.Jose Gabriel, from Lima, visits Machu Picchu for the first time. Peru.

13.A girl who attended a non-profit funded school, in Cusco, Peru.

Photo: exfordy Feature Photo: malias

If you’ve even a passing acquaintance with Cuba or Cubans, you’ll have heard ‘no es fácil.’ This applies to all life’s details and acts, causes and effects. In a nutshell, ‘no es fácil’ means that it’s not all mojitos and sexy mulattos over here in Havana.

After eight years in residence, I can tell you that things can get tough. We’re talking a mercurial and dispiriting kind of tough. When a good day is the one where I’ve remembered to flush the toilet before my toothbrush falls in (the average Cuban toilet – including mine – has no seat or lid) and a bad one runs the gamut from a termite-infested mattress to an unexpected visit from the housing police. Over the course of my life, I’ve been called a “tough cookie” with considerable frequency, but I’m not sure I was wholly prepared for the existential challenges living in Cuba would, in the end, represent.

One great veldt of this existentially tough terrain relates to home (which I’ve come to understand as an overly simple word for a terribly slippery concept). Even if you don’t live in a culture not your own, you’ve likely struggled with this 4-letter, 9-point Scrabble word – at one time or another had to face where home is…or isn’t.

“Where are you from?” travelers ask.

“Where’s home?” a colleague queries.

“Hey fren! Where you from?” Cubans shout on a daily basis.

For the exile – whether self-imposed or not – the home question is anything but simple.

I’m from NY, sure. Born and bred. But I can’t give you the scoop on the new Yankees stadium or describe the plan they’ve finally hammered out for the World Trade Center. They have hammered something out, haven’t they? But I can tell you who’s leading the Liga Nacional (Go Gallos!) and about the new hotel going up on the Malecón (killer location, belied by its odd mod design).

Photo: malias

Still – as I’m reminded on a regular basis – I’m clearly not from here, although I do feel just like a real Cuban when a guy sells me two pounds of tomatoes for the price of three. Especially authentic is weighing the sack of veggies at the station for this purpose and reclaiming my five pesos from the crooked tomato peddler.

I’m not breaking new ground here with this ‘home-not-home’ stuff. This is a communal itch scratched in innumerable ways among exiles and ex-pats the world over. Just peruse the nearly 500,000 Google results for the song lyrics ‘no soy de aquí, ni soy de allá’ to see what I mean. It’s an old story this one of ‘I’m not from here, I’m not from there.’ Meanwhile, Yucatán expats cook up chili contests, Super Bowl parties are hosted in Panajachel, and 4th of July barbecues are all the rage in Hong Kong.

Here in Havana, things are different. First off, there are far fewer expats here than in other Caribbean countries and Latin American capitals. You can imagine a host of reasons why this is I’m sure, but above all, Cuban immigration laws are strict – that is to say, they don’t make it easy to live here from the get go. So that naturally delimits the expat community.

There are also all the Cuba-specific political-economic mechanics at work. Foreigners can’t own private businesses for example, so there are none of the stereotypical (insert nationality here) sports bars/sidewalk cafés/burger joints acting like a foreign resident magnet you find in other countries.

Finally, people drawn to Cuba are a diverse group. The primal attraction is usually philosophical in nature, though more often than not a love/lust interest also figures in. Political exile (or straight up on-the-lam type exile) compels some to live in Cuba as well, as does just wanting to take it easy on a safe, sunny isle.

But as those determined or loca enough to try and live here know, it becomes all too clear, all too fast, that taking up residence in Cuba is anything but an exercise in taking it easy.

When I arrived in the spring of 2002, a Cuban American who should know said to me: ‘So you’re a New Yorker. I’m convinced that only New Yorkers can survive in Havana.’ I took him to mean that only those well-versed in the struggle of the über-urban and all the noise, garbage, hard times, neuroses, potential, and energy that implies have a shot of making it here. And he’s right.

But although Manhattan and Havana have a lot in common, there are important distinctions: the former is a mosaic of all the world’s cultures, where respecting individual space and anonymity is the golden rule, while the latter is decidedly homogeneous, filled with Habaneros who get all up in your business, uninvited.

Photo: neiljs

It’s a little like high school in that way. For someone like me (i.e. obviously foreign), this means I have men of all ages and colors, school kids and their moms, insecure teens, bent old ladies – anyone and everyone really – staring, pointing, commenting, stopping me on the street to chat me up, and breaking once again into my private space with the ubiquitous ‘my fren! Where you from?’ In short, Cubans are persistently and relentlessly underscoring my “other” status.

Contrary to what some naïve observers believe, this is not a good thing. Not in Havana anyway. Because here, in the calcified social hierarchy that few Cubans I know will admit exists, foreigners dwell on the last, lowest rung. They, I mean we, scrum at the bottom of the Cuban barrel and are alternatively perceived as clueless, rich, frivolous, or horny. Regardless of how long we’ve been here. In essence, we as a group, are seen as easy marks.

