Feature And Above Photo: tanki

So how did I end up hosting a baby shower in Japan?

I met Yumie a few weeks after my arrival in Okinawa, and she became my first real friend here. She helped me in all aspects of daily life from programming the complicated air-conditioner to introducing the best soba shop. I really valued our friendship. So when she asked me this favor when she was six months pregnant, I wanted to please.

But I quickly realized that Yumie had expectations for this party, and they were mostly derived from Hollywood movies.

To be clear, in Japanese society, there’s no such custom as a baby shower. It’s an imported event.

And while I veered towards a low-key affair, Yumie envisioned a shower of grand proportions.

“I want baby baby baby everywhere!” She said, waving her hands for emphasis.

“Huge cake with whipped cream frosting!”

“I wanna open presents in front of everybody!”

In addition, Yumie expected games and prizes, insisting on Starbucks gift cards and Victoria’s Secret smelly lotions.

As she rattled off her ideas, I considered the situation.

Living abroad for the past year, I had been trying hard to integrate into Japanese lifestyle and local customs. Then suddenly, I was asked to “stage” an experience with all the trappings from my own American culture. What’s more, that experience was largely defined by exaggerations in media.

Despite Yumie’s enthusiasm, I felt pressure thinking about how to pull it off. I knew from teaching English abroad that delivering a slice of one’s culture often challenges local etiquette and beliefs.

In fact, something as benign as an American baby shower was a strange event on many levels.

First, for many Japanese, it’s not customary to celebrate a new baby until after the birth. There is an underlying cultural belief in not testing fate, and making a production ahead of time might prove unlucky. People are more comfortable waiting a few months after a safe delivery to visit the mother and pay respects.

Next, going to someone’s home for a party according to American tradition is uncommon. Given the small size of houses and subtle rules for social interaction, it’s standard to host events at restaurants. When a guest is invited into a home, it is considered a great honor. But because I was a foreigner and a stranger, Yumie’s friends were reluctant to enter such an intimate environment with me. A few of them expressed discomfort, and we changed the location to her home instead.

Also, American baby showers are characterized by that mandatory “opening presents” time with lots of squealing over booties and tiny outfits. But in Japan, friends usually bestow gifts of money for new babies. When they do give gifts for birthdays or other occasions, they seldom open them in each other’s presence. Many believe that doing so puts the emphasis on the material object, upstaging the person bestowing it.

In all honesty, I was never sure how Yumie sold the baby shower concept to her friends. I wondered if they approached it as a novel, if not slightly wacky event, in the same way that many Japanese are attracted to prison and church themed restaurants in Tokyo.

On baby shower day, Yumie’s friends arrived bearing smiles and gorgeously wrapped boxes. The agenda followed a typical schedule of introductions, games, food, more games, gifts, and then cake. Some aspects of the event were hits and others definite misses.

Surprisingly, one successful feature of the baby shower transcending culture was playing games. In planning, I mostly tried to find tasks that wouldn’t be potentially offensive. (Blindfolding guests and forcing them to eat pureed goo? Thankfully I crossed this one off the list ahead of time)

Of course, initially there was feigned reluctance to join the contest to drink juice the fastest out of a baby bottle. And her friends were shy to guess the circumference of Yumie’s waist. But in the end, they showed true competitive spirit.

Opening presents time was a different story. All that pretty gilded wrapping paper and ribbon was not enough to temper the awkwardness of that interaction. When it came time to gush, guests sat eerily quiet and stiff looking on.

Finally, remember that huge cake with whipped cream frosting specially requested? Well, I certainly was not surprised by the outcome of that.

In all my experiences living abroad, one of the most common differences observed between Americans and other cultures is in the consumption of sweets. Yumie’s guests left the thick slices of sugary cake mostly uneaten on the plates.

Community Connection

Have you ever been asked to replicate an event from your culture while living abroad? How did it go over?

Photo: Matito

I wasn’t going to cry. Instead I took a long sip of too-sweet Pisco and lemonade and leant back against the cold kitchen counter-top. He appeared not to notice the jagged edges of my smile as I nodded and thanked him for telling me.

“Bueno, ¿vamos?”

He led the way out of the kitchen and back in to the party next door. I topped up my drink, and followed.

It hit close to the bone, I suppose, because it was something I’d thought might be true, once or twice. The jokes about bricheros had started way back in my Spanish classes, sitting about in the patio laughing and warning the new students about charming Peruvian men and women sweeping them off their feet while emptying their wallets.

In a more serious moment my teacher had described the procession of female students that had fallen head over heels, passing through her classroom detailing passionate love affairs in halting Spanish, only to be left bereft when the local heartbreaker tired of them and moved on to the next gringa.

My boyfriend Gabriel and I always joked that he was Cusco’s least successful brichero as I stretched the last of my vacation budget with S/.25 (US$9) a night shifts at a bar. Yet, at least at the beginning, a small part of me that wondered. And even when I was sure, when the trusting side of me won, I felt just as sure I knew what people were thinking.

Brichero and gringa, hand in hand in the Plaza de Armas, her smiling from ear to ear, blissfully adrift in Latino love, him cheerfully enjoying the small luxuries of a life paid for in crisp dollars.

But with our friends, our familia cusqueña, with its almost-brothers, extended cousins, drop-by unannounced, perpetually forgiving closeness, I always felt at home and unjudged in that group. So when Jose led me, riding high on a wave of Pisco and cheer during Gabriel’s birthday, into the kitchen to talk in private, what he told me left me cold.

Photo: zieak

“Everybody thinks that. I mean obviously not us,” us being the core of the group, “we’re your friends, but everybody else, they all talk about it. That you’re the silly gringa, that the boys are taking advantage of you with the hostel.”

I was silent, the counter-top a cold line across my back. He went on to tell me just who thought that my male business partners and my boyfriend were systematically draining me of the endless fund of money I presumably, as a Westerner, had.

Many of them were in my living room, drinking my vodka and dropping ashes on my floor.

I’ve been utterly disarmed at times by the generosity and openness of the people in South America. But as in Thailand, in Morocco, in Guatemala, I’m also keenly aware of my status as an outsider, a tourist from a rich country, somebody who gleefully spends in a day what could sustain a local family for many. Guilty myself of fighting to wait on tables of Americans (good tippers!) with other waitresses back home in Australia, I find it difficult to blame them. But that night in the kitchen, I felt jolted out of my own skin.

Earlier that week, I was in the office working while our security guard Javier distracted me with idle chatter. My passport was sitting on the desk and caught his eye. He asked if he could flick through it; I nodded, distracted by a stack of invoices to be recorded and filed. He paused at my stamp for Colombia, horrified.

I’d been to Colombia? More to the point, my father and brother had allowed me to go to Colombia?

I searched for diplomatic Spanish, reminding myself that he means well, is concerned for my safety. I found myself letting out a disgustingly girlish giggle, protesting ineffectually that really it’s quite safe these days and the people were lovely. I attempted to explain that my parents had in fact said very little, that as far as they were concerned I was more capable more capable than my brother. His expression didn’t change; my protests faded into silence.

He exclaimed again as he reached the visa for Cambodia, and once again I was no longer myself, I was White Western Woman in Peru.

Gabriel’s birthday, before the kitchen, when I still wore an unforced smile.

Maria arrives with friends, quite early in the night (by Peruvian standards at least). Introductions are made, and another round of the endless cheek-kissing that characterises any South American social encounter. She sits across the table, looks over at me and Jenny, two gringas sitting in a circle of Peruvian boys.

“So, whose girlfriends are you?”

And in the kitchen, with Jose, that’s who I was. Token gringa girlfriend, perhaps slightly stupid, certainly incapable of looking after herself, and her money. Swept off her feet by the irresistible Latino man, to be pitied, perhaps, not to be known.

All photos by Neha Puntambekar

The corner chaiwala pours milky tea into a glass. The glass is filled just halfway – the portion is called cutting. Behind the cart a younger boy, he doesn’t look more than 11, is rinsing out used glasses. Next to them is a tobacco stall. Two yuppies, dressed in formal clothes, ties folded in their front pockets, stand with freshly lit cigarettes. Since single cigarettes are available for a rupee, or less, depending on the brand, corner smokers are a common sight. I walk past them and cross the road to the bus stop.

The Bus

“Tikeett?” The conductor half barks. The steel box holding ticket coupons is strapped across his brown uniform. He clicks the ticket puncher with his right hand – ‘ticktickticktick’ – and waits for me to handover my Rs.5 bus fare to the railway station. He barely jolts as the bus moves.

We drive past residential colonies; pockets of organized, multi-storied suburban dreams. We drive past a large slum; residents and small-scale businesses (vada stalls, a make-shift fish market, rickshaw service shops) spill on to the road, nudging trucks, buses, cars and bikes into a jam. We drive past newly planned residential colonies built over demolished slums; construction goes on all day and all night.

The Train

The 7:50 slow has just pulled in. Most people jump in before the train stops. I never leaned how to do that, and as a result I only manage to find a corner seat.

This is the Ladies First Class. It has softer seats. I recognize most of my fellow travellers. They are regulars – mostly bankers and students – and I’ve pieced together their stories from overheard conversations. They are ‘train friends.’ A clique has formed during our daily commute. They discuss marital problems, trade dirty jokes and have potluck breakfast parties. When they bring Prasad, food offerings made to the Gods after special prayers and during the festive season, they share with the rest of the compartment too.

Because it’s morning rush hour, there are no vendors peddling knick knacks or fruit. They will come later, with their big baskets, and stay on till the last train. From the grill window barrier I can see into the General First Class compartment. Some men gawk at the women. Others fiddle with cell phones.

With every stop, the windows get a little more closed off. Sometimes it’s so crowded it’s hard to read. Sometimes it’s so crowded I give up my seat and go stand by the door where I can breathe. Sometimes it’s so crowded the train moves before I can get off.

The Taxi

The taxi queue under the Dadar Flyover is the only element of order on a road crammed with office goers and vendors selling fruits, gajras (flowers strung together and fastened by women in their hair) and other knick knacks. When the municipal car comes they use a series of coded calls to pack and empty out in minutes; it was during one such raid/run that I realized the street was actually wide enough.

A guy joins the line behind me. “Share Taxi, na?” he asks. A shared taxi runs between a preset route and carries 4 passengers, each will pay Rs.10 for the ride irrespective of where they get off along the route. It’s more comfortable than a bus and it’s cheaper than taking a cab alone.

I’m sharing the cab with a pin-stripe pantsuit, an orange salwar-kameez and a green tee-shirt. The cab is old and its insides feel tired. The window is stained and only opens midway. When we stop at the traffic light a kid approaches me with a stack of pirated books. His clothes are ill fitting. His smile is wide; he has seen the open book on my lap.

“Didi, best books for half price. Didi!” he yells as the light changes.

We cross two worlds at a distance of two traffic lights. On one end are the community housing projects, public schools and gaudy store fronts. At the other are MNCs, showrooms and malls; Mumbai’s textile mills once stood here. I’ve heard the stories from my Dad – of the good years, of the strike and how most mills shut down in the years after. I catch the emotion before he shrugs and says, “anyway…”

At the end of the street, the taxi comes to a noisy halt two minutes away from my office. I gather my bag, my jacket and paperback, pay the cabbie and get off. Today I have a brochure to finish and blogs to read. I punch in my key card and head back out for tea.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-mumbai/feed/ 14 http://matadorabroad.com/two-villas-in-iraq/ http://matadorabroad.com/two-villas-in-iraq/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 15:47:50 +0000 Daniel C. Britt http://matadorabroad.com/?p=5115

Photos: author

Glimpse Correspondent Daniel Britt’s experience working for British mercenaries in Iraq.

At first, there were two villas.

DeBritish, as the Iraqi maids called him, was the boss of both. The protection business was his. He made the deals and everyone had a job thanks to him.

At the New Villa, there was Ali-foreman and Ali-paint. Fat Mohammed was the electrician. Ammar, with the thin, thin neck, dug the holes outside. They came every morning to remodel the place. Every evening they left. No one lived there except me, upstairs in the yellow room.

The contractors – jokey ex-marines, ex-paratroopers, ex-Iraqi army – slept and trained at the Old Villa. The clients lived there too, in decorated rooms. I was in one of those for a while before there were too many clients. Then I was in a container with the contractors, then in the New Villa behind the Chinese restaurant in the Greenzone.

Each decorated room came with a mini-fridge with a tall can of cold beer and two candy bars inside. It wasn’t anything like the Iraq I had seen over the last five months. Everything was clean and put-together.

At the Old Villa, Qusay was the chef. Patrick, the Filipino, was the manager and Saife did everything else. In the evening most of the Iraqi servants left, none of them lived at the Old Villa except for Saife.

**********************

The contractors smoked Honeywell cigars and wore bullet-proof chest plates over t-shirts. They wrapped their compact rifles in Sunni head clothes so the polished metal did not glint in the sun. They ball-busted in dark, dark shades – skinny rectangular lenses. They drove around Baghdad in a fleet of bullet-proof Mercedes sedans – polycarbonate thermoplastic windows, two inches thick.

That’s how they rolled.

Ambassadors, international businessmen, Non-Governmental Organization big-shots and anybody with wasta wanted them for protection.

What about the roadside bombs, truck bombs, rocket attacks and the militia kidnappers dressed as police, the big shots thought.

Protection is a money-maker in Iraq because those threats thicken the air like the fine dust on storm days. And few big shots know how to kill or when to fight back.

What if the driver gets sniped, they think.

What if it’s me, they think.

Then they contract some muscle.

All the contractors at the old villa had a good sense of humor. And except for Fingers, they were all big guys with knotted arms and sly, crazy grins. None of them were stupid or pretentious. No ilusionados like in California.

Half the contractors were Iraqis and half were from the United Kingdom. They showed me how to un-jam an AK-47 and how to find the Ukrainian brides with the good proportions.

When there was nothing to do, we talked on the wrought iron chairs in the yard. Here and there we talked about the Thai whores of Dubai but it was mostly about worst-case-scenarios and double-tapping and throat-slitting — the ins-and-outs of all kinds of death, mate.

We talked about killing so much the talk became my thoughts.

After that, everything else was unnatural.

**********************

The new villa was being fixed-up for more expats. The business was growing. Nice lawyers and articulate state-department-types from good universities were moving in to advocate for human rights. They needed protection, breakfast and a clean guarded place to sleep.

One of them brought his Nintendo Wii and a trunk full of fake Nintendo instruments.

Before the Old Villa vanished, Patrick, Saife and I got blitzed three nights in a row and played Rock Band with the expats in the air-conditioned living room, on a wide-screen television.

I was bass, Saife on the drums, Patrick played lead guitar.

“What the fuck ees dees won,” Saife asked.

“Is good.”

Ees Aerosmith, Fatboy. “Dream On.”

**************************

In the Old Villa kitchen, under Qusay’s direction, I chopped cabbage, onions and carrots for broils; potatoes for chips.

“If you are not a soldier, why are you here?” Qusay asked.

“To take pictures,” I said.

“That’s stupid,” he said, “switch.”

“Why do you have holes in your pants,” he asked.

“That’s the style in Canada,” I said.

“Daniel is an Iraqi name too,” Qusay said, “for Iraqi Christians.”

“Are you Christian,” he asked.

“Schweyeh, schweyeh,” I said.

Qusay shook his head.

He said his name meant a point far, far away. He said that in the same voice he used to talk about Mohammed.

Qusay’s eyes changed when he talked about those things. They closed halfway.

Qusay knew who the boss was. He knew who was close to DeBritish and who must have meat and who must be served quickly so the food was hot. Qusay chose carefully when to talk about the meanings of Iraqi names and Mohammed. He knew he served a table of lightweight Catholics and atheists.

Saife heard us talking about names with his hands in the dishwater. He straightened an arm toward heaven and said his meant saber. Onion-water dripped on his head.

Saife appeared to be nothing like his name, but he was.

He was 5’10” and round like a medicine ball. Saife had a huge ass that hung out of perpetually wet sweatpants. He drove a truck on house errands because he could not fit into a car.

But beneath all that meat, bracing his Jurassic spine, there was a steel blade. The blade sang at odd times, like a pitchfork, and the sound of it scraped Saife’s brain.

*********

In that way, Saife and Liam, the old Scottish medic, were alike.

Liam heard incoming rockets before anyone else. The brief whistle before the boom scraped Liam’s brain and pushed his body. His face tightened all of a sudden and he dove from his seat. I learned to follow.

“Doont b’daft Danny, geh’ th’fook doon,” Liam said.

It was shame made the steel sing in Saife’s head. By the time I learned that, Saife was gone and it was too late to follow him.

*********

Saife ate his family. That was the rumor. No one had ever seen them and he rarely spoke of them.
Pobrecito Saife.

When I showed up at the old villa, Saife had just turned eighteen.

“I love Iraqi, I love American, I love British,” Saife said, on a night we nicked two gallons of booze from the contractors’ stash.

He was not sharp – joven, gordo, ilusionado – but he was burro-strong and he had spirit.

I was into the whiskey.

Saife finished his sixth or seventh beera then showed me his purple hand.

He put a cigar out on the back of his hand when his uncle joined the Mahdi Army. He re-lit the cigar three more times before he finished burning himself.

Saife was Sunni. He was ashamed of his uncle for joining the Shi’a militia so he burned through the thickest veins in his hand and he didn’t feel anything, he said.

Saife burned himself for shame.

And he didn’t like it when he didn’t get paid.

And he didn’t like it when the Britons called him Fatboy.

“Dudeki!” Saife called back. “Motherfucker! Koosortek!”

But there were more of them than him.

They were just fucking with him.

Sometimes Saife didn’t care.

Sometimes he did.

Saife wanted to kill his uncle. Saife wasn’t afraid, he didn’t feel anything.

“Lee-esh,” I asked.

Why kill?

It was all very cloudy.

My brain was fat and the colored lights strung around the yard streamed across the wet glaze on my eyes.

Kill him because he joined a militia or kill him because he joined the Shi’a militia instead of al Qaeda?

Those things were always cloudy here. With the war, these were places to take cover. Now it was just
rubble baking in the sun. Now there were as many questions as there were displaced families.

Are you Sunni first or Iraqi first?

Saife?

Have 150,000 Iraqi’s died or have that many Shi’a and Sunni died in Iraq?

It was all very cloudy after the war. Life was beginning again but the militias still bombed the markets
and government buildings, unarmed people. In April, strings of bombings killed and maimed all over Iraq.

The threat thickened the air like the smoke and the dust.

No one knew why. They watched the television news reporters say the militias were backed by money from Iran and Saudi Arabia. The overarching goal was to create instability in al-Maliki’s new government. Iran and Saudi Arabia were jockeying for influence over Iraq.

When those succinct broadcasts ended people returned to their cloudy lives and all the floating questions:

Are you a peaceful man or the man of the house?

If you are the man of the house you better work.

If you are the man of the house, you better defend it – the militias can help with that.

If you are the only man, where do you go?

I was drunk. I promised Saife I would help kill the traitorous uncle.

“Sadeeki,” we said, one after another.

Outside the sculpted concrete walls of the Old Villa, dumpster dogs growled over one lame, pregnant bitch. She had a matted golden coat and a broken leg that was turning black. Every night, the dogs found her.

Saife and I shook on our murder promise.

We drank some more and threw kitchen knives into the ground and listened to the dirty golden bitch squeal.

That was the night song.

**********

Intesar was boss at the new villa. She was in her thirties and she judged everyone’s work with bright eyes, black eyelids and pursed wet-looking lips.

The doctor was her assistant. He tested the light switches and brought us lunch.

Intesar was Ali-foreman’s sister. She ran the construction company and she worked well with foreigners. When she talked to you, she always smoothed your shirt at the shoulders.

When she walked by, Ali-foreman looked at the floor because she was his sister. Ali-paint looked after her and exhaled in English, “my God that woman, oh my God.”

Ammar, whose head bowed naturally, always said a quiet prayer.

*************

In the new villa, I slept upstairs, in a small yellow room with a huge bathroom. The bathroom had deep, deep blue tile and a western toilet. There was sand in the carpet and the faucets didn’t work. Neither did the toilet. For a long time, I used the spigot outside to wash. It was ok. I was out of money. I was stealing booze these days, not selling pictures.

Water came out of the spigot scalding, as though from a kettle. After a week, its low rumble – when Ali-paint washed the rollers – started to scrape my brain. Sometimes I flinched.

The water ran for a full minute before it cooled enough.

As it poured out, it did not pool on the ground, it disappeared instantly. The sand ate it.

****************

In exchange for my room at the new villa, I rolled the walls upstairs with Ali-paint and I dug the holes with Ammar. Every day, Ali-paint and I sang along with the Lebanese techno-pop girls on his phone. Ammar liked the Lebanese girls too, but mixed it up with Kathem al-Sahare, the “Elvis” of the Arab world.

When the spigot was dry, we said, “makoo mai.”

There were no hammers or pliers or screwdrivers when we needed them in the New Villa. We all shared broken version of each.

“Makoo tal nefece.”

After a few days, the doctor stopped bringing falafel sandwiches.

“Makoo akeel,” we said, “Koosortek doctor!”

Saife had left us some beera, Heinekin and Tuborg, and that was gone too. There were women and beera in Baghdad, just none for the pobrecitos.

“There is no work, no money, no beera, no bitch, so the other pobrecitos in Baghdad go to the militia,” said Ali-paint. “For money.”

Twice we talked about pitching in for a woman. There was no money and no one wanted to share her. No one except fat Mohammed the electrician, he didn’t care at all. He was lying on the cool stone floor smacking his belly.

The second time buying a woman came up, Ammar moved to the other side of the room.

“Haram,” he said. He took long breaks in the shade of the villa now. He didn’t care if the doctor forgot the falafel in samoon bread because it hurt to eat.

“Makoo floos!” we sang. “Makoo nee-itch!”

That was the work song.

***************************

We stomped it out with our rollers on the wall.

“Wen beera, wen bitch? Makoo floos, makoo nee-itch!”

We sang it with our shovels in the sand.

Ali-paint always started it, skipping in place, slapping his knee.

The intro was the list of nothings:

Makoo mai?

Makoo akeel?

Koosortek doctor!

Makoo tal nefis?

Makoo visa?

Makoo camera?

Makoo whiskey?

Makoo sadikis?

Makoo Amreekie?

Nothing food?

Sister-fucker the doctor!

Nothing screwdriver?

Nothing visa?

Nothing camera?

Nothing whiskey?

Nothing friends?

Nothing Americans?>

*********************

The United States was pulling out of Baghdad and Ramahdi and Fahlujah and all the cities in two months. None of los pobrecitos cared about what happened after that.

It was too hot, mang, too harra to think about big shots.

Ali-foreman was sleeping the afternoons away in my room, on the cool blue bathroom tile.

Intesar cooled the damp skin between her neck and her breasts with a red paper fan she called “my Japanese.”

Ammar’s abdomen hurt. It was hard, as though filled with water. He pressed on it with his finger tips.

*******************

As the intro finished, Fat Mohammed, the electrician, bellowed his part:

“Makoo flooOOS? Makoo flooOOS?” he sang from a room further down the hall, where sparks from the exposed wires in the wall shot holes in his cigarette cloud. Rising from tenor to alto, his voice boomed. His eyes rolled back. He smacked his belly, four smacks per measure.

Ammar twirled his wide hands on his stick-arms and bobbed his head on that piece of string. His part was next:

“Wen beera? Wen bitch? Eyahaha!” he screeched.

“Weeen? Eyahaha! Weeen?”

His part was the most joyous because without the work song, Ammar had nothing to say.

Me? I was, the wonkey cakewalker, tracking watery white latex up and down the New Villa’s stone stair case:

“Makoo floos? Makoo nee-itch! Eyahaha!”

I never felt closer to Allah and the simple truth of it all. I became epileptic.
“EYAAHAHAA!”

The work song always evolved into a spastic dance-off that ended when Ali-paint fell down laughing.
Intesar always shook her head.

*****************
Viva Iraq mate, viva the sounds of the desperate dogs y los pobrecitos.

****************
“You are not Iraqi,” Qusay said.

“You cannot know my people.”

Qusay asked me one day how I could trust a taxi driver in Baghdad.

He asked because that’s how I got around, in taxis, with my camera wrapped-up in a kefeeya or a grocery bag. He asked because he heard me introduce myself, more than once, as Canadian, Colombian or Kurdish.

The driver may kill you or sell you off at anytime, Qusay said, flicking a finger across his throat.
Everybody was about to get their throat slit in Iraq. Everybody was doing some slitting.

My taxi screening process was simple. He wanted to know, so I told him.

When a car pulled up I asked the driver—in English – who would win in a Kung-fu battle, Jesus or Mohammed.

If the driver spoke enough English to respond, he could also translate for me. If he didn’t shout haram at the idea of prophets duking it out Shaolin-style, odds were there wouldn’t be any shouting about prophets at all.

******************

I had helped around the kitchen for a few days now.

We became friends, Qusay and I, by asking questions.

This time he didn’t like my answer. I had insulted Mohammed.

“Never speak that again,” he said.

“I am Shi’a. I love Mohammed. Say it again … say it again … you will not live.”

I said nothing. I was smoking one of Saife’s Gauloises Blondes, toying with the idea of killing Qusay first.

**************

Earlier, I had asked about Qusay’s wife.

She was his cousin.

“Will you take another wife?” I asked.

“Man, I will take three more,” Qusay said.

His other cousins were not menstruating yet. He said he would marry them after that started.

“Can you take all four to bed all at once?” I asked.

From the dish-pit, Saife shouted, “Haram!”

“No, Haram,” Qusay said. “No Haram.”

Qusay said he will take one in his lap, one on his face and one on each nipple.

He was snickering then. It was ok with Qusay to talk about women.

******************

Now, he glared at me through his half-closed eyes. We were no longer friends, though we shared the same patch of shade beneath the only tree in the yard. Qusay loved Mohammed. For that he should kill me, he said.

A cubic mile opened-up between us. Perhaps it was other things, I thought, a buildup of slights.

Perhaps it was because I drank in the kitchen or because I looked at the maids.

In the shade of the tree, it was a livable blue. Without the shade, the world was yellow and baking.

I cracked a false smile and laughed and asked that puta to chill-the-fuck-out but he didn’t budge.

After that, there were no more questions. He was stroking the inside collar of his chef jacket with both hands.

“Puta sucia,” I said.

He understood because I had taught him a few words in my native Colombian but there were no more jokes either.

“I can kill,” Qusay said in crisp English.

“I will do it,” Qusay said, kissing his fingers, “Ask it again.”

******************

I thought about killing him because the idea was easy here.

It was fine.

If he came after me, it would be with a curved kitchen knife in my lower back, I knew that much. Qusay would think long and hard about when to do it. Qusay, esa puta sucia, con su cuchillo divino, would choose a time carefully.

But I’d kill him first – with my Beretta – double-tap mate. Send a round through each collarbone and pistol-whip him; lick his ear and let him know what I’ll do to his mother.

In hand gestures and broken Arabic I’d paint a spectacular picture, mate.

The sharpened tire iron would work too.

When he tries to deflect the lunge at his guts, I’ll bury the crooked point of it in his femur.

Yes, mate.

Liam said the femur is where all the blood is made.

Spear the femur all the way through, he’ll go down. Pull it out, and he’ll bleed to death. Doing it this way allows twenty minutes for theatrics while he bleeds. That’s how Liam would do it, with an improvised speech.

Twenty minutes to mock his family and his religion. Twenty minutes to watch the sand swallow gallons of his leg.

From that day until the end of the two villas, I never turned my back on Qusay.

He wasn’t scared of my thoughts.

I was.

That puta knew I could never kill anybody.

********************

The Iraqi contractors stayed in the caravan when it was too late for them to leave the Greenzone or when they had to transport a client early in the morning.

It was a plywood box next to the Old Villa with a television and bunk beds.

Saife stayed there all the time. If he had family, no one knew where.

If they weren’t washing their cars and juggling footballs in his stomach, Fingers said, they might be in the north, maybe Mosul, maybe Tikrit.

In the caravan, Saife and I watched Kathem al Sahare sing on the television.

Kathem was singing on a neon blue stage. Behind him an orchestra of shadowy oud, qanun and darbuka players swayed with his voice. Circles of cool blue light rippled from where he stood like the stage was a pool of water.

Saife sat to my right, trading insults on the phone with his sadeeka, spitting as he spoke. To my left was a mountain of cigarette boxes and a row of water bottles half-filled with cigarette-butt soup.
The whole place smelled like tuna sweat.

It had been three months since DeBritish paid him. There was no money for sadeeka or her family, Saife said.

Kathem was singing about a woman named Ensa, a woman he could not forget. The harshness of the world was too much. Kathem wanted Ensa by his side.

His body fidgeted on the pale screen as if restrained by ropes. At the height of the longest note, Kathem’s hands broke free and opened like flowers. His head plunged backwards.

Sadeeka wants too much, Saife said at last, balling-up on his side, tilting the bottom bunk.
This was when Saife, the first to disappear, began his departure.

*************************
After Kathem al Sahare sang of Ensa, Saife stopped talking.

He smoked his Gauloises Blondes and sweated stolen booze and let his work go unfinished. You could smell the booze when he sulked by.

Blankness replaced his wide open eyes and toothy smile.

He was silent for two days. In the early hours of the third day, he spoke again, but not convincingly.

What I know, I heard secondhand from Muthana:

Saife rolled up to the check point at the edge of the Greenzone before sunrise of the third day.

There was something about Saife’s voice or his face the guard didn’t like.

Maybe the guard didn’t like fat-ass Sunnis. Maybe Saife’s bribe was chincey. Whatever it was, the guard did something very unusual in Iraq: his job.

Unlucky Saife, gordo, pobrecito.

Muthana said that guard should be promoted to Iraqi general, because he wasn’t asleep or wanking.
Qusay’s diced, deep-fried eggplant breakfast was tossed in ketchup for Saife’s birthday. The maids and the contractors nodded at Muthana with full, greasy mouths.

It was amazing: the guard checked Saife’s papers and searched the car.

Pobrecito Saife, Allah willed it.

The car belonged to DeBritish. It was one of the armored Mercedes. Saife had copied the keys in secret.

In the trunk the guard found several unregistered AK-47s; in the glove box, a heavy wad of cash; in the backseat, a hundred pounds of ammunition and medical field kits worth thousands in the states.

Saife’s plan was to sell the car and the rest of it. He was almost there. The buyer was twenty yards away, on the edge of the Fourth of July Bridge, Muthana said.

“That guy was probably going to resell to al Qaeda or the other militias,” Muthana said.

Instead of embracing and kissing cheeks with a briefcase full of floos – for his sadeeka, for Tuborg and Heineken – a cubic mile opened between the money and the fat ass.

Saife was detained by the guard at rifle-point and arrested by Iraqi police.

His buyer disappeared.

DeBritish got a phone call and the Old Villa Iraqis turned on Saife.

Muthana and the other Iraqi contractors paid police to kick the shit out of him.

No one had been paid in months – not even the muscle.

Saife was fucking it up for men with children.

“Saife is Ali Babba,” Muthana said.

“They sent him back to his family.”

**********************

Saife was the first to disappear. Before we all followed, I heard he awoke from his concussion somewhere in Karrada, with two teeth and a dozen broken ribs.

It hurt for sure, but the shame sound, the scrape, may have left his mind.

Two weeks later, the heat died down and the market people talked about the 18-year-old chunk who stole guns, cash and a car from a pack of mercenaries.

If that gordo-Ali Babba could walk, he walked a little taller in Karrada, with wasta.

Wasta of a different type, mate, not a title mate, or money; not an advanced degree and good intentions, the kind reserved for Iraqi men with bothered heads, who bet their lives against armed contractors and militia wholesalers.

Think about the burro balls that took mate, and tell me ‘fat-boy,’ ‘fat-tart,’ ‘fat-fuck’ and ‘Saif-e-licious’ don’t really mean saber.

*********************

The villas are still standing, weathering the dust and the weekly rockets from Sadr city. They are still there, just not as I knew them when I arrived the spring before last.

When I last saw the Old Villa, it was empty. No more plush couches and big refrigerators. No beds. No fancy garden swing with thick blue cushions. Makoo wide-screen TV. All that stuff was repossessed before our eyes and from under our asses.

Less than a month after Saife’s beating, mate, DeBritish, boss of both villas, retired early. He fucked-off on an early morning flight to Dubai and disappeared.

Debritish was the second to vanish. When he left, he took the clothes on his back and the contents of the safety-deposit box.

“One more Ali Babba,” Muthana said.

“Si,” said I, “Bandito.”

None of the contractors had been paid. Saife, Qusay and Patrick had not been paid. Intesar y los pobrecitos had not been paid. Los pobrecitos didn’t even get lunch.

Koosortek doctor!

Rent on the villas had not been paid. The plush furniture, the fleet of Mercedes and $10,000 in auto maintenance had not been paid for either.

The man who made all the deals flew with everyone’s money — between $300,000 and a million dollars by Liam’s estimate.

In less than a day, word spread that DeBritish wasn’t coming back and the old villa was swarmed by armed collectors. They wanted their money and there wasn’t any so they took what they could grab.
They started with the electronics, then the tables and chairs, then the paintings on the wall. Some Iraqi tried to run off with one of the upright toilets.

The maids were crying. I worried after them all, especially Souhaila. Now that she had worked with westerners, no one Iraqi would give her a job, she said.

Militia men had threatened her life already, she said. The make-up was sliding off her face. The make-up was much lighter than her real skin.

She had no choice but to work with westerners, she said:

“My son! He is eighteen! There is something wrong with his head! He won’t work. He won’t leave the house. He won’t open the shades and leave his bed!”

“No husband,” she said.

The lazy son is the only man.

Souhaila was round like Saife but small, with kite-stick legs. I saw shadows of them once when the wind hit her abbayah head-on and the black fabric became paint on her body.

The sticks were wobbling now. Souhaila leaned heavily on the other maids and cried until she disappeared. When the maids left, they took all the remaining food and the medicine with them.

The expats were next.

They texted, Facebook-ed and emailed their way to a new contract with different protection service.
They were sweating more than usual in their jackets and ties. It was an oven without the villas’ shade. Their collars came undone but I never really worried after them. A powerful wasta, the U.S. Department of State, was on their side. They would all find their way to decorated rooms elsewhere.