You can imagine how the New Yorker in me reacts each time someone sets these sorts of sights on me, which (sorry to say) is pretty much daily. After years of this, I’ve realized I’m much better suited to being a small fish in a big pond than any sort of fish in a small pond.

Sometimes it gets so absurdly awkward and I feel so uncomfortable it’s like I’ve been possessed by Larry David. Maybe slightly less annoying and asshole-ish, but artless and a little bit awful all the same. Like, who do you kiss when you walk into a crowded room? Everyone? Even the people you don’t know? which is SOP for Cubans from everywhere but Havana.

But I’m not Cuban, nor from the sticks (where people are generally friendlier, let’s face it), and this can get complicated. What to do if there are foreigners present – most of whom aren’t used to being touched, much less kissed by strangers? How about nasty ex-lovers? Do you bestow upon them this congenial howdy-do as well? And worse, what to do when someone greets you with a kiss that leaves a slick of saliva on your cheek?

This happens more than anyone acknowledges and I know several people with this lamentable trait. Wiping it off while they’re standing there making nice hardly seems appropriate. But I know from experience that letting that saliva sit to dry is entirely discomfiting.

But sticky saliva and other such cultural conundrums aren’t unique to Cuba – every country has them – and when things get really bad, I set to thinking about those western women living in Liberia or Syria and the tremendous daily challenges they must face. Surely my burden pales next to theirs.

Still, in the end, I think anyone considering a life in a culture not their own, existing between one home and another, has to be ready for bouts of isolation and loneliness no matter how incomparable and exciting the experience may otherwise promise to be.

Welcome to my world.

Photos: Fotos Oaxaca

PocketCultures aims to “put the world in your pocket.” The site features blogs and articles from writers around the world and attempts to provide readers with a palpable, unique sense of local places and cultures. Its writers are diverse, coming from Thailand, Costa Rica, Germany, and Britain, among other countries.

PocketCultures pushes beyond the “look at this bizarre local custom!” gawking of so much travel writing to help travelers get a feel for the social and political issues a particular culture is dealing with, and the way its people eat, dress, speak and think.

It’s a site for the travel anthropologist, who wants to not only visit a place but to see the world from the perspective of people living there.

I interviewed Liz Chatburn, managing editor of PocketCultures, about the site, blogging, and traveling.

Photos: Fotos Oaxaca

How did the idea for Pocket Cultures come about? Can you share its story?

We’re three co-founders and we have all traveled and/or lived in several different countries. One thing we noticed is that the ‘real version’ of a place, which you see through visiting or getting to know locals, is often quite different from the story you see from outside.

For example the Vice guide to Liberia has been getting a lot of attention recently. But what was featured in that series is not representative of the lives of most Liberians and if you talk to a Liberian or someone who has spent a lot of time in Liberia you’ll soon find that out. Actually, we’re working on a series of interviews with Liberian bloggers at the moment.

So, back to the story… we thought it would be great to create a place where people from many different places could share the ‘real stories’ of their countries with each other. We hope in this way we can make connections and help promote better understanding between people of different countries, cultures, religions and backgrounds.

So far we have contributors from nine different countries and they are all passionate about exploring different cultures and sharing their own. As well as wanting to share their cultures, some also joined because they feel their countries are not well understood or don’t get the attention they deserve from the rest of the world.

Pocket Cultures has a really interesting section called “My partner is a foreigner.” This is an area most travel blogs don’t cover. How did the idea for this section come about?

It seems that many people who spend an extended period in another country end up meeting someone!

As one contributor to “My partner is a foreigner” wrote about living in Turkey:

“One of the things that surprises me about the Turkish culture is the huge sense of hospitality, they meet you today and tomorrow you are at their home having dinner and finally it happens like me…. you get married!!!”

Being part of a cross-cultural couple has its own unique set of challenges but it also puts you in the special position of experiencing another culture though your partner. We thought this would be a fun way to explore cultural differences.

One of the things I love about Pocket Cultures is that it covers “blogs of the world” — blogs from all sorts of different places, both in English and in foreign languages. Do you think blogs are changing the way we travel and encounter foreign cultures? If so, how?

Definitely. Personally I think guidebooks are really useful and I don’t think they will be going away soon. But by reading blogs as well before you visit a new place you can see a local’s perspective and gain deeper insights into life and culture there.

The other great thing about blogs is the interaction – you can easily leave your own feedback, or start a discussion with someone on the other side of the world. So yes, for people really interested in better understanding of a different place and culture blogs are a great opportunity.

How did you begin traveling? How do you think it affected you as a person?

Photos: Fotos Oaxaca

I’ve always been curious about the world, but my first real travel experience was a rail trip around Europe during the summer holidays whilst I was at university. I grew up in the UK, where you have to cross water to go abroad, so it was a totally new thing to cross borders without getting off the train!

As well as the ‘hey, there’s a whole world out there!’ moment, my travelling friend and I also met some really interesting people who didn’t speak English. It was a great feeling to be able to communicate using our (very bad) high school French and German. That was a huge motivation to carry on learning languages.