When the expats disappeared from the Old Villa in borrowed van, they took their trunks, all the fake Nintendo instruments and all the wine.

I didn’t worry much after the contractors either. The Iraqi half knew where they weren’t welcome in Baghdad and the Britons had all seen much worse.

The short end of the stick though, belonged to the Britons. All the Iraqis had jobs on the side. The Britons had become like los pobrecitos: no home, no money. They had makoo to show for the last several months but two feet in the fine, eager sand.

Perhaps they were los pobrecitos all along.

Ammar knew about being sexless and he knew the difference a little cash can make in a man’s life – he never saved enough for a wife, but before the war, when there was work, Ammar didn’t worry about sharing his prostitutes.

The day DeBritish left, Ammar was too sick to be angry about his pay. He lay on the cool blue tile between Ali-foreman and Ali-paint, far from fat Mohammed the electrician, and he recited a long prayer for the contractors.

Ammar’s body was crumpled the way it was after a few short hours of work, his hands and feet looked awkward and limp but his eyes were lucid.

In his brain, Ammar saw the contractors’ fair dispassionate wives and Ukrainian brides and their girls-on-the-side lit pale blue.

He saw the Britons return to beds as cold as the weather that fell on their homeland. The most basic principle of the universe, Ammar said, applied to big-shots and ex-soldiers and ditch-diggers the same: makoo floos, makoo nee-itch.

Ali-paint smoked Davidoffs and laughed as he translated.

Ammar’s prayer celebrated that common bond. And he asked Allah not to forget the Britons, but, maybe, show los pobrecitos de Iraq the path to money first.

“We are much closer to Mecca,” Ammar said.

I pressed on Ammar’s turgid belly through his dirty purple dress shirt with my fingertips and thought of all the lesser poets growing old in their starched, dreary suits.

It was painful to think of how clean they are.

*************************

Ammar, Both Ali’s, Mohammed and Intesar left early that day and stopped showing up to fix the new villa.

It was their turn to disappear.

The doctor had been a myth for weeks now.

Me? I said as many goodbyes as I could and encouraged the expats to take more wine. Then I went back to the yellow room.

I wasn’t ready to leave yet.

Patrick, the Filipino manager, tossed a stone at the window at dusk.

When he left the Old Villa, he took all the hard liquor with him. I promoted him from Old Villa Manager to Benevolent Genius and we invited some other Filipinos over to witness his inauguration. They all worked for different western agencies with kitchens and each one nicked a different kind of food for the party.

There was a toast and a promise. I promised to one day help Patrick find his estranged father. The father was a retired Karate teacher and part-time stuntman in Los Angeles. The father was a soldier who left Patrick in the Philippines with his mother and never returned.

“I just want to ask why,” Patrick said.

I was drunk.

“Yes,” I said, “Why abandon your family?”

Lee-esh?

We toasted more and I stopped thinking about my voice. I thought about my ears and I scanned the darkness for the night song. I was sure it was there. I was sure it knew why. There was a desperate note that would tell Patrick all he needed to know.

*********************

After the Filipinos disappeared, I resumed painting.

“Wen beera? Wen bitch?” I asked the last uncovered wall. I was stirring the water-cut paint alone.
I had to finish the big, empty living room of the New Villa.

It was my job since I stopped selling photographs.

It was the least I could do. I was the only one who got paid.

Before he left, DeBritish handed me an envelope with five-hundred dollars inside. That envelope and some ingenuity paved my way to Afghanistan before fall.

Five-hundred dollars will get a pobrecito a long way. In Karrada, a kebab and a post-war pack of Gauloise Blondes comes to a buck – you can squeeze two kebabs out of it if you act a little squirrely.

The first thing I did with it was catch a football game on Aaras Island: Karrada Vs. Sadr City.

Lah.

The first thing I did was catch a taxi to Aaras Island.

I picked an innocuous corner off of Yaffa Street and waited with my head wrapped up in a dirty black-embroidered kafeeyeh.

There were kids playing between reinforced Iraqi police pick-up trucks. They were Ford f-250s with machine guns mounted in the back.

Suited men hopped the puddles and mud patches in the unpaved sidewalk. There were a hundred taxis, always compact, white 4-door cars with orange fenders.

I passed on the first seven.

One guy had an AK-47 in the back seat and gun parts all over the dash. That one was like Saife, on his way to wasta.

One guy was driving on a flat tire. Another smelled like donkey shit. None of them spoke English.

When the eighth pulled up, it was a young, sad-looking guy. Beer bottles were in a pile on the floor on the passenger side so I said hello and made small talk in shitty Arabic.

The sad-looking guy answered in sad-sounding English, so I asked him:

“In a Kung-Fu fight, who would win, Jesus or Mohammed?”

*****************

What I would have given for Qusay to be numero ocho, mate.

After the Kung-fu question I’d rip the dirty kafeeyah from my face!

“Salam, puta suciaaaa!”

I’d choke the sister-fucker with a sly, crazy grin.

***************************

No such luck.

Instead, I got Fahady: “I don’t know man … who thinks about that? It’s shit.”

Fahady was not witty.

He charged too much.

He off-gassed a powerful form of frustrated depression, that, I believe, jammed the airwaves around his taxi.

That’s why the radio never worked.

On the bright side, his English was good and he had friends in the police who called when there was an explosion.

He was it.

For the next two months Fahady took me to bomb sites all over Baghdad and to the hospitals.

The slow, folksy song he sang, quietly, something like a chant, something like a prayer, while we waited for orderlies to open up the emergency ward, was the hospital song.

It always spread down the flickering corridors, moving into from one mouth to the next like an act of hypnotism. I remember the shutter sound of my camera cutting into it in the dingy waiting areas and in every yellow-lit room.

It was breathed by all the motionless cousins and grandparents squatting on the floor, smoking with their elbows on their knees.

Fahady translated a portion of it for me, the part about a dying pobrecito trying to impress beautiful Layla.

‘I hide my approaching death from everyone,
If they knew, they would try to console me.
I know they cannot.
I walk and smile, Layla, I am stubborn.’

It’s still in my head, this long after I disappeared.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/two-villas-in-iraq/feed/ 9 http://matadorabroad.com/7-practical-tips-for-moving-overseas-with-a-pet/ http://matadorabroad.com/7-practical-tips-for-moving-overseas-with-a-pet/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:41:59 +0000 Mary Richardson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=5046

Photo: e³°°°

Moving abroad can take a lot of preparation and planning ahead, especially if you hope to bring your pet with you.

When my husband and I decided to move to Japan, we faced a hard decision about our cat. Should he come or should he stay? At the time, bringing him seemed difficult. There were too many other details to consider and we couldn’t face the extra paperwork. I left him with a trusted relative for safekeeping.

Now, I regret that decision. After all, I adopted him from an animal shelter and made a lifetime vow to care for him. Leaving him, I broke a serious promise.

Since moving, I have met other expats who have successfully moved their pets overseas. They agree there are benefits to undergoing the complex process. The first advantage is that your pet is with you, which may be (depending on age and other factors) the animal’s best interest. You maintain the relationship and don’t have to worry about your animal’s care in your absence. It’s also comforting to have a familiar “friend” as you adjust to a new lifestyle.

The downside is that the process can be expensive and stressful. In addition, it may prove difficult to find appropriate housing or vet facilities near your new home.

If you are considering moving your pet overseas, here are some basic guidelines to follow.

1. Check with the Consulate

Rules vary greatly in different countries regarding the import of animals, and these regulations often depend on your country of origin. First, determine if you can bring your pet at all. In some countries, certain species of dog and cat are accepted, while others are not.

For a preliminary idea of a country’s regulations, refer to Petrelocation.com, although information on this site is general only. Refer to the country’s consulate for recent official requirements.

2. Assess the Living Environment Abroad

Contact a local person and ask questions about the community. Do apartment and house rentals accept pets? Are vet facilities available? Is animal care affordable? In Japan, a friend of mine with a dog revealed that vet clinics in our area are extremely busy, and it’s hard to get an appointment.

Are there kennels where you can leave your pet while you’re away? What’s the local attitude towards pets? Are many people suspicious of black cats, for example?

Photo: someToast

3. Come up with a Timeline

To import a pet, most countries require a stringent sequence of medical tests. The timing of each stage is extremely important, and failure to adhere exactly may result in headaches and extra costs.

Satisfying the requirements to bring an animal to Japan takes at least six months. A dog or cat must have a microchip, rabies vaccinations, and blood tests at prescribed stages. There is also a 180-day waiting period after the blood tests before the animal is allowed entry without quarantine.

4. Meet with the Vet

Schedule an appointment with a vet experienced in preparing animals for overseas travel. That person may already be familiar with the procedures, which lightens your burden to ensure they are done properly.

Discuss your pet’s overall health and age as well as potential problems with moving abroad.

5. Contact Airlines

Airlines have different regulations for transporting animals internationally. Contact a representative directly to clarify specific issues or concerns.

It’s also important to know that rules for transporting your pet may change at different stops on the travel itinerary. For example, one set of rules may be in place for flying your dog from Los Angeles to Tokyo, but once in Japan, the rules may be different from Tokyo to Okinawa.

6. Find a Pet Carrier

Ensure you have the proper animal carrier for an international flight. Many airlines require the carrier to be approved by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). In some cases, you may be able to rent one directly from the airline. In any case, an airline representative can explain exact dimensions needed based on the species and size of your animal. You should expect to pay considerable transport, handling and holding fees.

7. Focus on the Details

Once you start the complicated process of expatriating your pet, follow the directions exactly. Don’t remain confused by a requirement; speak to someone who can clarify. The consequence of making a mistake, even a small one, can be costly and frustrating.

Another friend in Japan told me she had problems clearing her cat at customs because one signature on her documentation was signed in the wrong color ink! She faced an expensive quarantine for $100 US a day until the matter was settled.

Keep multiple copies of the documentation. Set aside money for unexpected fees and problems you might encounter along the way. Finally, have a backup plan in the event you can’t move your pet as planned.

Additional Resources

Pet travel.com, Independent Pet and Animal Transportation, Jetpets, and World Pet Travel can provide more information about moving your pet overseas, including pet relocation services.

Community Connection

Have you ever moved overseas with a pet? Share your experiences and tips in the comment section.

For more about traveling with animals, check out How Emotional Support Animals are Changing Air Travel over at Matador Change.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/7-practical-tips-for-moving-overseas-with-a-pet/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/love-and-expat-marriage-finding-identity-as-a-trailing-spouse/ http://matadorabroad.com/love-and-expat-marriage-finding-identity-as-a-trailing-spouse/#comments Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:35:41 +0000 Mary Richardson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4993

All photos: Mary Richardson

After only 6 months of marriage, my husband received an exciting job offer in Japan. Soon after, we moved from California across the world.

At the time, I was thrilled by the opportunity. I had lived abroad in several countries as a single person, and this move presented a brand new experience. We’d be braving the world as a team.

I imagined that we’d take language classes and eat exotic foods. We’d entertain all our Japanese friends. We’d travel and have adventures to tell our children someday.

What I never imagined was my new role as the “trailing spouse.” The term refers to a person who follows his or her partner to another place, often a foreign country. Taking on that role was harder than I ever thought.

After two years in Japan, I’ve revised many expectations about expat marriage. While I certainly would never trade this time, I have been challenged in unexpected ways.

If you are planning a move abroad as an expat couple, you’ve probably already considered the basic difficulties of culture shock and homesickness. But for the trailing spouse, there are other less obvious issues to consider.

Dependence

The first year, I felt like I was stranded on a deserted island with my husband, and I don’t mean in a romantic movie kind of way.

Living far away from home, it’s natural to turn to each other to fulfill a variety of needs. It’s also easy to underestimate how long it takes to make friends and feel comfortable. In our case, we felt limited by Japanese cultural and language barriers for some time, which restricted our social outlets. As a result, we spent too much time in our own insulated cocoon.

But my husband had the simple advantage of going to a job everyday, offering him benefits I didn’t share. His days had structure, he made friends at work, and he maintained his professional identity.

In my case, I was financially, socially, and emotionally reliant on him.

This dependence was surprising given that I had lived abroad before. I was certainly no stranger to culture shock and lifestyle differences. I had expected them, but I hadn’t considered the difficulty of adjusting to a new country as an “accessory” without my own purpose for living there.

Loss of Job Identity

A 2008 study conducted by the Permits Foundation indicated that only 35% of surveyed trailing spouses work during their expatriation despite having prior careers. What’s more, the lack of satisfying job opportunity often affects self-esteem.

In my own case, this rang true. I desperately missed my former identity. At home, I had taught English classes at a university. I enjoyed the academic interaction with students and colleagues. I had been self-sufficient and proud of my work accomplishments.

I also missed earning my own money. I assumed that finding a job would be easy, as there seemed to be no shortage of ESL teacher positions. The reality, however, was that there were few jobs that matched my experience, education, and salary expectations. I had worked my way up the ropes in my former life, and in Japan it felt like I was starting from scratch.

Too Much Time

Before moving, I fantasized about how I would spend my free time. However, I soon discovered that “transition” time when you’re unemployed is not exactly a vacation. Rather than liberating, it’s stressful and lonely.

I had too much time to dwell on frustrations. Many days lacked focus. I remember a tense period that first year when my husband would come home from work wanting to talk about events of his day. When he asked me about mine, I resentfully felt like I had nothing to tell him.

Eventually, I did find satisfying outlets for my time, but it took longer than expected.

Different Lifestyle Approaches

Finally, to my surprise, my husband and I discovered that we didn’t want to experience life abroad in the same way.

Of course, we’ve both enjoyed the food, the sights, and travel, but our desire to “integrate” has differed fundamentally. I’ve taken language classes and karate lessons, made Japanese friends, and tried to connect in a meaningful way.

My husband hasn’t shown the same interest. Part of the reason is that his work schedule doesn’t offer the same time. But he also admitted he’s less motivated to put himself in those situations. He’s content socializing with other expats and being removed from the local experience. He’s less willing to go off the usual path.

As a result, I have experienced much of Japan on my own, and not as the harmonious team that I imagined.

In one sense, I’ve developed a great deal of confidence, but I’m also the one in the marriage who does all the “engaging” with the Japanese world. I order the food in restaurants, make the phone calls, and deal with the repairmen. I’ve taken on dealing with most of nitty-gritty details about living abroad.

Self-reinvention

Despite the stresses, the greatest positive aspect of being a trailing spouse is that we are given the chance for self-enrichment and reinvention.

If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping your current job and pursuing a different career path, there are certainly means to do that abroad. I know expat spouses who are getting Masters degrees online and honing skills through volunteering and part-time job opportunities. I know several trailing spouses who turned their photography and personal blog hobbies into viable income.

In my case, I have developed Japanese language and cooking skills. I’ve made new friends with local women and other expats. I’ve taken advantage of traveling and learning about the history and culture of Asia. Finally, I’ve embarked on a new path of being a tour guide and freelance writer.

Tips for surviving the first year as a trailing spouse:

1.Be realistic about how long it takes to feel comfortable in a foreign country. Don’t take things too seriously for at least 6 months.

2.Learn the local transportation system as soon as possible so that you’re not stuck at home alone while your spouse is working.

3. Join an expat women’s (or men’s) group to meet others with shared experiences

4. Join a local women’s group to make friends with area insiders.

5. If you’re not working, incorporate structure into your day through exercise, hobbies, or volunteering.

6. Be prepared for working for less pay at a lower skill level.

7. Develop other interests you’ve always wanted to pursue.

8. Understand that your spouse is adjusting to a new work environment and faces unique pressures.

9. Utilize online sources like Expat Women, Expat Arrivals, and Expat Exchange.

Community Connection

What challenges have you faced as part of an expat couple, as either the working or trailing spouse? How did you resolve them?

For more about expat life and travel in Japan, check out Matador’s Japan Focus Guide.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/love-and-expat-marriage-finding-identity-as-a-trailing-spouse/feed/ 28 http://matadorabroad.com/weird-habits-developed-after-living-abroad/ http://matadorabroad.com/weird-habits-developed-after-living-abroad/#comments Wed, 07 Jul 2010 20:23:28 +0000 Linda Golden http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4973

Photos: author

After coming back from two years in Togo, Linda Golden finds readjusting to life in the U.S a little weirder than she expected.

Early in our Peace Corps training, the training coordinator scheduled a session on the readjustment we’d face in two years, when we returned to the States.

My fellow trainees and I had been in-country maybe four weeks, long enough to suffer gastrointestinal disasters, grow weary of bucket baths and eat enough pâte (a white dough-like carb base usually made from corn meal and eaten with sauce) to inspire dreams of burritos and hamburgers. As we prepared to talk about readjustment, I overheard two other volunteers-in-training scoff at the idea.

“Like I’m really going to need to readjust to hot showers and A/C.”

I know myself. After spending five months studying abroad in Switzerland, I was overwhelmed by the warehouse-size of the first American supermarket I visited. I knew I would have some readjusting to do coming back from Togo, but I imagined it would be more obvious – freezing in the winter, freaking out about new technological developments.

There was some of that. I got so cold this winter, I started wishing for the heat rash that tormented me in Togo’s hot season. But the changes I notice most are weird little habits and bizarre reactions to minor occurrences – things I would never have thought or done had I not lived in Togo.

That’s just my hair/a rock/a leaf

My village house sheltered me and a range of wildlife. In the rainy season, evening reading and writing sessions devolved into a standoff between willpower and the flying, buzzing, hopping insects drawn to my oil lamp.

A trip to the latrine in the night meant shining the flashlight ahead to avoid stepping on toads – or having toads hop on me (I have nothing against toads, except when they jump on or in front of me in the dark).

Spiders, mice or salamanders – something was forever scurrying out of the way when I opened the latrine door for a midnight visit. Now, every hair brushing my arm is a winged beetle aiming to tangle itself in my mane.

Every rock or large leaf on the sidewalk at dusk is a toad waiting to surprise me by moving into my path at the last minute. Last week, while making a sandwich, my heart stopped when I saw a two-inch cockroach scamper onto the bag of lettuce. It was part of the blue packaging on the cheese I’d just opened.

That trash just goes away

In Togo, I burned my trash and was careful about what I threw away. I held on to batteries because I didn’t know what to do with them, but was sure tossing them in fire was not the answer. I composted my food waste. I saved matches and used the unburned ends to light my oil lamp from my reading candle. A few months ago, I nearly reprimanded my boyfriend after he put an aerosol can in the trash.

“What is he thinking? That will explode!” As soon as I thought it, I remembered – we’re not going to burn the contents of the garbage can. It will just disappear with the garbage truck. Goodbye, empty Raid bottle.

I still leave half-burned matches lying on the kitchen counters.

But there are still bugs – This winter, I made tea and spilled a little sugar on the floor. My immediate reaction was, “Clean it up before the ants get it.”

We live in a third floor apartment. It was February. The ants were not coming upstairs from under the two feet of snow to carry off the sugar. I couldn’t see the sugar – so I left it.

Three months later, when the ants arrived and annexed the raisins I’d purchased the day before, my boyfriend refused to relax until all the ants were gone. Meanwhile, I was happy to eat my raisin-less cereal and let the ants come and go, figuring we could just deal with them later. They’d won already, and I was late to work.

After all, they’re not lethal (for the most part) – I was on some kind of anti-malarial for the full two years in Togo. I slept under a bed net and lathered myself in insect repellent when I couldn’t.

Two weeks ago, I saw a mosquito in the bathroom. I instantly thought, “malaria,” then remembered this is not a problem, and no, it was probably not laying mosquito eggs in the toilet. Still, that single mosquito pulled up the memory of my latrine in rainy season, when mosquitoes and drain flies covered the walls of my open-air bathroom.

Weird water feelings

I have a strange, new relationship with water, the source of many, variegated troubles (giardia, amoebas, diarrhea, guinea worm, schistosomiasis, dysentery, cholera, dehydration), most of which involve lots of time hanging out near a toilet.

To avoid these, I filtered and bleached my water, washed my veggies in bleached water and occasionally, boiled water I used for bucket baths. I carried a Nalgene with me everywhere, drinking nearly a gallon of water a day in the hopes of staying hydrated.

I still got dehydrated, once to the point of fainting on my porch, but I avoided some of the nastier, common water-borne complications like giardia and amoebas.

But now, I see photos of a high school me, rinsing my legs in a pond-sized puddle after a particularly muddy cross-country meet and think, “Great way to get schisto!”

I visit family in Richmond, Virginia and wonder if the tap water is safe to drink. If I don’t have a water bottle with me, I’m convinced I’ll dehydrate. I think I can solve all my medical complaints with water, Gatorade and ibuprofen.

Actually, I think I can solve them with Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS), a salty powder added to water that’s basically a cheaper (if you buy it abroad), disgusting version of Gatorade. I believe in the power of ORS, and despite Gatorade’s accessibility and flavor, I wish I brought ORS home.

I miss street and finger food – Every week, I walk through the grocery store thinking, “I need to buy some snacks,” but I never want to pay for granola bars or Cheez-Its. Sometimes I make my own trail mix, but not only am I cheap, I’m lazy.

I just want to walk out of my apartment and buy a four-cent bag of peanuts on the way to work. Or a hard-boiled egg with a plastic-wrapped thimble-full of powdered hot pepper to season it. Or black-eyed peas sold in a black plastic bag. And then I want to eat my snack with my bare hands. Not always, just some days. Fortunately, there’s an Ethiopian restaurant in town where that’s ok.

These habits and instincts are infrequent (except thinking there are bugs on or near me. That happens regularly). At worst, people will think I’m strange for the jumpiness or just dirty for not picking up my sugar and match sticks.

And while I may be weirder than I was in 2007, I feel stronger – kind of invincible. I biked 400 miles (rough estimate) in a tropical country – I can bike around the streets of Louisville, Kentucky.

In 27 months, I was sick more than I had been in 10 years. Just pass the ibuprofen (and the occasional antibiotics). I eliminated an infestation of baby spiders (at night, by the light of an oil lamp and flashlight, mind you) and killed a scorpion with a running shoe. When I meet my next roach – or toad on the way to the bathroom, unlikely as that is – I’ll know how to take care of it.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/weird-habits-developed-after-living-abroad/feed/ 29 http://matadorabroad.com/giving-birth-abroad-setting-up-your-child-with-a-second-citizenship/ http://matadorabroad.com/giving-birth-abroad-setting-up-your-child-with-a-second-citizenship/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:26:28 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4827

Photo: Sami Keinänen

When my husband and I started thinking about having a child, one of the first questions we asked ourselves was, “What country do we want to have our baby in?” As international teachers, it was important to us to time the pregnancy and delivery with being in a country where I felt comfortable giving birth. As I looked into some of our different options, I realized that there can be multiple benefits to giving birth abroad.

One reason to consider birth abroad, even if you live in your home country, is to set your child up with a second citizenship from birth. A number of countries, mostly in North, South and Central America, offer birthright citizenship, meaning that any baby born on that country’s soil automatically has a right to citizenship. This practice is known as jus soli, birthright by soil.

Depending on the country, a second citizenship and passport can give your child greater freedom to travel, less tax liability, access to more affordable health care or college education, and more employment and investment opportunities. A second citizenship will increase your child’s options, and although his or her adult future may seem a long way off, it can be well worth planning ahead.

Factors to Consider

If you are considering giving birth in a country other than your home country, here are some factors to research and think about.

1. Dual Citizenship Laws

Not all countries allow dual citizenship, and many countries only allow dual citizenship with a limited number of other countries. Find out about the dual citizenship regulations of your home country and the country you plan to have your baby in to make sure your child can hold both citizenships at the same time.

2. Tax Liability

Many countries do not tax income that is gained beyond its borders. The US is one country that does tax global income, making it more expensive in the long run to be a US citizen living outside the US than to be a non-resident citizen of another country.

3. Military Service Requirements

Some nations have an obligatory military service requirement for their citizens. Find out about these requirements as well as policies regarding involuntary drafting in times of war.

Photo: jaaron

4. Security Regulations

Citizens of some countries may be subject to increased security regulations. For example, foreign nationals from Arab and Muslim countries were questioned and fingerprinted as part of the US “Special Registration Program” after 9/11. While Pakistan offers birthright citizenship, Pakistani nationals are often subject to stricter travel and immigration laws.

5. Cost of College Education

The cost of a college education differs widely between countries, and many public institutions offer lower rates (or free universal education) for citizens of their country or residents of a particular area. Find out if any of the countries offering jus soli have subsidized or low-cost educational opportunities.

6. Prenatal Care & Delivery Options

Whether you choose to give birth at home or abroad, it’s important to find out about your prenatal care and delivery options. A country’s citizenship may seem ideal, but if you are not comfortable with the medical facilities and birth practices in that country (or you can’t afford them) then you will want to look for a different option. Talk to other expats who have given birth abroad and find out about their experiences and recommendations.

7. Maternity & Paternity Leave

If you decide to give birth while working overseas, make sure you know what your company’s policies are regarding maternity and paternity leave. How long is the leave, and will you be paid during that time? Some countries have laws that require employers to grant a certain number of days to new mothers and fathers. The leave can be as short as 10 days or as long as several months depending on the country and your employer.

8. Birth Tourism Packages

In the US, a ‘birth tourism’ industry has been built up to cater to expectant mothers. Some hotels, like the Marmana Manhattan, offer package deals for moms-to-be that include things like airport transfers, two months’ accommodation, baby cradle and special gift packages.

Countries Offering Birthright Citizenship

The following list is from NumbersUSA, an immigration resource for US citizens. Countries may discontinue the practice of jus soli at any time, so it’s best to contact your nearest embassy or consulate for current policies before making any plans to give birth abroad.

North America: Canada, United States, Mexico

Caribbean: Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, St. Christopher & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago

Central & South America: Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela

Asia: Azerbaijan, Pakistan

Africa: Lesotho

Pacific: Fiji

Final Decisions

In addition to the legal and medical factors, you will also want to consider more personal factors. If you have your baby abroad, will your family be able to visit you or be involved in your child’s early life? Will you be able to build a support network in your host country to help you during pregnancy and after the birth? If you plan on working after the birth, is quality childcare available?

Ultimately, we’ve decided to have our first child in the US as my husband is a dual Portuguese-American citizen and our child will already be born with two citizenships. For us, the personal factors, such as being closer to family able to spend more time with the baby because we’re currently back in school (and not working full-time teaching jobs), ended up being the deciding factors.

Community Connection

Have you ever had a child abroad or thought about giving birth abroad? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/giving-birth-abroad-setting-up-your-child-with-a-second-citizenship/feed/ 17 http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-learning-hip-hop-in-south-korea/ http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-learning-hip-hop-in-south-korea/#comments Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:55:10 +0000 Anne Merritt http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4927

Feature and above photo: sellyourseoul

Hip hop class at the local gym becomes Anne Merritt’s unexpected initiation to Korean culture.

Every day at eleven, a cheery instructor would lead a hip-hop dance class at my tiny gym. Every day, I would watch them, listening hard for some recognizable Korean words (“…left arm, right arm, left foot, right foot…”). I didn’t yet have the nerve to join the dance classes, to be the only non-Korean in front of those huge, scrutinizing mirrors. Already, I was the tallest person in the gym, the only woman who, for sizing reasons, had to wear the mens’ gym kits. Dancing around might bring more bad attention than good.

One day in the locker room, a woman from the class approached me. Her name was Sunny, an English teacher turned stay at home mom. “We see you watching the class,” she told me, “so tomorrow, why don’t you join us?”

I had been in South Korea for a month, and felt no wiser than the day I arrived. I had always thought of myself as a sociable, adaptable traveler. For some reason though, I wasn’t meeting anyone. Simple tasks, like buying a bus token or vegetables, were unnervingly difficult. I had splurged on a gym membership with my first paycheque.

With a bare social calendar, I was free to spend long hours getting in shape. Even if I could barely navigate the subway, even if I could barely order a simple dish, the gym gave me my footing again. At least I knew how to use a treadmill. At least, I thought as I nodded to Sunny, I know how to dance.

The next day, stretching on the floor, I studied my fellow dancers. Most were housewives like Sunny, spending long hours socializing at the gym while their children attended school. They wore the kind of bright, sequined costumes you’d find on a figure skater. Camouflage, ruffles, mesh, more sequins than I ever wore in all my childhood dance recitals combined. They stood close to the mirror, fixing their ponytails. One woman wore a a plastic bag on her torso, like a child fingerpainting in a garbage-bag tunic. This was apparently a do-it-yourself method of sweating off the pounds. Her dance moves were accented by a squeaky plastic sound.

Photo: WanderingSolesPhotography

The instructor called us to attention and we found our places. Sequined women in the front, older women and me at the back. Never mind that I was half the age of the people around me, we were in it together, moving through the warm-up stretches. This wasn’t so bad.

Warm-up complete, it was a whole new game. Korean pop songs filled the room and the group transformed into a single entity, moving through a routine in perfect time with the ever-grinning instructor. I flailed around, red-faced, trying to keep up. It felt like I’d just jumped onstage at Cirque du Soleil. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing, and I didn’t.

The class, I later deduced, consisted of choreography that built on itself, week after week. These women had been learning and practicing these routines for months. What did newcomers do? Well, it rarely came up. I was the only newcomer to enter the group in a while.

Sunny approached me after the class, “that was fun, right?” She looked at the shining sweat on my face and arms. Her own skin was beautifully bone-dry. “Have you ever danced before?” Of course I didn’t tell her yes, that I had danced for most of my childhood, that it shouldn’t have been so hard.

She took me by the hand and introduced me to the group, translating their welcomes into English. Someone handed me black instant coffee in a tiny paper cup. A woman in a ruffled flamenco blouse and leather shorts eyed me up and down, then offered to take me shopping for “better clothes.” The instructor gave me an encouraging pat; the kind you give to a toddler who makes a shapeless pile in the sand and calls it a sandcastle.

“So we will see you tomorrow?” Sunny asked. “We all want to see you tomorrow.”

The next day, I came back to the class. The day after that, I came back. I would glimpse at myself in the mirror, my men’s T-shirt sweat-stained, my ponytail frizzing, my mouth tensed in a thin line of concentration. I didn’t have any sequins on my clothes. I didn’t go on post-class lunch dates with girlfriends. Here, I didn’t have any girlfriends. I didn’t know enough Korean to understand the teacher’s instructions, or the class banter. But I could get better at dancing.

At night after work, I would scour YouTube for the latest K-pop videos and mimic the dancers for hours. The Internet was full of homemade clips, teenage girls dancing in their living rooms to Tell Me and So Hot. I would use my glass balcony door as a full-length mirror, not caring that passing pedestrians could see me hopping around.

At my language school, I would round up the little girls in my class and dance with them. “Na Yeon, do you have your mobile phone? Good, play Tell Me. Everyone line up…aaand, go!” The children, despite eight hours of school and four hours of supplementary classes daily, had found the time to memorize that choreography too. Their eyes would bulge at the sight of me copying them. “Anne Teacher!” they would say, grins on their faces, “do you want to be Korean?”

It sounds a bit obsessive, slaving over the dance moves to saccharine pop songs that I didn’t even like. But to me, it became a mission. Bouncy hip-hop dancing would be my “in” to Korean culture. Some expats sample every type of kimchi under the sun or study Korean until they’re fluent. Some take to karaoke rooms and rice liquor binges. I would get to know the culture through its pop.

I knew that with my fellow gym-goers, I would never fully fit in. I would never be able to follow their rapid locker room chats or stomach the bittersweet instant coffees they drank with gusto. Even without the language barrier, I wouldn’t relate to those young mothers with workaholic husbands. But while I was a cultural outsider, I vowed not to stand out in our dance routines. I would dance just like them.

Each morning at the gym felt a little better. One day, at a post-class party, Sunny served as my ever-keen translator. Though my Korean was still shaky, people were chatting with me. Even the woman in a plastic body-sheath gave me a tight nod.

“They want to tell you your dancing is good!” Sunny said, poking me amicably on the bum, “like real hip-hop.” The instructor said something and everyone looks at my bum this time, smiling. Sunny piped up proudly, “she says you can dance like this,” – wiggling her narrow hips stiffly – “like Jennifer Lopez. With your bottom. For Korean women, it’s hard.”

By this time, I had widened my social network. I had told my new friends about the hip hop classes, and how hard I had studied these pop dances in order to fit in with the class. When I reenacted the bum-admiration, they laughed. “Maybe that’s why they wear the bright costumes,” one friend mused. “They want to look like hip-hop dancers, even if they just don’t have the shape to dance like one.”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one struggling to fit the part. In fact, I was one of thousands. The keen expats labouring over Korean grammar books, the housewives shopping for leotards together, the teenage girls dancing in sock feet in their living rooms. Maybe we’re all fitting in slowly.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-learning-hip-hop-in-south-korea/feed/ 5 http://matadorabroad.com/what-ikebana-taught-me-about-japanese-culture/ http://matadorabroad.com/what-ikebana-taught-me-about-japanese-culture/#comments Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:48:38 +0000 Mary Richardson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4892

Feature Photo: zozo2k3Photo: unforth

I should have known better than enter an Ikebana show in Japan. After all, I’d only been taking the flower arranging classes for a few months, and there’d been all kinds of nervous chatter in the weeks leading up to the event.

All my conversations with classmates Junko, Ai, and Shoko had followed a typical pattern.

Them: “Mary-san, have you chosen your flowers yet?

Me: “I’ll buy whatever is on sale.”

Them: “What arrangement are you going to do?”

Me: “I want to be inspired in the moment.”

Them: “Which vase are you using?”

Me: “The same old training one…”

Ikebana is a traditional Japanese art form which has endured for hundreds of years. You’re probably familiar with the distinctive arrangements: rustic branches twisted around a single yellow rose, bamboo stalks situated at precise angles. There’s a whole spiritual philosophy behind it. And just like Klingon language experts and dog show trainers, Ikebana enthusiasts take their craft seriously.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that. Yet, I just couldn’t bring myself to feel stressed about the show.

I had been living in Okinawa with my husband for the past year. Before the move, I had read that integrating into Japanese culture was deceptively hard. Expat accounts revealed that although locals are pleasant and accommodating, Japanese communication style and social customs are complex and subtle, often proving troublesome to foreigners. For Americans in particular, accustomed to directness, there was danger of failing to “read between the lines.”