You are in an intercultural marriage; can you tell us a little about what that process has been like for you? How did you meet your husband, and what sorts of rewards and frustrations have come from being part of an intercultural couple?

We met when we were both studying in Barcelona. Deciding where to live after getting married was fun: we took a map and each marked our favorite countries. It turned out that we both liked the idea of experiencing life in Turkey – that was quite a surprise! That’s how we ended up here.

One great reward of being in an intercultural marriage is learning to be more open to different cultures and flexible about different ways of doing things. I’m definitely more laid back than I used to be. Deciding where to live is one of the most difficult things, because we cannot both live near our families. At least these days it’s easier to keep in touch with Skype, email etc.

What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced while traveling and living abroad? How have you overcome them (or how are you still struggling with them)?

On one hand I have friends in a lot of countries, which is great, but on the other hand we can’t hang out without someone getting on a plane, which is not so great. Making new friends takes time, so that’s always a challenge when you travel or move to a new place. It can be even more challenging to develop deep relationships with people who have grown up with a culture that’s very different to yours.

I try to be open minded towards different points of view, and meet lots of different people rather than searching out people with a similar background. It’s more difficult at first but very rewarding. Turkish people are incredibly friendly and outgoing so living in Turkey has been a pleasure in this respect.

When you think of “travel,” what’s the first thing that pops to mind?

Photos: Fotos Oaxaca

Definitely food! I love trying food from different places.

Would you mind sharing your travel philosophy, or the way that you think about travel?

Interesting question! First I should say that I think everyone travels for different reasons and I don’t think there is a wrong way to travel, as long as you get what you want out of it (and don’t do any damage to the place you visit)

I believe that people all over the world have lots in common, but there are also some differences, and understanding and respecting those differences is key to getting along. So I travel to learn more about what makes a place and its people unique. I’m as happy sitting in an everyday café soaking up the atmosphere as I am seeing the sites.

What do you look for in a piece of travel writing?

The best kind of travel writing lets you picture the place whilst you’re reading. I love articles that show insights into daily life and culture: encounters between people, the atmosphere, what the food is like, what makes a place special.

Also, for me a respectful approach to potential readers from other cultures is really important. Often when reading an article I think ‘how would I feel if someone wrote this about my country?’ How we experience a place is partly filtered by our own cultural values and expectations and I think really good writing is aware of this subjectivity and acknowledges it somehow.

Community Connection

Attention Matador U students! Do you want to become a contributor to PocketCultures? The site is currently looking for regional contributors.

Photo: kimdokhacFeature Photo: filtran

For the diehard Francophiles who spent a semester of their junior year in Paris and who dream of returning, the French government’s teaching assistantship program seems like a great way to spend a year or two after college.

The program, which offers native Anglophones between the ages of 20 and 30 the opportunity to teach English by working as an English Assistant in the public school system, gives young adults the chance to gain teaching experience and to live a poor student’s life in France, all for the whopping sum of 793€ per month, or just enough to pay rent and eat baguettes.

I’m in my second year of the teaching program, which has financed two years of study-abroad in Paris, and I’ve certainly gained experience and perspective from teaching in another culture. But many of the assistants I’ve met applied for the program and arrived in France without some important information about the realities of the job. Since you already have your list of reasons for wanting to apply, my point here is not to bash the assistantship program, but to make you aware of some potential disadvantages you might not otherwise anticipate. Here are nine things to consider while applying to the English assistantship program in France.

1. They can and will put you anywhere in France.

Photo: panoramas

The program can place you anywhere within one of the three regions you select on your application. The urban academies in Ile-de-France are among the most requested, and there are many assistants in the Paris area, but in provincial areas, you could be in the middle of nowhere. It is very unlikely that you will be placed in the major city in your academie. Some assistants are left to fend for themselves in small towns without public transportation.

2.Your assistant visa won’t allow you to stay past the end of your contract or to do anything other than teach.

If you obtain the free assistantship visa, you must leave the Schengen territory when your contract expires, or if you leave your job early. If you can, try to enroll in classes and get a student visa, which will be much more flexible.

3. You don’t have to speak French to apply, but it will help you to discipline your students and communicate with your colleagues.

Be aware that if you don’t speak French, or if your French isn’t very good, you’ll have a very difficult time making yourself understood to students, who can take advantage of you, and to your colleagues, who may not make the effort to communicate with you.

4. You don’t have to have teaching experience, but again, it will help.

Experience teaching or working with kids – anything that will help you to take charge, get organized, and maintain some semblance of order – will be very helpful. Since French schools often stress discipline more than American schools, it can be hard to get students to pay attention if you’re not imposing enough. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your own style, it just means you have to be creative and in-charge.

5. You can be assigned to any level.

On the application form, you can rank your preferences for primary school or secondary school, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll get your choice.

6. You can have a lot of responsibility, or very little.

Photo: panoramas

If you’re placed in a middle or high school, you’re generally responsible for taking a few students at a time out of their regular English class and working with them on speaking exercises. The teachers you work with may have you create your own lessons, or may give you topics to cover to review for the brevet or the baccalaureate exams.