Moreover, the Japanese cultural tendency to say “maybe” rather than “no” often led to misunderstandings between the two cultures.

But so far, I hadn’t suffered any of those tensions. In fact, my language lessons, karate classes, and weekly Ikebana helped me make friends quickly and feel right at home on the tiny island.

Yet, oh, how I wish I had paid more attention.

Photo: conveyor belt sushi

The day of the Ikebana show, I was in high spirits. I was so confident that I spontaneously met a friend for lunch when I should have been focused on flowers. I figured I’d have a quick meal and conversation at a sushi-go-round. Then I’d buy my flowers, drive to the exhibition hall, set up my arrangement, and be done.

Only that’s not how the day unfolded. Lunch ran late, a tropical storm hit, and by the time I arrived like a drowned rat at the florist, there were slim pickings. I quickly grabbed three green swirly branches, five spotty roses, and some spiky pink blossoms. I had never used any of those materials before in any of the lessons, but they would have to do.

When I arrived at the hall, I expected other participants to be as frazzled as I was, what with that mini-typhoon barreling through.

But they were all calmly sweeping the floor underneath their majestic arrangements.

I dispersed my flowers on the floor and unpacked my sheers and training vase, glaringly drab and inferior next to the sleek pottery around me. Scanning the room nervously, I saw that everyone had brought miniature brooms to clean their work space, linens to decorate their spot, flower food, and bottles of water. Water. How could I forget to bring something as important as that?

Noticing my disorganized state, Junko lent me a few of her supplies. Ai spread newspaper underneath my area to collect stray clippings. Shoko sprayed my flowers with fine mist from a water bottle. I hastily set to work on creating my masterpiece.

I didn’t feel good about the final product. Next to all the elegant displays, my flowers looked like they had been attacked by a weed-wacker. That I had produced a shoddy arrangement was confirmed by all the polite encouragement I received.

“Nice colors,” they offered, which in essence is like writing “nice font” on a dismal research paper.

I braced myself for the worst when our 80-year old Ikebana Sensei approached. But after gazing over my arrangement, she surprised me with her response.

“Mary-san, this is very very good.”

“Really? ” I asked disbelieving.

“Yes, very very good,” she repeated as Junko, Ai, and Shoko looked on with wan smiles.

I felt instantly relieved. Our sensei was a premier Ikebana expert in Japan, displaying her famous arrangements in national museums and winning prestigious awards. Despite my lack of preparation and experience, I had somehow made her proud.

Sensei moved on to assess other flowers and I beamed. In fact, my confidence soared as I admired my creation. I had a natural knack for this art form after all.

Remembering I needed water, I borrowed a bucket from Junko and went to the bathroom. I walked back into the exhibition hall a few minutes later, and it was then that my heart lurched.

Sensei was standing in front of my spot again.

From a distance behind, I watched her yank out branches and move blossoms around brusquely, completely changing my arrangement. Her head gave a final decisive bob as she clipped a spiky flower and walked away.

In that moment, color spread over my entire face. My mind drifted back to all the hints over the weeks – the innocent questions, the strained smiles and courtly interest. Not only had I failed to read between the lines, I made a fundamental cultural mistake. I had assumed that my participation in the Ikebana show reflected only on me.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/what-ikebana-taught-me-about-japanese-culture/feed/ 3 http://matadorabroad.com/life-in-a-failed-state-a-response-to-foreign-policys-postcards-from-hell/ http://matadorabroad.com/life-in-a-failed-state-a-response-to-foreign-policys-postcards-from-hell/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:04:19 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4838

My house in hell, according to Foreign Policy, Feature Photo: Coty Coleman, Photo: author

Foreign Policy’s photo essay Postcards from Hell features 60 countries deemed the world’s “most failed states.”

The phrase “failed state” quickly became part of my vocabulary when I first moved to Pakistan. Western media outlets continually ran stories about the danger of Pakistan becoming a failed state and questioned so-called experts about what might happen if the country’s nuclear weapons got into the hands of the fanatics. The Economist named Pakistan the “most dangerous nation in the world,” and recently Pakistan ranked #10 on the Failed States Index published at Foreign Policy.

Along with the rankings, Foreign Policy published Postcards from Hell, a collection of photos from each of the 60 countries listed. The website states:

For the last half-decade, the Fund for Peace, working with Foreign Policy, has been putting together the Failed States Index, using a battery of indicators to determine how stable — or unstable — a country is. But as the photos here demonstrate, sometimes the best test is the simplest one: You’ll only know a failed state when you see it.

If you follow the logic offered here, looking at a single photo should be enough to tell you about the political, economic and social situation in any given country. The 60 photos that follow in the essay include scenes similar to those shown often on the nightly news: burning buses, piles of trash, abject poverty, refugee camps, armed militia, bomb debris and sinister looking men riding around in tanks.

Matador Trips Editor Hal Amen in Cambodia: failed state 42

The captions make use of fallacious arguments and emotionally charged language to evoke feelings of fear and disgust. The photos and the language used serve to create distance between the reader, who is most likely in a country deemed ‘stable’ according to the index, and the people living in the ‘unstable’ countries represented by the photos.

Does anyone benefit from this type of sensationalized media? I’m not denying that there aren’t true humanitarian crisis situations that need to be documented or suggesting that the media should ignore events like suicide bombings and riots, but the assertion by Foreign Policy that life in those 60 countries is “hell” and that one single photo can determine a country’s success or failure is one that irks me.

I lived in Pakistan for three years. I never saw a pick-up full of turbaned ‘Taliban’ fighters careening through the streets. I never witnessed a bomb attack or a shooting. Yes, I had to deal with corruption. Yes, the roads were sometimes blocked due to riots or the movement of important politicos, but I didn’t feel like I was living in a failed state or the most dangerous country in the world.

I learned how to make biryani, danced bhangra at weddings and shopped in bazaars with Pakistani friends. Even when martial law was imposed, most people in Lahore continued with their daily routines as usual. If I only blogged about bomb attacks and political instability, I wouldn’t be representing what life was like in Pakistan, for me or for Pakistanis.

West Bank, failed state 54, Photo: Leigh Shulman

Yes, there was a refugee crisis in Swat, and Pakistan has its societal issues, but to represent a country or place as “hell” (or describe 60 countries that way) does nothing to connect readers to a place or humanize its people.

As expats and travelers who try to live like locals and be conscientious about the way we represent the places we go, I think we have a responsibility to offer alternate ways of viewing ‘failed states’ and countries that are mostly represented in a negative light by the mainstream media. Showing only poverty and chaos just furthers the process of ‘otherization’ and can shape the perceptions of readers and viewers toward a skewed reality.

There are factors that make certain countries and places more dangerous than others, but those factors should not define a country or a people. Earlier this week one of my Pakistani friends wrote a short note on my Facebook wall:

Thanks for writing about Pakistan. This country needs the kind of projection you are giving it, and I am sure your writing will help Pakistan to correct its perception.

As expats and travelers, what do our stories tell about the places we live and visit? Do we leave people with reinforcements of what they are bombarded with by other media, or do our stories and photos challenge mainstream perceptions? Do people ultimately feel connected with those we portray in what we share, or do people feel distanced and fearful?

I don’t want to gloss over hardship in what I share about life abroad or mythologize place, but I also don’t want to present one-sided stories that reduce a place to a single concept like a “Postcard from Hell.”

Community Connection

Do you think travelers and people who live abroad can make a difference in the way their friends, families and societies view the world? Share your thoughts in the comment section.

For further discussion on how photographs can influence perception of place, check out Perspectives on Poverty (and other African stories) .

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/life-in-a-failed-state-a-response-to-foreign-policys-postcards-from-hell/feed/ 23 http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-copenhagen-denmark/ http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-copenhagen-denmark/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:24:31 +0000 Brittany Shoot http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4828

Photos: author

Never a morning person, I tend to have a pretty rough time — especially on the weekends — when my alarm goes off at 7am. Malcolm, my cat, who demands breakfast early, is thrilled, but as I pull on a dirty pair of jeans and sneakers with holes near the toes perfect for walking dogs downtown, I can barely consider my own sustenance.

I grab a muffin, a handful of vitamins, and a bottle of water to stick in my small messenger bag and pat myself down several times to be sure I’ve brought the necessities: klippekort train pass, Dankort credit/debit card, keys.

Driving in Denmark requires a Danish license — not to mention a car that is usually triple the price it would be in the U.S., plus “green taxes” that quadruple the total values — so there’s a reason many commuters ride the Metro, S-tog, and regional trains.

I live a four minute walk from the nearest S-tog station, or about one minute on my bike. If I’m feeling strong or know I’ll want to save time by biking in town later on, I take my wheels. I unhook them from the bike rack behind my house — even in the safest suburb, my partner has had his bike stolen from in front of out building, the thick chain cut and left as evidence — so I always park behind our flat now.

Ordrup station, on the C line of the S-tog, is almost always quiet. As I bike down Schioldannsvej to catch the train, I’m hit in the face with the scent of lilacs as I pass large houses surrounded by woven twig fences and enormous shrubs. Two dogs live on the left side, one black retriever and one scruffy white mutt. When I’m walking, I often stop to pet them both.

In the summertime, I diligently watch the sidewalks and streets for snails and killer slugs, an invasive species that take over all walking paths and yards for a few months every summer; though I hate them, I can’t bear to kill them.

I wait at one end of the platform since the cargo cars are typically attached at the front and back. When the C train bound for either Ballerup or Frederikssund arrives I have about a minute to scramble to find the cargo train car and push my bike’s back wheel between the tire rack holders. Early in the morning, I’m often alone and sit right next to my bike as I listen to my iPod.

Riding inbound in the mornings and sitting alone in the train is perhaps one of my favorite experiences as a solitary introvert expat, because in public, Danes rarely communicate unless absolutely necessary. While I’ve had my share of bizarre transit encounters — a woman asking me to stop tapping my foot and looking insulted when I told her to move to the quiet car, of which every train has at least one — a smile tends to go a long way, as does moving out of the way of the notoriously large baby buggies and passing a few coins to the men selling the homeless newspaper.

“Mange tak,” they always say. Many thanks. “Det var så lidt,” I reply and smile even wider. Literally, I am saying, “It was just a little thing,” or, no problem. The occasional morning drunk wanders through with a giant Carlsberg can twice the size of his hand, but he keeps to himself as he slumps into one of the plush blue bench seats. I’ve learned to avert my eyes, no longer bewildered to see anyone inebriated so early in the day.

We pass through some beautiful suburbs on our way in: the embassy houses bearing brilliant flags and wealthy expat homes with impeccably manicured lawns behind stone walls in Hellerup provoke a mixture of distempered envy and wistfulness. On summer Sundays, the bustling Charlottenlund flea market is the first sight on the trip, filled with bins of children’s plastic toys gleaming in the sunlight, dresses on hangers attached to the chain-link fences blowing in the wind; coming back even a few hours later, the previously bustling gravel parking lot is spookily deserted.

Further in, I marvel at the elaborate bubble letters and scrawling graffiti tags in the Svanemøllen train yards and on the sides of Østerport station. When we go underground, I know it’s time to stand up, shake my bike loose of its rack, and move aggressively towards the door, which will soon be packed full of people trying to get in and our, as quickly as possible, no matter the actual crowd or time of day. Exiting the train can be a total headache with people pushing for no reason, and I’m generally glad my bike keeps at least a few people out of my way.

My destination, Nørreport station, is the convergence of all three train types. When I don’t have the strength to carry my bike up two flights of stairs, I steer it down to the far end of the platform and take the elevator to the ground level. I battle with other cyclists and mothers for space in the tiny elevator that invariably reeks of spilled beer — two bikes, one pram, if we’re lucky to squeeze it all in at once — and once I reach ground level, I walk my bike across the cobblestones, past the vegetable and flower vendors and the mobile polser hotdog cart.

Disobeying a few rules, I jump onto my bike in the middle of the crosswalk and take off around the sleepy pedestrians, only using my giant child’s bike horn to scare off people who step into the bike lane without cause or warning. The other cyclists out so early look so put together, the women unusually beautiful with hair on top of their heads and big baggy layers of dark colors over sleek tights and leggings, but I power on my jeans and flannel.

From my quiet suburb of Ordrup to the already bustling streets of Nørrebro, it takes exactly 18 minutes to meet my dog walking clients if I’ve brought my bike. And even if it will take me a slow 40 minutes to ride my two wheels all the way home again, if the fickle northern weather cooperates, I just might take advantage of the sunshine.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-copenhagen-denmark/feed/ 0 http://matadorabroad.com/learning-experiences-how-to-become-a-successful-career-woman-in-saudi-arabia/ http://matadorabroad.com/learning-experiences-how-to-become-a-successful-career-woman-in-saudi-arabia/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:01:38 +0000 Michele La Morte-Shbat http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4657

Photos: author

Michele La Morte-Shbat decides to leave a comfortable life in Washington D.C to move to Saudi Arabia.

“I never wanted you here,” he said. “When they asked me I told them that you were all wrong for the job.”

My heart skipped a beat. I stared dumbstruck at the bits of frayed, brown mesh office carpet, the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the windows of the King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

It was November, 2000. Just days ago, my husband Bishara and I had left a nearly idyllic life in Washington, DC, where we had shared a five-bedroom home complete with the requisite American white picket fence, to come to Saudi Arabia.

Our flight from Washington Dulles airport to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia lasted nearly 20 grueling hours, taking with it our two beloved apricot poodles, our 43 pieces of luggage: our entire life. Five words threatened to make our journey half way across the world meaningless. I peered at Abdullah, the man whom I had looked forward to meeting as my new boss, in his crisp, white thobe and ghuttra, searching his cherubic face, trying to comprehend his words without letting my emotions get the best of me. Was I prepared to let my hard work be squelched by this soft-spoken bureaucrat?

Relocating to Saudi Arabia was not a choice that my husband and I had entered into lightly. After spending seventeen years in the urban grind of the nation’s capital, I began to notice a kind of restlessness in my life.

I had a happy and fulfilling personal life with my husband and friends, and I enjoyed my job and co-workers, but I couldn’t shake the notion that I had reached a plateau; I felt as if I were standing at the edge of an imaginary shore like a sailor’s wife, willing a familiar ship to appear on the horizon.

I wrangled with guilt in feeling compelled to step out of this perfectly fine existence. While dating Bishara, a Christian Lebanese national born in Jordan, I became acquainted with, what seemed to me, the enigmatic and esoteric region of the Middle East.

Sword dance in a festival in Riyadh

I remained curious about that part of the world after we married, always intrigued when Bishara talked about his childhood and experiences growing up overseas. My yearning – like a low-grade fever – for a cultural adventure caught up with me in late 1999 when I felt particularly drawn toward inscrutable Saudi Arabia.

There was no denying the effect that even the mere mention of the Kingdom had on me; my mind turned over images of white washed palaces, cobble-stoned streets jammed with merchants’ carts, and regal women enveloped in black gliding silently through airy plazas. The pictures flickered by like scenes from a film not yet completed. As I shared my feelings with Bishara, his normally merry eyes clouded and his forehead tensed. “Saudi Arabia, why Saudi Arabia?” he asked.

I could not articulate exactly why, I just knew this was the place I needed to explore at this juncture. The more I turned over the possibility of starting a new life in this mysterious country, the more enthusiastic I felt. New found energy replaced my restlessness and eventually swayed my initially reluctant husband.

I thought, perhaps naively, that finding employment might be the toughest hill to climb in making this life transition. For nine months, my husband and I worked feverishly to secure jobs in Saudi Arabia. After an initial trip to the Kingdom with the US-Saudi Business Council in February 2000, Bishara was fortunate to meet a Saudi sheikh who kindly promised to secure a job for me first and then Bishara as Saudi work restrictions limited my job prospects to academe, hospitals, and women’s banks.

True to his word, a week after Bishara’s phone conversation with the sheikh we received a call from King Faisal Specialist Hospital, a highly regarded medical institution in the Middle East with a well-trained staff, requesting my CV. Two weeks later we were notified of my new position as head of a recently established department in the finance office.

My initial excitement was short lived, replaced with administrative headaches: innumerable phone calls to management at KFSH about the details of my employment contract and salary, figuring out the logistics of bringing our two miniature apricot poodles with us, repeated trips to the doctor for the required medical tests, and supplying the hospital with criminal history reports, visa forms, and family records.

I began to think our new life in Saudi Arabia would never materialize. Whether by the sheer force of my determination or from a series of lucky breaks, I nevertheless found myself thousands of miles from the only home I had ever known, meeting my new employer.

“Abdullah,” I began, finally finding my voice. “I came here to be a team player, to work hard and assist your department to be the best it can be.” A flicker of remorse passed across Abdullah’s face. “Well,” he retorted, “I really don’t think you have the appropriate background to be part of our group.”

With my resolve building, I persevered. “Abdullah, I am interested in learning and I’m a quick study; I’m sure that any weaknesses I have can be overcome.”

Abdullah fixed me with a stern, quizzical look and then abruptly turned his back, striding down the corridor. I remained rooted to the spot, unsure as to what had just transpired. Several minutes passed and neither Abdullah nor another superior appeared to politely “escort” me out of the building; I began to realize my job remained intact and let out a thin sigh of relief.

KFSH building where author worked

There was never a time when I wasn’t conscious of being a professional, working woman in Saudi Arabia. The Middle East and its customs have received a tremendous amount of attention in the last eight years. I admit to my own curiosity and apprehension before traveling to the Kingdom, turning over in my mind myths and rumors I had heard about the strict rules and regulations imposed on women.

Though they most certainly meant well, friends and family had no shortage of opinions and (I would soon learn) erroneous or sensationalized facts about the “tragic” plight of women in the Kingdom. I was determined, however, to start my new life with a completely open mind and to learn as much about myself as well as the culture through this new experience.

I took small, calming breaths as I strode along the office corridor on my first day of work. To my surprise and relief, two young Saudi women readily greeted me, offering me cardamom coffee, a popular drink with a pungent, spicy, sweet taste, which served as a welcome pause from my early frenetic days in the Kingdom.

My Saudi male colleagues were cordial, but less familiar, tendering me gentle handshakes and steely reserves. This reception left me a bit perplexed as I was accustomed to casual greetings followed by the requisite “small talk” typical of American working environments.

In the weeks that followed, I became pleasantly surprised to notice that this seemingly restrained working relationship with my Saudi male co-workers gave way to an almost familial association; I was referred to as “sister,” which afforded me a certain level of respect. In time, even my boss, Abdullah, became a good friend and almost a brother to Bishara and me, helping us through some harrowing personal trials and perilous situations.

In my first few weeks at the hospital I found myself learning more than just my new job; the aspects of work I had taken for granted in the U.S. suddenly became completely novel. Professional etiquette, for instance, took on a whole different meaning in this new workplace, and I had to relearn a diverse set of protocol just to fit in.

At times, I found myself treading lightly around cultural and traditional roles for women and men and the appropriate interactions between the two. If I were one of a couple of women at a meeting with a predominance of men in attendance there was no particular code of behavior; I felt comfortable sitting where I liked and freely expressing myself. Women, particularly Western expatriates, were also allowed more informality when interacting about work-related issues on a one-on-one basis with a Saudi male workmate.

It was important, however, that the discussion center on work and not track into the personal realm. On other occasions, such as the time when we welcomed a new Director of the Finance Group or when a collection of men and women in a conference room celebrated the retirement of a fellow colleague, tradition dictated that women and men remain segregated.

It was during these instances that I found myself making a conscious effort to respect the customs of my host country. There were moments when I instinctively felt like walking over to a Saudi male co-worker clustered with other male cohorts on the far side of the room to discuss a particular professional matter, and I had to pull myself back. During these occasions, I felt particularly nostalgic for the easy circulation between my male and female workmates in the U.S.

My role as supervisor to Arab men, including Saudi and Lebanese nationals, also required some mental adjustments on my part, leaving me more than a little curious and anxious.

Similar to my workplace persona I assumed in the States, I felt it important to convey through my statements and actions that I was a team player and a professional. If there were issues with my Arab male subordinates having a female American boss, these sentiments were left unexpressed verbally or otherwise.

My male Saudi teammate, Saad, was smart and exceedingly polite and respectful. Our working association evolved into the more traditional supervisor/subordinate relationship, making it less familial than the working relationship I shared with my Saudi male peers outside of my group. I also contended with the matter of my Lebanese subordinate, who had worked for a couple of prominent American companies in the U.S., and regularly solicited Abdullah for my job. Fortunately, I’d encountered a similar situation several years earlier with an ambitious subordinate when I was a finance manager with the U.S. government.

Festival in Riyadh

The responsibilities and complexities of management seem to transcend cultural or gender divides. In both instances, I found myself focusing on promoting a balance between the team effort concept, and maintaining clear lines of authority.

In addition to the inherent “ups and downs” in any workplace there were some obvious differences between America and Riyadh, such as their Saturday to Wednesday workweek, the laws that restricted women driving to work (or elsewhere for that matter), and the scent of bakhour (incense) wafting along the halls.

Other, less transparent, customs left me slightly bewildered. I quickly learned, for instance, of the male Saudi habit to let doors close behind them, regardless of who trailed, as they stepped briskly through the halls of the hospital complex. In time I realized that even women did not hold doors open for each other.

My husband explained that Saudis presumably wished to avoid any gestures possibly construed as flirtatious or inappropriate. Ironically, though I regularly asked men in the States to step through a doorway before me in an effort to reinforce the notion of gender equality, I found myself missing this common western courtesy when moving through the corridors of KFSH.

Another practice I learned to quickly incorporate was using the phrase, “inshallah,” or “if God wills,” into my daily speech in both social and professional settings. Expatriates learn of this neologism within days of arriving in the Kingdom. “Inshallah” follows many expressed thoughts, wishes, queries, and responses. The phrase is so common it becomes entrenched in the vernacular of the ordinary expatriate.

“Can we meet today at 1:00?” “Inshallah,” comes the response. Or, “Do you think we can have that report finished by the end of the day?” Without hesitation, the reply is “inshallah.” One day when my husband and I were rushing back to work after a medical appointment, we found ourselves in the middle of a crowded elevator.

The elevator stopped on the second floor and a gentleman outside asked if the elevator was going up; several of us responded automatically, “inshallah.” It wasn’t long before I found myself saying “inshallah” in meetings or in the course of workplace conversation.

Despite my sometimes steep learning curve in becoming acclimated to my new place of employment, the days slipped by rather quickly until I could hardly remember my daily routine working in the States. Though my schedule had a similar rhythm of deadlines and meetings, the work hours were enjoyably punctuated with gratifying moments of downtime– not the same kind of grab-a-cup-of-coffee-and-stand-around-watching-our-watches-chatting kind of moments I knew too well from my own and friends’ professional experiences.

Arab corporate culture allows you, encourages you in fact, to take time out of your day to devote to connecting with one another on a more convivial level. Usually this happens, I discovered to my ample enjoyment, over soothing mint tea or cardamom coffee served with dates or Arabic sweet pastries.

Coming from a corporate environment less concerned with this aspect of professional development, I failed to realize how vital it is to truly slow down in the course of the day until I worked on my first large project for the hospital a couple of months into my contract.

Expat picnic outside Riyadh

In January, 2001, the team I supervised became responsible for a new automated budgeting process. Despite the frantic pace and frustrations intrinsic in implementing any new process, it was rare for a day to pass without being offered Arabic coffee.

One afternoon, my head buried in a stack of reports and my thoughts distracted by a presentation looming the following day, a female Saudi co-worker popped her head through my office doorway.

“Michele,” she called. “Please come by my desk, I made some mint tea this morning that I would like to share with you.”

My first impulse was to decline: there were final preparations for my big financial presentation the following morning; how would I be able to finish everything with this impingement on my critical work time? However, I understood the importance of human interaction in the Arab workplace, and I knew that refusing this sort of invitation was considered rude.

I summoned a smile and reluctantly followed my colleague to her partitioned office. As I stepped inside, I encountered another woman already seated in the corner, dressed in typical hospital attire for Saudi women: a long skirt that fell below the ankles, her blouse positioned high on the neck, a black scarf adorning her head, and a long white lab coat completing the ensemble.

I barely had a moment to find my own cup when the women broke into animated banter. Conversation about our current financial project was interspersed with more casual talk about their children’s schooling or what the housekeeper might prepare for dinner that evening.

The chitchat and aromatic mint tea lulled me, as it would do in the future, into an appreciation of this particular instant in time; I realized that there were life issues just as, if not more, important as the tasks at hand in the daily work grind.

The hospital compound itself actually helped to bridge this work-life divide in some interesting and unexpected ways. Its vast property catered to single, expatriate females, primarily nurses, by providing a large array of amenities. From grocery stores and flower shops to a bowling alley, post office, and Dunkin’ Donuts, the grounds included everything that an average, western girl needed to feel at home, minimizing her exposure to the Kingdom’s unfamiliar customs.

Most days, these many facilities, combined with the overall make-up of the staff, made it easy to mistake the hospital premises for a small town or planned community. Browsing the magazine racks in the grocery store always brought me back to reality. Black magic marker blotted out the bare arms, legs and cleavage of the models on the magazine covers.

My spine bridled when I first opened one of the women’s magazines to find each of the pictures of the young models with similar blackened arms and cleavage; each magazine I flipped through was the same. Later, I discovered that one of the informal duties of the mottawah, or religious police, involved shielding the community from even the slightest hints of sexuality.

This sort of seemingly nonsensical mottawah activity provided fodder for uneasy chuckles and long discussions about our mutual unconventional experiences within the Kingdom at weekend expatriate gatherings or evening fetes. Many of my single female expatriate friends who remained in Saudi Arabia for an extended period of time eventually came to the conclusion that the financial rewards and unique professional and personal experiences gleaned from life in the Kingdom outweighed concerns over eccentric and baffling pursuits by the mottawah.

While the mottawah were not permitted on the hospital premises, I remained mindful of my dress, especially for work. In the States, I might have decided on my outfit for the day in the precious minutes between drying my hair and heading downstairs for a bite of breakfast. Although my clothing options were more limited in the Kingdom, my early days at KFSH found me devoting significant time to picking out clothes that were both respectful of the stringent cultural customs and professional.

During my induction at KFSH I half expected to be greeted with a neatly divided fleet of robes and pant suits. Instead, Western women like me were permitted to forgo the black abaye on the hospital grounds; we were strongly counseled, though, to have our arms and knees covered, and low-cut blouses were strictly prohibited.

When off hospital grounds, Western women typically wear the abaye; in some shopping malls they are required to wear a headscarf or otherwise risk an encounter with the “mottawah.” In extreme circumstances a woman or her husband, who in the “mottawah’s eyes allowed her to dress indecently, might face jailing.

Like most other female expatriates I normally wore a mid-calf (or longer) skirt or pants, and a long white lab coat to work. My colleagues’ fashion, however, reflected both the cultural and stylistic diversity in the workplace. The Saudi woman working at the passport desk was completely covered in black, her eyes, two charcoal pools, stared back at me. Her Sudanese workmate at a station in close proximity wore a colorful yellow and blue sarong and head covering that exposed her entire unmade face, leaving wisps of hair peeking under her scarf.

At the hospital, Lebanese women stood out in stark contrast to all others not only in attire but also in their confident demeanor; these women sported tight pants, immaculately coiffured hair and painstakingly applied makeup, demonstrating their knowledge of the latest fashion trends. Lebanese women followed the same kind of cultural mores as other Arab women such as covering their arms and legs while on the hospital grounds and wearing the abaye and headscarf in public (with their faces exposed) when off the hospital premises.

Yet, it appeared as if there was an unspoken understanding in the Arab world that granted Lebanese women more fashion freedom. Conceivably this nonconformity was due to the regular influx of Western European tourists into Lebanon during its golden age in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, before the civil war, when it was known as “the Paris of the Middle East.”

In any event it became increasingly apparent to me that women from Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain were clearly more reserved and demure in dress and behavior in public settings than those women from non-Gulf countries, such as Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. I soon found that despite the divergence in clothing styles and presentation, women were not typically the objects of unwanted glances or stares that sometimes find their way into Western workplaces dominated with male colleagues.

The author and her family

In fact, great lengths were taken to shield women from this unwanted attention; Arab women’s offices were never positioned along a main corridor, and some women even hung curtain material over the entrances of their partitioned offices.

As I became more acclimated to my new professional surroundings and adjusted my demeanor and appearance to fit in, one particularly surprising aspect to the Saudi workplace continued to fascinate me: the relationship between women and their hair.

It might sound trivial to Western women who fail to think of their hair beyond fretting over its neatness, messiness, or frizzyness, but Saudi women experience their hair in a completely different manner. In the Kingdom, strict mores exist about the public display of women’s hair, and Saudi women exercise careful attention to keep their hair covered with few exceptions.

I distinctly recall dashing to the restroom early one morning before a meeting and running into my workmate, Amal, splashing her face with a bit of water, her shiny raven colored locks free from the confines of the obligatory headscarf. Restrooms were one of the few locations at work where a Saudi woman felt safe and sheltered enough to bare her hair.

Wednesday morning breakfasts of Lebanese mazzah that featured mounds of hummus and babaganoush, freshly baked pita bread, tabouli, fattoush, and spirited chatter behind closed conference room doors were another. Although I usually felt awkward when I noticed a Saudi woman uncover her hair, as if I were intruding on a particularly private and intimate moment, I inevitably found it hard to look away.

Despite the ubiquitous headscarf, Arab women take great pains to style their hair based on the current rage, commonly sporting fashionable cuts and trendy highlights. Some of these women were particularly exquisite looking with their luxurious hairstyles framing ebony pools of their eyes.

On another occasion Aisha, also an officemate, came into my office and glanced around furtively, making sure we were unobserved, before tentatively removing her headscarf. Her dark brown wavy hair spilled around her face, and she asked if I liked her new haircut. “Oh, yes, it looks great,” I affirmed. “You know, Michele, you should really try putting highlights into your hair like Alia,” Aisha quipped. “Highlights would really bring out your face.” My heart swelled with humility; this from a woman who, in public, outside of hospital grounds, was not only required to cover her hair, but her face, as well.

Working “shoulder to shoulder” with my female Saudi counterparts I came to learn that they had an acute appreciation for their career opportunities, were extremely hardworking, and remained intensely disciplined, particularly those without young children.

I often felt like a surrogate mother or big sister to some of the younger, female Saudi women, one of whom would even stop by my office regularly to discuss some of her more private marital challenges, which invariably most women face. “My husband isn’t spending enough time with me,” she fretted on one occasion. “Sometimes he goes out with other men, and doesn’t tell me where he’s going or what he’s doing,” adding “I feel that maybe he doesn’t love me anymore and is not interested in me.”

I admit that at times I felt off-balance during these encounters, happy yet daunted by this level of trust from a workmate; I couldn’t recall ever having these kinds of intimate discussions in the American workplace. “Marriage is complex and challenging,” I began tentatively, trying to give my best Dr. Phil advice. “It has its ‘ups and downs,’ and there are some points during a marriage when the man and woman feel somewhat distant from each other. You just have to nourish the marriage like you have to water a flower to make sure it grows and stays healthy.”

She remained expressionless, yet I glimpsed a flicker of understanding before she bolted away to answer her incessantly ringing phone in her office down the hall. I always felt honored to be a trusted colleague and friend during these moments. The professionalism of my American employers suited my career aims, but after becoming familiar with this more familial work culture, I realized how many U.S. offices, by their very nature, discourage these types of personal interactions.

The heart-wrenching tragedy of September 11, 2001 certainly challenged some of my budding relationships with my Saudi co-workers. The events of that day left Bishara and me emotionally spent and quite discouraged as initial reports implicated Saudi involvement in the attacks.

As I tentatively entered the office the following day, Abdullah cautiously approached and asked, “Are you alright, Michele?” adding “I am so sorry about what happened.” He continued, “I hope that nobody you knew was hurt or affected.” I told Abdullah I appreciated his concern and felt a bit of relief that there weren’t any hostilities toward me.

KFSH, like many places in the Kingdom, certainly had its factions that disagreed with American policies, and I became apprehensive when it was confirmed that Saudis participated in perpetuating the attacks.

However, I was astounded one late afternoon several weeks after 9/11 when Samer, a Saudi finance manager and collaborator on one of my reports, bristled when I expressed concern for Americans living in Saudi Arabia. He exclaimed, “Michele, if anybody tries to get near you, anybody at all, I will put myself between them and you.” He paused for a moment, and continued “And I know your workmates would do the same.” Samer’s gesture rendered me mute for a split second; I barely managed a curt, “Thank you, Samer.” Despite my enduring trepidation, in this moment I had a renewed sense of faith in humanity.

Many of my friends back in the States still wondered at my dubious choice, fearing that I had traded one competitive work culture for another one with additional, improbable challenges. They emailed regularly with endless queries: How was I coping? Did I miss family and friends? How did I manage working under such (they envisioned) strict and sterile conditions?

I greatly appreciated their concern, but I assured them that I was thriving with each new discovery. In the midst of what was becoming a fulfilling and productive life transition, more change ensued: My heart sank in late spring 2003 when we discovered that Bishara had a life-threatening medical condition.

We considered having Bishara treated in the U.S., but after much deliberation we realized that Bishara would receive “top notch” medical care from KFSH doctors who had studied at some of the finest medical institutions in the world. I was not only gravely concerned about my husband, but acutely aware of how this might impact my work arrangements. I found myself in Abdullah’s office again, hoping to trade on his good graces.

“Abdullah,” I began, as I closed the office door behind me, a lump forming in my throat “Bishara is going to be in the hospital for an extended period of time, and I’m going to need to work out a leave schedule with you so I can split my time between work and spending time with Bishara.”

Before I could continue Abdullah jumped in, “Michele, while Bishara is in the hospital, I am not your boss, Bishara is your boss. Anytime Bishara wants you to take off from work, take leave time; and I am not going to charge you for any time off as long as Bishara is in the hospital!”

He must have seen the uncertainty in my face because he added, “It’s okay, go off and see Bishara. He needs you!” My eyes welled and my limbs trembled as I stepped over to shake hands with my gracious benefactor, the same man who had made such a stony impression on me when I first arrived.

I couldn’t help but reflect on how far my working relationship with Abdullah had come in the short years I had been at KFSH due, at least in part, to my own personal and professional growth rooted in this unparalleled cultural experience. My initial meeting with Abdullah in November 2000 had left me numb and certain that my best efforts to contribute to the financial success of the hospital would be thwarted at every turn.