In primary school, some teachers will teach the class and have you help out or work with a few students at a time, or they may expect you to take charge of the entire class and teach it with your own lesson plans. It all depends on the school and their experience with assistants, so you won’t know what you’ll be expected to do until you arrive.

7. Your contract is for twelve hours, but you may work a lot more or a lot less than that.

Some high school assistants are assigned twelve hours, but sometimes their students don’t show up for class or they have to prepare for exams with their regular teacher. In primary schools, you may be given up to twelve hours of classes and be expected to teach them all yourself. In both cases, you may have to stay at the school between classes, which can be spread out, and you’ll have to prepare lessons on your own time. This year, including transportation, breaks, preparation, and teaching, I teach ten hours but work over thirty hours per week, for a salary based on twelve hours.

8. You might not get paid right away.

The program tells you that if you file all of your paperwork by mid-October, you’ll get an advance on your salary at the end of the month. While this is true in many cases, be prepared not to be paid until the end of November, just in case. In some academies, they can’t finish all the paperwork even if it is in on time.

9. Teaching English in France can be tedious.

Anyone who’s studied any language knows that you have to put in a lot of effort to see serious results. The impression I’ve gotten by teaching English in France is that the French like to have learned English, but don’t want to bother actually learning it. Some of them are still wounded by the fact that their language has been replaced as the language of diplomacy, some don’t feel they need to speak English, and some, for all their efforts, just aren’t good linguists.

Accept that you don’t have a magic wand, and that if your students don’t put in some effort too, they can’t make very much progress. Remember that being a language teacher is a really hard job, that you’ll make mistakes, and that you’ll learn a lot along the way.

–

Photos: author

Everyone who has taught English overseas has heard of the “midnight run.” A teacher who is homesick, fed up with culture shock, or fed up with work leaves their job (and the country) in secret. I know it’s common, but personally, the thought makes me queasy.

If you didn’t like your job in your home country, would you just stop showing up? Likely not, and it should be no different overseas. You may be avoiding a whole heap of awkwardness, but leaving unannounced makes things more difficult for everyone but you.

My boss at a South Korean language school declared that he would never hire an American for their “reputation” of abandoning the contract without notice. A head teacher I met in Thailand never hired teachers fresh out of university for the same reason.

Quitting is never a picnic, but it doesn’t have to involve sneaking around or leaving people with poor impressions of you or your countrymen. Below are some tips on how to leave a job overseas.

Think it through

Obvious advice, but it bears saying. Breaking a contract may seem inconsequential, especially if you never intend to work in that country again. You did make a commitment though, and something did draw you to that job in the first place. Sit down and have a good think about the situation.

What is it about the job that doesn’t float your boat? If the materials are weak, the schedule is grueling, or the discipline problems go ignored, then a calm-but-firm meeting with the boss just might help. If your boss likes you, he will be more than willing to make changes so as not to lose you.

Is the administration a mess? Is the boss tyrannical? If the working conditions are truly unpleasant and change is unforeseeable, you may be working at the expense of your sanity. Quitting really should be a last resort, but if you’re miserable, terminate the contract sensibly.

Ask around the teacher’s room

All sizeable language schools have stories of rogue ex-teachers and their nutty antics. Ask your colleagues and fellow EFL teachers about past quitting stories. Will the school pony up the last paycheque, or will you find yourself evicted from your flat the next morning? Does your work visa allow you to switch employers in case you want to work for a different school? If your flights were paid for, do you need to reimburse the company? Is there a fine for early termination? Is it enforced?

If the school has a good reputation and has always treated you fairly, then be fair in return. Read over your contract’s termination clauses, give notice, and quit by the book. If you have it on good authority that things will turn ugly when you give your notice, be prepared. Arrange to stay with a friend if you’re evicted, book your flights if your visa may be cancelled, save money in case you don’t see that last paycheque.

Be as clear as you can

The company deserves to know if they’re doing everything right and your reasons for leaving are personal, such as homesickness or a strained long distance relationship. If you’re just not into teaching as a career, give the boss an “its not you, its me” talk, cheesy as it sounds.

However, if the job itself is crummy, explain this in the simplest way possible. Don’t rant or make sweeping comments like “it’s impossible to work here!” The management might not be clued into their foreign staff’s standards of work, and may never have realized that last-minute meetings or unpaid overtime are out of the norm for you.

Lastly, please oh please don’t drum up a dying grandmother story just to get out of your contract. Language school owners talk just as much as teachers do, and everyone knows that nine out of ten “family emergencies” aren’t real. You’re just crying wolf and ruining the credibility of teachers who do get struck with tragedy while overseas. Not cool.

Don’t sleep through the final weeks

You may be mentally finished, but that doesn’t mean you can show up late and play movies in each lesson while Facebook-planning your welcome home party. Train your successor, don’t leave rotting food in your desk, treat students well and respect the time and money they put into their lessons.

If the school is a good one, ask around the expat community and see if anyone can take over your job. They’re likely scrambling a bit to fill your position, and a helping hand speaks volumes of your professionalism.

Photo: Desmond Kavanagh Feature Photo: space cowboy

When my flat manager in Dhaka finally arrived and asked if I was well, I responded, “No, I’m not at all happy,” furious that it took him a full day to check our water pumps.

We hadn’t been receiving consistent water pressure out of our faucets for over a day now, making it hard to bathe and cook. He said a worker would come “sometime tonight,” just after my roommates and I planned a celebratory dinner out. I worried we might have to cancel our dinner to wait for him, and judging by Bangladeshi lack of punctuality, he might not even come at all. Things just move impossibly slow here.

I suppose both my response and attitude towards the nuisance would clearly define me as the “ugly American.” Frustrated that it took me three hours to get enough water to bathe, I couldn’t muster up any cultural sensitivity and not act like a spoiled brat. An American friend once told me, “Sometimes, you have to be the ‘ugly American’ if you want to get anything done.”

Is this true?

Photo: Nir Nussbaum

At first, I was grateful to have this excuse, but then I thought further about the situation. In my work and personal life abroad, I’d like to think I represent my country outside the stereotypes: ugly, arrogant, ignorant, imperialist. Living in Bangladesh on a US government scholarship, I try to listen to people’s experiences, asking questions about individual and community identity and culture in order to form a reasonable impression of this foreign land.

However, while those conscious sympathies are active, I must be careful not to be misinformed or deceived. As a foreigner, I am likely to receive the “tourist tax” and have the price of my goods jacked up, or be given false information in an attempt to persuade me to do something I normally wouldn’t. By always being a passive listener, I have a very likely chance of getting walked over. This can happen in any country, to citizens or travelers, but looking blatantly different physically makes me a marked target. A balance must be struck between cultural exchange and self-protection.

I think this is what my friend meant when he said we have to act “ugly” in order to get things done. Ugliness is easily confused with aggression. Americans are culturally more aggressive, with values centering around self-reliance, directness, and task orientation. Think about our idioms: time is money, don’t beat around the bush, keep your eye on the ball, if you want something done right… It should be forgivable if we pass back and forth between being conscious sympathizers and demanding “aggressors” while living abroad, especially depending on circumstance. Maybe “aggressive” America is as misunderstood as much as “submissive” Asian cultures.

Photo: RL Hyde

The term “ugly American” derives from the 1958 political novel of the same title by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. “The Ugly American”is fiction based on reality, alluding to Americans losing political presence in Southeast Asia because of their failure to understand local culture. The novel quotes a Burmese character as saying,

For some reason, the [American] people I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land. They isolate themselves socially. They live pretentiously. They’re loud and ostentatious.

I think most Americans today would agree that this sentiment of imperialism existed during the Vietnam War, and any critically thinking traveler could easily witnesses this in many ex-pats today, especially government funded ones.

But interestingly, the title is a double entendre. The “Ugly American” also refers to the novel’s unattractive hero, Homer Atkins. According to a New York Times article appraising the novel, Homer, an engineer with black, calloused hands, lived in a dirt hut and collaborated with villagers on community empowerment projects, like the construction of a bicycle-powered irrigation pump. The article asserts that “Homer is the very model of the enlightened ambassador the authors thought America should send into the world.”

“Ugly” is an ironic play on words, describing an admirable hero who was “unattractive” due to the nature of his work: helping others.

Photo: Islip Flyer

Why did the negative title stick? Both kinds of “ugly Americans” exist abroad: the ones who are ugly from arrogant attitudes, and the ones who are physically ugly from giving up on hygienic luxuries for humanitarian goals. We more often lean to the negative rather than the positive. But according to the original definition, being an “ugly American” is what you make of it.

I thought about my manager and my aggressive tone: should I have been the “ugly American” and pouted until my water was fixed—or should I have been culturally sensitive and given up on water for a few days, as well as my personal hygiene, becoming the other “ugly American?”

We can’t always control other people’s perceptions of us. But what I could do is, firmly put my foot down to get what I needed, then be culturally sensitive and invite him for a cup of chai.