At the time, I thought maybe what I had heard in the states about women lacking respect or receiving unfair treatment by men in the Middle East was true. In that instant, I had questioned my decision to leave my comfortable life in Washington, DC for this unfathomable and strange life in the Kingdom.

Yet Abdullah’s unwavering support of me and my husband during this time of crisis, (and on other projects and ventures throughout my time at KFSH), simply affirmed that I was where I belonged: among a very unique community of individuals who had as much to teach me as I had to teach them.

One early evening, around the anniversary of my first year at KFSH, bone weary after several twelve-plus hour days at the office, I turned my bleary eyes to Abdullah as he swung through my office door.

“You know, Michele,” he exclaimed, “you are the one person in our group who I know when I give her a task, will get the job done right!” My knees nearly buckled with the unexpected compliment. Taking a breath, I merely smiled saying “Abdullah, I think it’s time for a cup of tea.”

Community Connection

Matador Abroad is still accepting submissions for our “learning experiences” series! Please send your submission to sarah@matadornetwork.com with “learning experience” in the subject line.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/learning-experiences-how-to-become-a-successful-career-woman-in-saudi-arabia/feed/ 13 http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-tension-in-south-korea/ http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-tension-in-south-korea/#comments Thu, 03 Jun 2010 15:50:44 +0000 Kate Holmes http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4560

Above and Feature Photo: Constantin B

An expat tries to discern how nervous she should be about the tension between North and South Korea.

Most days it doesn’t feel like there’s a war on. Most days I don’t think about it. But two months ago the Cheonan, a South Korean naval ship, split in two and sunk into the Yellow Sea, and the wheels of hostility have slowly been turning since then.

This week things are moving faster- a torpedo was discovered in the wreckage and the Republic of Korea and the United States have both asserted that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was behind the attack. South Korea has cut off all trade and the majority of aid to the North. Leader Kim has ordered his armies to be combat-ready.

On the way to work I call my mom to say hello; 8 am here is dinner-time back at home.

“What are you hearing? Is anything going on there?”

“Nope, nothing’s happening Mom. It’s a beautiful day and people are going to work like always.”

At school I plop down at my desk and check my email. I have my New York Times subscription set up to send me any articles about Korea, and today my inbox is overflowing. Most of the articles say the same thing- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets with Korean president Lee Myung Bak in Beijing, pledges support. China continues to ride the fence. It seems like everyone’s waiting to hear where Beijing’s allegiance falls.

Photo: Constantin B

My morning classes are the same as always, and I marvel at the innocence of my students, probably unaware of the gravity of the situation. But at lunch in the teachers’ lounge, the atmosphere is as light as always. My colleagues chat about an upcoming birthday party, a television drama, and one teacher’s husky voice due to a cold.

Six weeks ago they were expressing grief over the 46 soldiers lost on the Cheonan, and praying it was a mine or a mechanical malfunction, anything but North Korean aggression. Two weeks ago they were speculating that the evidence pointing to North Korea was just a conservative party ploy to fabricate a sense of danger so that voters would favor their strong national defense platform in the upcoming elections. Today, not a word on the subject.

I give in after lunch and ask my coteacher, HwanSuk, “Are people talking about the North Korea situation?”

“Yes, of course. But I think it will be fine.” And she’s off to play the piano in the 6th grade choir contest.

Left alone in our office, I feel isolated from what’s happening around me.

Photo: yeowatzup

I have the afternoon free, so I peruse the Korean expat blogs, and finally find a sentiment similar to my own. I come across discussions of what is happening now, speculation on what’s next, advice on packing an emergency bag of important documents, and US citizen evacuation procedures. I am glad to see other people are taking this seriously.

I check the English edition of the Chosun Ilbo, one of Korea’s top circulation newspapers, and find a myriad of articles on North Korean aggression. Apparently four Northern submarines have left port and disappeared from the ROK radar. Kim Jong Il has missiles pointed at Seoul. Half of the nearly 1,000 South Koreans living and working at Kaesong Industrial Complex north of the border have been evacuated for fear of a hostage situation.

A chat message arrives from Andie, another American teacher working an hour north of me in Seoul. She seems to have been doing the same compulsive news-reading as me, and she links me a CNN report.

vandie: Have you seen this?

kate0925: Yeah I saw that one. The DPRK has cut all ties with the ROK as of today.

vandie: I know. My mom is freaking out.

kate0925: Mine says she’s not but I don’t believe it.

I check the exchange rates- the won is tanking. My paycheck is worth 300 US dollars less this month than it was last month. I point this out to HwanSuk.

“Ehhh North Korea.” She sighs and rolls her eyes.

After school I make a trip to the gym- mostly because I don’t have a TV and I want to watch the news. On the treadmill I turn to KTV, and have to wait through several stories about the upcoming World Cup before anything pertinent comes on. Then over an hour of news stories about the war. I try to keep up in my minimal Korean.

Photo: author

Bits of the Cheonan are being recovered from the sea floor.

Continuing inspection of the serial number on what’s left of the torpedo clearly implicates North Korea.

News clips have been intercepted from North Korea’s state-run media. It looks like a newsreel from the 1950’s but it’s from this week. I am really wishing I had worked harder at learning Korean as the anchor goes on tirades in rapid North Korean dialect.

ROK soldiers are setting up propaganda speakers to blast pro-democracy slogans and economic news across the border. I remember reading that the North’s army had vowed to shoot at them as soon as they began broadcasting.

Last are interviews with Korean civilians at Seoul’s main train station. They are most worried about the implications for the South Korean economy. They are waiting to hear what China says. And they don’t want war. That’s all I can understand, but I can see that they are rather unimpressed.

I look down the row of televisions and notice that I am the only one watching the news.

I walk home slowly, trying to process all the information from the day. Along my street people are eating in outdoor restaurants, drinking beer and laughing loudly. School kids are roughhousing in their uniforms. Several old women lean against a wall of an old apartment building, talking quietly. I wonder what they’re all saying.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-tension-in-south-korea/feed/ 9 http://matadorabroad.com/what-makes-a-place-dangerous-for-expats/ http://matadorabroad.com/what-makes-a-place-dangerous-for-expats/#comments Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:51:54 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4528

Photo: azlea

Watching mainstream media and reading travel warnings is not the best way to gauge the risk of living in a new place.

At least once a week, I respond to an email or forum message that goes something like this:

Hi! I’ve been reading your articles and following your blog, and since you’ve lived in Pakistan, I wanted to ask if you felt safe over there. My husband and I, along with our two kids, are planning to move to Lahore/Islamabad/Karachi and we want to know how dangerous it really is to live there.

The problem is, I can’t give a definitive answer whether Pakistan, or any place, will feel “safe” or “dangerous” for anyone else, as there are so many factors involved, like what neighborhood you live in, what contacts you have, if you understand the local language, how you travel, and what situations seem normal and safe to you.

When I first arrived in Morocco for a year of studying abroad, I felt uncomfortable walking in the streets because in Moroccan culture, staring generally isn’t seen as rude. After a few months, I got used to the staring and I no longer felt unsafe walking to town.

In Pakistan, it was the guns that threw me off at first. Everywhere I went, I saw uniformed, stone faced men holding large guns, and during the Danish cartoonist riots I saw Army Rangers and riot squads patrolling the streets. After a while, I realized that big guns are part of everyday life, and that even tiny shoe stores will hire armed guards to watch over their stores after dark. Seeing armed men no longer became a source of fear, but merely something normal.

Photo: author

For expats, planning to move to a new host country takes a considerable amount of effort and research. When trying to decide whether a specific country or city is a good fit for you or if it is simply too risky, there are a number of factors you can look at to calculate risk.

1. Violent Crime

Look at how much violent crime takes place and who seems to be most affected by it. Is it mostly people involved with the drug trade or other illegal activities who are victims, or is the general population affected as well? Check out homicide rates and find out the number of reported sexual assaults. Try to see if these crimes are specifically directed at foreigners.

2. Political Instability

Read up on the country’s history. Has it recently emerged from civil war or other armed conflict? How much of the country’s territory does the government really control? In some areas of the world, elections and changes in power can lead to rioting, looting and chaos. Would changes in the government put you and your family in a precarious situation? If you end up living in a capital city, you may be more affected by governmental issues in your everyday life.

3. Economic Disparity

As an expat, will you be on par economically with a large sector of the local population, or will you be part of a small group on a completely different socioeconomic plane than most locals? When my husband and I lived in Pakistan, we were firmly grounded in the upper middle class and lived among Pakistanis. We were able to shop in the same stores and go to the same markets.

Photo: Desmond Kavanagh

In some cities, expats live in guarded compounds, shop in completely different stores, and aren’t able to have too much interaction with the local population due to such a large income gap. Being seen as part of an economic elite could make you more vulnerable to theft, violent crime or terrorist attacks.

4. Kidnapping & Hostage Taking

There are some areas of the world where foreign hostages are worth quite a bit of money. Google the name of your proposed host country + “hostage” and see what you get. Read the top stories that come up and see if you can spot any trends. Is it mostly locals or foreigners who are kidnapped or taken hostage, and where do these abductions usually take place? If they are most common in a remote mountain area that you don’t plan on visiting or seem to be politically motivated, the situation shouldn’t be as risky for you.

5. Terrorist Attacks

While there is considerable debate over who should be deemed “terrorists” and what “terror attacks” really are, incidents like suicide bombings, the Mumbai shootings and airplane takeovers have a more symbolic purpose and tend to create an atmosphere of fear and instability. If these types of attacks happen in your host country, find out where they normally take place and if specific groups or institutions are targeted.

If the attacks seem completely random or are targeted at foreigners, you will be more at risk than if the attacks are targeted at government and military institutions that you aren’t likely to set foot in.

Photo: thelastminute

6. Natural Risks

We often think of other people as the greatest risk in a new environment, but we should take natural risks into account as well. Is the area prone to flooding or other natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes or tsunamis? If it is susceptible to a certain type of natural disaster, will you able to find housing that can withstand a catastrophic event?

As a foreigner, I didn’t feel that I was any less safe living in Lahore than a local. Most attacks there are targeted against the military, the police and government officers, and I avoided calling attention to myself while traveling, going out on strike days and eating at fancy five-star hotels.

The biggest threat to me was the 120-degree heat, but I also took precautions such as following the local news, speaking Urdu when out shopping rather than English, and wearing local clothing.

I can think of four specific times when I felt unsafe (aside from driving in the car) during my three years in Pakistan: when I felt my classroom shake from a bomb blast, when I had rocks thrown at me while driving through North West Frontier Province, when my car was stolen from my work place and showed up the next morning in front of my garage, and when I had to drive to the India border the day after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. I was concerned people would be out rioting, but it turned out many took the national day of mourning to play cricket instead.

Community Connection

If you’re thinking about moving or traveling to a “dangerous” country, check out Matador’s guide on How to Travel to Dangerous Places. Have you ever lived in a place considered dangerous? Share your experiences in the comment section.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/what-makes-a-place-dangerous-for-expats/feed/ 13 http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-lahore-pakistan/ http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-lahore-pakistan/#comments Sun, 30 May 2010 02:41:37 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4504

Feature Photo: Kash_if Photo: yassirhussain

It’s a bit like traversing from calm to chaos and back again.

It’s 3:30 pm, and I am on my way past meticulously tended lawns, villa style fortress-like houses, and shiny SUVs sparkling under the fervent Punjabi sun. Servants leisurely pedal their bicycles or laze around puffing on hooka pipes. Turning left onto Ghazi Road, I notice there is enough room for two lanes so I can easily overtake slower vehicles. For a few seconds, I slacken my grip on the wheel.

Then I hit the speed bump and pass police toting AK-47s by the white barriers. Now my driving requires the full use of all my senses. I am leaving Defence, one of Lahore’s swankiest residential areas, and entering the “other” part of Ghazi Road. Although I’ve driven less than a mile, it’s as if I’ve driven into a different country.

The wide lanes of Defence narrow and tiny shops of all sorts line the streets. Crates of chickens stand waiting for customers as flies buzz around sample specimens proudly hung in shop windows. Boys on too-big bicycles awkwardly pedal alongside me while helmetless motorbikers are constantly whizzing by from every direction.

Photo: Omer Wazir

Motorbikes prove to be versatile contraptions. One carrying an air conditioner squeezes by, almost taking out a hobbling one-legged beggar in the process. I try to avoid a second motorbike transporting ten-foot lengths of metal piping. A third one almost topples over as it tries to pass me. It is carrying an entire family. The husband driving with a toddler at the handlebars, the pre-teenage daughter who’s still allowed to straddle the bike, the mother sitting sidesaddle draped in a burka, and a sleeping newborn on her lap.

Following rules is not what’s important here, making accommodations is. I swerve into the lane for oncoming traffic so as not to hit a large wooden fruit cart in my lane. The fruit vendor was pushing the eight-foot wide cart when he found a customer; he then stopped smack dab in the middle of traffic.

Although I’ve evaded the fruit cart, I’m now stuck behind a colorfully decorated bus. It swerves erratically to the left every few minutes to pick up more passengers, but just before I can pass it pulls back to the middle of road and hogs both lanes. “DO do DO do dO do dO do dO do dA!” The bus toots its funky musical horn and pulls over to pick up more passengers. There’s a crowd of at least ten people cramming in, so I take my opportunity and speed past.

As I near the intersection, I see no less than six donkey carts waiting in the queue to turn right onto Ferozepur Road. A gigantic mound of trash is being pulled along at what seems like less than one mile per hour by a tiny donkey. These carts are called tongas, and their drivers seem as if they’ve been transported via time travel from the fifteenth century. A weathered old man sits nonchalantly on one of the carts. Wrinkles betray the amount of hours he’s spent under the sun’s rays, and a tattered white turban tops his head. As he greets another tonga driver, he smiles a toothless grin.

I adjust my copious dupatta to cover me as I wait at the traffic light. In Defence, the dupatta is merely a fashion statement and can be nonchalantly thrown over the shoulder like a scarf, but in other area of the city it serves to shield me from lecherous eyes. Police man the intersection as loadshedding has shut down the electricity again. A man shoves his stub of an arm up against my window in an attempt to get some change. On the other side, a woman holding a sickly baby raps on the glass. Allah kay dua. Bacche ko dudh de de. I pray you, give the child milk.

Photo: Saffy H

The smartly dressed policeman beckons that it’s our turn to move, but turning a corner along with six donkey carts is no easy feat. Vehicles behind me erupt into a chorus of horn tooting as the tongas block all lanes of traffic.

I get around them, and now I’m on Ferozepur Road, the longest road in Lahore. It used to go straight to Firozpur, in what is now the Indian Punjab. Bright green and blue auto rickshaws dart in and out of the traffic. The back of one rickshaw reads Ma ki dua, mother’s prayer. Thanks to mother’s prayers the man has a rickshaw to make his living. A minivan driver sticks his right hand out the window to let me know he’s going to cut across four lanes of traffic.

Behind me, a Honda City desperately flashes its high beams on and off as if there’s some emergency. The emergency is that I’m in the fast lane and the Honda wants me to get out its way. I look to my left and see the road crowded with motorbikes and rickshaws. “Yes, Mr. Bigshot. Where exactly would you like me to go in order to let Your Majesty pass?”

I’m not in any hurry to risk my life so that the Honda can speed past, so I do what I normally do; I stay in my lane and continue at a normal speed. If that self-centered driver wants to pass, he can dodge the rickshaws and motorbikes himself.

I turn into the service lane that leads to Ali Institute of Education. As usual, the barber is offering his street side shaving service. I turn right into the grounds and I am greeted with smiles from the guards. Water fountains, chirping birds, and rose gardens show me that I’ve left the chaos of the commute and arrived in another island of calm.

The digital clock reads 3:42 pm. It has taken me twelve minutes to get here.

Community Connection

Do you have a story to share about your way to work? Let us know how you get there, who you pass by, what you see and what it makes you think about. Please send submissions to sarah@matadornetwork.com with “On My Way To Work” in the subject line.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-lahore-pakistan/feed/ 5 http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-gulu-uganda/ http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-gulu-uganda/#comments Thu, 27 May 2010 17:32:54 +0000 Andrew Morgan http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4479

Photo: TKnoxB Feature Photo: meaduva

Boda drivers, the young, tank-topped men who operate Gulu’s hundreds of motorcycle taxis, have eyes like hawks. As they drive, they scan the people walking by the roadside, searching for a pointed finger, a set of raised eyebrows, a nod—anything signaling interest in a ride. Most mornings, from the shoulder of the main road that runs by my house, I start my commute to work with a nod or a wave.

Usually, once they notice your signal, boda drivers will slam on their brakes, pull a dangerous U-turn into oncoming traffic, and race over to you; in a place where streets buzz with the sounds of competing taxis, no fare is guaranteed until a customer is planted on the back of your bike. After exchanging pleasantries, we slip into a stream of motorbikes and bicycles heading to town in the early morning chill.

Photo: meaduva

On my way to work, I pass shop owners downtown. Hunched over, they sweep the verandas in front of their stores with short, wicker brooms. Clouds of orange dust peel away from them and drift down into the wide gutters that line the street. Dust blows into town each night, blanketing the verandas, yet each morning it rises into the air again with the quick jabs of brooms.