Photo: author

1. Weeks it took to get your TEFL certification: 2
2. Weeks of training to teach English at your English Conversation School: 2
3. Schools taught at per week: 5
4. Hours worked a week: 29.5
5. Hours worked a week at your job back home for roughly the same pay: 40
6. Minutes you’re expected to arrive before a shift: 10-15
7. Punch-in time: 14:25
8. Delicious-smelling meters between school and a Coco Ichiban Curry House location: 50
9. Scheduled meal breaks: 0
10. Maximum number of children taught per day: 40
11. 3 year-old nose pickers: 2
12. 5 year-old toe suckers: 2
13. Exquisitely adorable toddlers who like to climb into your lap: 5
14. Students who steal your shoes: 2
15. Maximum number of reward stickers a student may earn during a lesson: 3
16. Times the Japanese word for “poo” is shouted in a single class: 35
17. Blinks of shock when you’re first told about “kancho” – a Japanese schoolchild “game” involving their pointed index fingers and someone’s backside: 5
18. Times fellow teachers are kancho’d before the blessed event happens to you: 5
19. Tries it takes for the child to hit the bullseye that is your unsuspecting backside: 2
20. Number of reward stickers you deduct for a kancho attack: 1
21. Times you have to tell your friends back home, “Kancho is real and it happened to me” before they believe you: 25
22. Maximum number of adults you teach per day: 16
23. College students who say rap inspired them to learn English: 5
24. Businessmen who think you’re a hostess: 1
25. Cool, collected homemakers whose exhausting schedules humble your 29.5 hour workweek to the point of shame: 5
26. Gorgeous grandmothers who surprise you with a fan with which to accessorize your yukata on Gion Matsuri: 1
27. Times you must remind your adult students: “’Go shopping’, not ‘Go to shopping”: 4
28. Times you must show a student how to make the “L” sound: 15
29. Photos taken with students who’ve passed a Level Up exam: 3 – yatta!
30. Students reached that day: 5, maybe 6
31. Punch-out time: 20:25
32.Yen spent on a plate of CocoIchiban curry rice three minutes after punching out: 700
33. Cans of beer enjoyed on the train home: 1

Photos: author

The vice principle walks carefully up the steps to the stage. At the top he stops and bows to the Japanese flag that hangs above. I can’t tell if it’s a bow of reverence or resigned routine. He approaches the podium, stops and bows to us. The gesture is returned.

“The closing ceremony of the second semester, 2009, will now begin,” he announces. My heart sinks. Another ceremony.

Group and ceremony. Two words that resonate throughout Japan. Twin pillars of social order and well being. You don’t have to be in a formal institution like a school to see it. Take football. The Japanese national team is technically proficient, fit and well drilled, but they can’t score goals. At the business end of things nobody wants the ball. It gets passed around like a hot potato.

“Just hit the thing!” I scream at the TV.

But to do so would require a degree of selfishness that is hard to reach when the group is so important. It would be a disaster to miss.

Regard the fans at a Sumo match. See how the two giants hold them captive with a thrilling pre-fight ceremony where the stomping of feet and slapping of thighs draw rapturous applause. My first time watching I was tensed with anticipation that this was going to lead to a titanic battle. The fight was over in 30 seconds. What was all that about, I thought. Well, the ceremony, as it turns out.

Group and ceremony. They have been the hardest part of adjusting to life in Japan. The other stuff has all fallen into place comfortably: the food, the chopsticks, the careful choice of socks because I know my shoes will be taken off regularly in public. All of these differences I’ve met with wide eyed enthusiasm.

Photos: Sarah Menkedick

I adhere to the group and the ceremony, too, but it’s merely a physical display. Internally I’m still at odds with it. This is perhaps because it’s only recently that I’ve come to give it serious thought; my early days in Japan were spent enraptured with so many other aspects of place and culture.

At times it feels like my life is put on hold and my individual instincts and desires suppressed. My reactions to this are kept bottled up. Internally, they run the gauntlet from a head full of angry expletives to a simple resignation whereupon I want to fall to my knees and weep.

These values conflict with some key western values. The individual, restrained here, is encouraged in England where it’s good to be different. “Be all you can be.” “Do what you want when you want.” Just try not to tread on too many toes along the way. There is no standing on ceremony either; if something needs doing, get on and do it.

Here in Japan, though, even the simplest tasks can be wrapped in ceremony. Group observed ceremony: a cathartic experience in which we finish with one thing and move on to the other, collectively.

Of course I enjoy the benefits. I live in Tokyo, one of the world’s largest urban areas and also one of its safest. Group mentality helps to keep it that way. So it is that I walk the streets freely and confidently, anywhere, anytime.

The group may also serve to promote me as an individual. Here I can be, with relative ease, all of the things that I would have to fight for back home – a maverick, left field, original and funny.

But this freedom is a reflection of the truth that I am yet to be truly accepted here. Why should I be? I imagine most Japanese people I know expect me to return home sooner or later. But what if I don’t leave and more foreigners come to stay? How will the group react? How will new arrivals react? These are interesting questions as Japan increasingly looks to the international community for ideas and support.

A maverick! I like the sound of that. The other day I arrived at work to the big eighties sounds of a song from the movie Top Gun. It was playing out of the school’s loudspeakers in an attempt to liven us up. I chuckled and thought of Tom Cruise’s ‘Maverick’ character fighting against the strictures of the US air force. I wondered how he would fare in Japan.

Feature Photo : machimon Photo: kyle simourd

In September of 2007, I arrived in Valparaíso, Chile to study abroad for four months. A friend who had suggested the trip told me that I would be “summer hopping”. I had imagined myself arriving in Chile in the middle of the warmest season. In my mind’s eye I would be wearing a strapless dress and displaying my cool new tattoo – an inscription on my back that would read mariposas amarillas , or yellow butterflies. My new friends and I would speak rapid fire Spanish over endless cigarettes on the beach. We would be decadent.

Unfortunately, I was greeted by a cold, Pacific winter and had lost the courage to get the tattoo before arriving in the puerto principal. Instead of cool Chilean friends, I walked among Pablo Neruda look-a-likes who wore berets and ancient sweaters. They dressed appropriately; it was the kind of cold that demanded wool and thick socks.

Houses in Chile are rarely equipped with proper heating, so at night I shivered beneath my blankets, and during the day my classmates and I packed in as many mango sours as possible to keep from feeling the damp.

Photo: gustavominas

One day, in mid September, the weather broke. The sun was shining and my friends and I felt like it might be a nice day for a stroll. So after a field trip to the historic ascensores, or old-fashioned elevators that make the city’s many hills bearable, we decided to walk to our class.

Upon reaching the Universidad de Santa María, we were greeted by attractive twenty-something boys handing out fliers. Yes yes yes, I thought, my luck is changing. Except that I soon realized that there were swarms of boys and girls. They were blocking traffic on the Avenida España, the main thoroughfare between Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar.

Drivers were honking their horns angrily, but the excitement among the crowd was contagious. The students had occupied the university. They were clapping and singing; protesting the forthcoming privatization of universities in Valparaíso. My friends and I were good izquierdistas (lefties) so we wholeheartedly joined in the riot.

For the first time since I had arrived in Chile, I felt connection. This was the contact with young Chileans that I had wanted all along. My friends and I were delirious. I have several pictures of us, three obvious gringas, smiling with raised fists.

The police began spraying water in order to disperse the crowd, but the protest resumed with more gusto than before. Despite the renewed energy, I started to worry. “Should we leave?” I asked my friend. Just as she was telling me that it was fine, the area was covered in tear gas.

I already knew first hand what tear gas is like because of a mishap in France on a festival night. I remembered that the gas gets into your throat, your eyes – some people react worse than others and often collapse. I have to get out of here, I thought, I can’t get caught up.

My friends and I had to fight our way inside the university, but the crowd was panicked. In typical Valparaíso fashion, the campus is located on a hill. We were trapped, easy targets for the police.

Blinded, I ran into one of the canisters spewing the toxic stuff. I screamed and ran as fast as I could uphill, packed in between hundreds of students. I finally reached the summit of the hill and charged the first campus building I saw. Women and men shared bathrooms, exchanging wet paper towels and crying together with red eyes. I looked in the mirror although I still couldn’t fully open my eyes. My face was puffy and didn’t show signs of returning to normal anytime soon.

Photo: annais

Finally I left the bathroom and headed for the lecture hall, hoping to find my coordinators. They hadn’t arrived yet, but I saw a man working quietly at his desk. Incensed, I started a round of questioning. Bothering people who have nothing to do with your problem while abroad is a distinctly American skill. For as much as I liked to imagine I had surpassed my own origins, I hadn’t.

“How could this happen?” I asked. “We don’t even go to this university! Who can I complain to?” I lisped in my freshly honed Madrileño Castilian – which really wasn’t helping matters. He looked up at me, his face full of indifference. He was probably about fifty; old enough to have witnessed the highly politicized early 70s, with its militant communists and wealthy young fascists, the election of a socialist president, and the military coup that brought it all to a halt.

Maybe he remembered friends or family who had been detained by the new government and never came back. Perhaps he himself had been tortured by the regime. Or maybe he had supported the dictatorship all along, fed up with the illusion of choice in a manipulated democracy.

The man responded, “If you complain, nothing is going to happen.” And there it was.

I could, with my idealistic American notions about what’s right and fair, raise hell and high water, demanding recognition that the police had done something wrong and unjust. But it wouldn’t matter. People had gone through too much to get upset about something as trifling as tear gas.

I felt that day that the Chilean people are remarkably strong – Isabel Allende has expanded on this theme – because they have experienced governments who regard their citizens as dispensable. They face teargas and possible brutality one day, and the next they continue the struggle, or perhaps they just go on with their lives. It’s a process of moving on that I deeply admire.

Photo: cobalito

After the protest, I went to my teacher’s house to take a shower. My friends and I cleaned up and then drank tea and ate cookies in her kitchen. I looked at her cabinet, which was full of that South American milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated until it’s been opened. “My son and I love it,” my teacher said. Later she told us about protesting in the 70s, and how she became an expert at avoiding and mitigating the harsh effects of tear gas.

Later that night some friends and I went out for pizza and beer. We lingered outside for a while and explored one of Valparaiso’s bohemian neighborhoods, Cerro Alegre. I fell in love with its graffiti, brightly colored buildings, and steep main avenue. We sat together in a funky bar, sharing stories about first loves, listening more intently as our blood alcohol content rose. I laughed that whole night; a way of saying “thanks” to the powers that be that the situation ended well.

The next day was perfect, a winter fog mixed with three cups of tea.

Photos: author

Whenever I meet someone who has been to Japan for any amount of time a superficial bond is instantly formed. The script begins: Where were you living? How long were you there? Were you teaching English? What company were you with? These conversations eventually turn into personal experiences about the struggles of daily life for a foreigner in Japan, and what it was like in the first few weeks after arriving (or surviving).

I moved from Montreal to Tokyo excited about discovering new food, learning a new language, and seeing old temples. All of which I did. But no one told me I would also find Caribbean themed restaurants, girls wearing bomber jackets with ‘respect the black woman’, or ‘black for life’ written on the back and guys hanging out in old Cadillacs they converted into low riders. In my naivete I wondered where the ancient land of the mysterious orient I had envisioned was. I was experiencing my very own version of culture shock.

To see aspects of my own culture in Japan was, to say the least, surprising. I didn’t quite know what to make of Jamaican food and music festivals, Japanese reggae artists or clubs named Harlem or Bootie which played the newest Hip hop and R and B music. Seeing this apparent fascination by some Japanese people with all things black, my mind went from wow to why?

“Kokujin kakkoii!” is what I was often told whenever I asked what was behind the admiration of black people. Basically, I was cool, simply for being black. I admit it was a bit of an ego boost hearing it whispered behind me as I walked down the narrow yet crowded Takeshita –Dori in trendy Harajuku or while getting down on the dance floor till 5am in Shibuya. Sometimes people would come right up to me and say it. To which I would smile and say a simple thank you.

But soon I started to feel like a celebrity without all the perks. People didn’t know me, yet they thought they knew what I was about. I got tired of conversations that started with ‘Where are you from? New York?’ ‘Are you a DJ? ‘ ‘What sports team do you play for?’ I’m from Canada, and I came here to teach English. Sorry to disappoint you.

I was mistaken for both a band member from The Roots and Tiger Woods (who I look nothing like) and asked to sign an autograph by a high school girl while at Tokyo Disney. I was asked to pose for pictures while holding a newborn, and complimented by a group of small town teens on certain parts of my, ehrm, anatomy at a Tanabata festival. One guy even went out of his way to buy his train ticket at the counter next to me only so he could say ‘what’s up my brotha?’ then left with a satisfied grin. I guess I made his day.

Then there were the countless number of 20 somethings I saw wandering around, who payed 50, 000 yen (roughly 500 US dollars) at some chic salon to make it look like they had natural dread locks for a month or two. Or the guys dressed like they come from ‘the hood’ trying to have the speech to match. In reality there is no hood in Japan and their language is built around self effacing pleasantries and kindness instead of tactless blunt directness.

People often say that imitation is the biggest form of flattery. But is it really? Just what they were getting out of perming their hair to get an afro then sticking an afro pick in it? So much of it seemed disingenuous. For one thing, I knew today’s b-boys, popping and locking in the hallways of train stations (with extra effort as I walked by it always seemed), dancehall divas, and rent-a-dreads were tomorrow’s salarimen and OLs (salary men and office ladies, colloquial Japanese for corporate business men and secretaries). They would eventually grow up, conform and consider their former passions and pastimes as just kid stuff.

A black male colleague of mine who also lived in Japan offered another perspective. He found it refreshing to see a new take on music, fashion and food we both grew up with. I wasn’t so easily convinced. Playing with culture the way you play with the latest gadget could hardly be a positive thing, especially if you don’t know the culture well enough. There seemed to be no concern at all about whether their actions, dress, comments or hairstyle might cause offence.

Over time, I realized for Japanese youth, being into black culture is a form of rebellion, and therein lay the attraction. Young people like to be different in one way or another and stand out as individuals. Hard to do in a country where conformity is encouraged. Live the same, think the same, look the same, BE the same. To purposefully stand out is asking for trouble. As a well known Japanese proverb says: The nail that sticks out must be hammered down.

Maybe it’s just a form of admiration and shouldn’t be considered anything more. So much of hip hop culture today has now become youth culture it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between the two. But my colleague had a point. Japanese people put their own twist on things. Whatever subculture they adopt, they become masters, collectors and Aficionados.

You need look no further than Mighty Crown Sound Crew, who are internationally known and won multiple awards for their reggae remix and DJ skills. Not to mention Junko, a dancer who won the dancehall queen competition in Jamaica in 2002 and now teaches kids in Japan how to dance like her. I’ve met Japanese dudes that speak better Jamaican patois than even I could imitate and owners of soul R&B and hip hop vinyl collections that must have cost a small fortune.

Back in Canada now for a few years, I often find myself day dreaming about my time spent in Japan. Having lived in several areas of Saitama and Tokyo over three and a half years, pulled me out of my Canadian comfort zone and tested the limits of my Westerner patience. It challenged my way of thinking making me aware of the difference between group mentality and individual. Japan and Japanese people always kept me guessing. Just when I thought I had them all figured out, they threw me another cultural curve ball.

The presence of black culture in Japan still leaves me with ambivalent feelings. What is clear however, is despite the fact their own language and culture keep them apart there is a young generation of nihonjin who seek more than ever to be closer to the rest of the world, to feel somehow connected, and are still in the processes of figuring out how.

Want more? Check out Matador’s resource page for travel in Japan.