On my way to work, I pass packs of students in bright purple uniforms walking to school. Boys and girls alike have shaved heads. Some wear shoes or sandals; others, the ones with plump, hardened feet, walk barefoot. If the younger kids catch a glimpse of me whizzing by, they’ll scream out Muno! or Muzungu!—words in Luo and Swahili respectively that mean ‘white’ and ‘foreigner.’

On my way to work, I pass the main market. Bleary-eyed vendors set up their stalls each morning, arranging a myriad of functional things on their plywood shelves—used shoes, boxes of toothpaste and soap, old radios, electric cords, nails, belts with hologram buckles, wash basins, plastic chairs. Each morning the vacant stalls fill with goods; each night they empty.

On my way to work, I pass cyclists of every variety. One particular man in knee-high rubber gumboots rides with a cavernous wooden box lashed to a rack above his back wheel. The box is filled to the brim with the severed legs of different types of animals—cow, goat, lamb, and pig. The meat is red and sinewy, bright against the white paint of the box. Blood drips from a corner of the box in fat crimson drops, staining the butcher’s route onto the street each morning. Another man stops at the market with a few dozen live chickens tied to his bike. A few dozen. In pairs and with their feet bound, the birds hang upside down from his handlebars in silence, unaware of the fate that awaits them. I pass fathers cycling their children to school, bicycle taxis taking people to work, and soda deliverymen clinking along over the bumpy dirt road with crates of glass soda bottles.

On my way to work, I pass the bicycle repair shops that keep the cyclists moving. Squatting in the middle of a puddle of scattered tools, repairmen with ever-greasy hands replace spokes and fix flats by the roadside.

On my way to work, I pass mothers. Some have babies tied to their backs, a small pair of child’s legs straddling their waists. Some, on their way to the water pump, carry yellow jerry cans in their hands. Others balance a round basket of clothes or a tray of bananas atop their heads: bulky crowns of domesticity.

On my way to work, I pass a noisy reed hut that houses a small generator. Inside, people pay an old man with stringy arms 500 shillings [$0.25 US] to charge their cell phones.

On my way to work, I pass smoking stacks of mud bricks—kilns made of the product they fire—some three or four meters tall. Next to the stacks, invariably, are pits in the ground: holes where the brick makers gathered their mud. Long logs, fuel for the fires that bake the bricks, are fed into ovens at the bases of the stacks. Smoke floats above the kilns like wispy gray hair caught in the wind.

On my way to work, I pass dense mango trees sagging under the weight of their swelling fruit.

When we reach Pece Stadium, the largest outdoor sports field in northern Uganda, I can catch a glimpse of my office at the end of the street. We ride past Save the Children’s office, past some of the old brick houses with metal roofs that were built half a century ago when Uganda was still a British protectorate, and past the woman on her porch who sells chapatti and always waves to me.

At the gate to our office compound, ten minutes after the ride started, I fish out a thousand shilling note [$0.50 US] from my wallet and offer the boda driver the customary end-of-ride farewell: Apwoyo. Thank you.

Community Connection

What happens on your way to work? What do you see? How do you travel? Immerse us in this brief part of your day. Please send submissions to sarah@matadornetwork.com with “On My Way To Work” in the subject line.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/on-my-way-to-work-gulu-uganda/feed/ 4 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-london/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-london/#comments Sun, 16 May 2010 16:59:41 +0000 Rebecca Kinsella http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4352

Photo: Zyllan

Matador U student Rebecca Kinsella shares about a typical day as a live-in carer in London.

It’s 7.30 again.

Dragging myself to the kitchen, I flick on the kettle and return to bed to snatch a few extra minutes of sleep. The fact that he’s plonked this bed in the study hardly makes it ‘my bedroom’. I sleep amongst his desk, buried in his papers that obscure his family photos.

The kettle clicks ready and I get up to make his tea: one and a half sugars, three squeezes of lemon juice and a quick dunk of the tea bag. I add some cold water from the tap; filling the mug within an inch from the top, I dip my little finger in to test the temperature.

He stirs. “Dear, I’m awake.”

“Hello, just making your tea,” I call out, in our usual morning exchange.

I go to my room and swap my pajama pants for jeans. I throw a cardigan over my singlet, buttoning it up on the way to his room.

“Good Morning! How did you sleep?” I ask my 93-year-old client.

He smiles and nods, pretending to hear. “Good Morning, dear. How did you sleep?”

He sips his tea and then we begin his physio for the morning. We do ten leg raises on his left and ten leg raises on his right leg. I assist him to catheterize and have a shower. Taking the towel I’ve placed on the radiator, I wrap it around his shoulders. “Ooh, lovely dear, lovely,” he coos. It’s an endearing morning-murmur that makes me smile.

Photo: solarnu

He dresses while I prepare breakfast. He’ll have Special K; I know this because he has had Special K for the past 67 days in a row. I fill the bowl a quarter full, slicing half a banana over the top. I prepare a shot glass of orange juice and a shot glass of water. Two prunes are placed on the side plate. Sometimes I try to give him three or four, but “two is plenty dear.”
I check on him while he dresses.

“Dear where are my pants?”

“Right here,” I point to where they lay next to him on the bed.

“No, my pants,” he repeats

“They’re here,” I move them over to him and run his hand over the ridged corduroy. His eyesight is poor this morning.

“No dear, they’re my trousers! I need my pants,” he yells, exasperated.

“Oh, right,” I say grabbing some underpants from the drawer.

Each day, I drop more of my Aussie lingo, exchanging it for the British-English or the “proper English” my clients use. Pants are trousers, singlets are vests, jumpers are pullovers and apparently only ladies wear sweaters. Food should only be eaten in its appropriate season; Zucchinis are courgettes, eggplant is aubergine and pumpkin is squash. France and dance should rhyme with aunts, and not with ants like they do in Oz.

It’s exhausting. Sometimes I forget, and then it’s awkward like today, or the time I asked my client if I could wear my thongs around the house, forgetting that they’re called flip-flops in the UK, and my request meant something entirely different.

The road is busy, and closures on Oxford Street lead double-decker buses, black cabs and commuters to make their diversions down our narrow one-way streets.

He sips his tea and we look out the fifth-floor balcony window. The looming British Telecom Tower reads “915 days” in its rotating Olympic countdown. After breakfast he turns on the wireless and “BBC news at 9 o’clock.” The volume suggests we’re broadcasting to the city of London.

He’s not very chatty today. He reads and listens to the radio through the morning. I change the bed sheets and clean the bathroom.

Before lunch I do the grocery shopping. The cold air of the street reveals the bleach and a fainter smell of anti-bacterial gel hidden in my skin. The road is busy, and closures on Oxford Street lead double-decker buses, black cabs and commuters to make their diversions down our narrow one-way streets.

I pass the homeless man sitting under the cash machine, and walk into Tesco supermarket. At the self-service checkout, Tesco awards me green club-card points for bringing my own bag, and yet my four apples come cling-wrapped to a styrofoam tray. Next I go to Marks and Spencer’s for the “good biscuits” and meat.

Photo: mattwi1s0n

Every day I’m stopped by various charity collectors on Tottenham Court Road. London is renowned for lack of eye-contact, but I find it uncomfortable toady as I pass by in midst of recent headlines reporting that 41% of London’s children are living in poverty. More so when the charity collector eyes off my grocery bags, yelling after me, “We’re only asking for £5 per month!”

I enter the post office tucked away at the back of a paper store. The queue is 20 deep and I join the lifeless line shuffling a couple of steps every ten minutes. I post his letters and collect his stamps – a book of 12 first-class stamps and a book of 12 second-class stamps.

Today his daughter is visiting from Oxford so we head out for lunch and Britain’s national dish – curry. They talk about travel, family and politics over Thai green chicken. I cut his meat and move his water closer. Today this familiar conversation and meal feel so foreign, and I know I’m missing home.

I have my break between 2pm and 4pm. Usually I would go to the gym, call friends, or catch up on emails. Today I just catch up on sleep.

For supper we have soup and share half a slice of toast; I warm some rhubarb crumble for pudding. We watch a show about a Swedish detective and he blasts the radio on to hear the “BBC news at 10 o’clock.” Later, I assist him to catheterize and get into bed, ending our routine with his physio for the evening. We do ten leg raises on his left and ten leg raises on his right. I turn off the lights and finally my day ends. I go to the study and climb into bed.

And I reset my alarm for 7:30am again.

Want to learn the craft of travel writing?

Sign up for Matador’s new Travel Writing School and get the skills you need. ]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-london/feed/ 16 http://matadorabroad.com/graduate-school-versus-living-abroa/ http://matadorabroad.com/graduate-school-versus-living-abroa/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 13:18:59 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4328

Photo: Evil Erin

A Ph.D. takes a big investment of time, money and effort, yet many students apply without considering what will happen after graduation.

Over a dozen application due dates were posted on my wall. Multiple notebooks full of information on graduate assistantships, tuition, grants, course offerings and professors’ research interests accompanied them. I was ready for Ph.D. application season. Since my senior year of college, I had planned on pursuing a graduate degree in anthropology or linguistics. Then, after six months of relentless fact gathering, I tore down the due dates, ripped up the notebooks and threw the shreds in the recycling bin. Instead, I decided to pursue a career that would allow me to live and travel abroad now rather than in the distant future.

I’m an organized person, and I tend to err on the side of learning too much about things before making decisions rather than learning too little. My personality on the Myers Briggs is dominated by the J (judging/planning) trait, and I’ve resorted to imposing “research” bans on myself when I feel like this trait is getting out of hand.

Photo: magnusdignity

When it came to pursuing a Ph.D., I decided to not only learn about the individual programs and funding options, but also what opportunities exist for anthropology and humanities Ph.D. grads and if investing five to seven years of my life into a program would be practically worth it in the long run. What I found out led me to a few days grieving over the loss of my academic fantasy, a six-month period of denial and finally the episode with the recycling bin.

The major problem with Ph.D. programs in these fields is that they focus on training students for one career: academia. In recent decades more and more people have been pursuing higher formal education, and this has led to Ph.D. overproduction. Couple this with University of Pennsylvania English professor Peter Conn’s warning that “full-time tenured and tenure-track jobs in the humanities are endangered by half a dozen trends, most of them long-term,” and pursuing an academic career seems a risky choice.

In a 2009 case reported by the New York Times, recent Ph.D. graduate Chris Pieper was competing in pools of over 300 applicants for tenure-track positions. When I looked into the job placement of anthropology graduates, some programs showed the majority of their Ph.D. grads getting jobs as high school teachers – jobs they could have gotten several years earlier with their undergraduate degrees. Those who do enter academia are more likely to work as adjuncts, with no benefits or job security, than secure a tenure-track position.

Associate Professor William Pannapacker, under his pen name Thomas H. Benton, elaborates on these problems in The Chronicle:

Most undergraduates don’t realize that there is a shrinking percentage of positions in the humanities that offer job security, benefits, and a livable salary (though it is generally much lower than salaries in other fields requiring as many years of training)…They seem to think becoming a humanities professor is a reliable prospect — a more responsible and secure choice than, say, attempting to make it as a freelance writer, or an actor, or a professional athlete — and, as a result, they don’t make any fallback plans until it is too late.

I didn’t want to spend almost a decade pursuing a Ph.D. only to go back to what I could have been doing during those ten years.

Photo: gadl

For me, part of the draw of studying cultural anthropology and linguistics is travel, language learning and original research. I can do all of those things by living and traveling abroad, and I can earn money while doing them rather than racking up tens of thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt.

If I pursue a Ph.D., I would be holding off on starting a family, living on a student budget for at least seven years, unable to travel without winning grants to pay for it, and so wholly focused on academics that I’d have little time for creative writing, friends or anything else. Doing a doctoral degree takes sacrifice, and I realized that for me the returns would not be worth it. Yes, I would enjoy the intellectual challenge and the scholarly community, but there are other ways to feed the academic bug.

English professor Peter Conn admits the consensus that:

As a profession, we are enrolling too many Ph.D. students, we have been doing so for decades, we spend far too long in guiding them to their degrees, and we then consign them to a dysfunctional job market.

Yeah, thanks Peter Conn, William Pannapacker and all the other professors who have spoken out about the bleak reality of the humanities Ph.D. job market. I’ll pass on that, and I’ll help spread the word.

Do you think doing a primarily academic Ph.D. is worth it, or do you think the time would be better spent living and traveling abroad?

Community Connection

Want to travel and study at the same time? Check out Abroad’s guide on How to Balance Long-Term Travel and Distance Education.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/graduate-school-versus-living-abroa/feed/ 18 http://matadorabroad.com/the-dollar-value-of-a-human-life/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-dollar-value-of-a-human-life/#comments Mon, 10 May 2010 14:39:46 +0000 Ian Bassingthwaighte http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4274

Feature Photo and Above Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran

A Glimpse Correspondent working with refugees in Egypt questions the value of having a quota for the number of refugees allowed to immigrate to the United States.

A woman covers her eyes with her hands and cries into them. She is catching her tears, ashamed that they are falling. She says, “They raped me.”

I ask her, “How many times?” I ask her, “Did they hit you?” I ask her, “Did they say they were going to kill you afterward?”

I maintain my distance. I choose my words carefully and I say them in a placid tone, as if I were asking her about the weather. This is my job: to be impartial, to be fair. I pick out the necessary details and find the objective angle.

I bullet-point a list of small crimes and large ones. Of violence committed against a body and of violence committed against a soul. I write a testimony that displays these details in text, as if the scars on her body weren’t visible enough by themselves.

She is Sudanese. She spent her youth in Darfur. She lived in a village and her father owned goats, which she loved like they were family. She called them pets. Then in the early hours of an anonymous morning a year ago, Janjaweed militiamen of northern Sudan stormed into her village on horseback and burned it down while people slept inside their huts, which had suddenly turned to kindle. The militiamen stole half of all the livestock and shot the rest. They took the women they wanted, and kissed them. Then touched them. Then shamed them. Again, and again, and again.

Photo: hdptcar

I asked her, “How many died?” She responded by trying to count. When she passed one hundred I said I didn’t want to know anymore.

But some, she said, were lucky enough to escape. Some, like her, even made it out of Sudan and all the way to Egypt.

She’d run through the bush on foot, made it to a town where she scraped enough money together to buy a passport, and ferried her way up the Nile to Luxor. A bus ride later, she was in Cairo.

Then, after six months as an unwanted refugee in a country that denied her citizenship, denied her the right to work, and barraged her with racism and sexual harassment, she meandered quietly into my area of the office, sat down, and asked if she could leave the continent that birthed her for an ambiguous place she’d seen only in the movies. She asked if I could get her to America. Amreeka, she called it.

Her story caused my stomach to turn upside down and suddenly I felt like I was falling. I wanted to vomit and scream murder at all those men with pistols and machetes like it would bring this woman’s goats back. Like it would bring back her family.

What killed my spirit wasn’t the fact that humans could commit these crimes and justify them by calling it ‘war’. It was the fact that she wasn’t unusual. She was one tragedy in a million. I had a boy like her the next day. And then an entire family after that. They came from Iraq and Eritrea and Ethiopia and Sudan. They were not extraordinary or unique and I met one every single day.

As a legal intern working for an aid office for refugees in Cairo, my job is to process people and paper. I conduct an interview with a displaced person or family from this or that conflict zone, and write their stories as testimonies. Then I determine if they qualify as refugees and, afterward, whether or not they have cases for resettlement abroad.

This last part is based primarily on the degree to which they’ve been emotionally and physically traumatized by the conflict in their country of origin, and how their long-term physical and mental health is affected by their experiences. People who have turned suicidal or have obsessed themselves into heart disease get plus points for urgency.

When the interviews and writing are complete, I submit everything to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Then I wait, often for months, to hear back about whether my client has been referred for resettlement to an embassy or some other appropriate authority.

Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t, although more often than not it is the latter. Denied requests are always conveniently vague, so we never know exactly why one person was rejected and another was not. This makes it difficult to improve our approach to screening clients and writing cases, and ensures that the application process is muddier than it needs to be. Something that should be essential in this industry of crisis—a clarity of process that could help the system function efficiently and accept all the people it possibly could—is absent.

Then there is the notion of a quota. I quickly learned what that meant: a legal cap on the importation of tragedy set by countries that permit third-country resettlement (U.S., Canada, Australia, and a few others). Third country resettlement refers to the resettlement of refugees who’ve fled their country of origin to a second country, only to be met with a ‘lack of local integration prospects’ and so must be moved to a third. Meaning every single refugee in Egypt. So not only do we have to function inside of a system that moves so slow it may as well be frozen (in no small part because of its own self-imposed ambiguity) we also have more people screaming to leave Egypt than we have space for.

Photo: Albert Gonzalez Farran

We tell most of our clients a brutal fact: they will most likely have to stay in Cairo, often under precarious circumstances. Perhaps their health is failing. This is not uncommon and is often the direct result of the tortures they’ve endured as survivors of conflict. Inevitably, proper care for their ailments is either too expensive or unavailable in Egypt. This is compounded by the reality that most refugees have little or no money.

Refugees in Egypt are not given citizenship. Without it they are legally barred from gainful employment. But neither can they leave the country to find work elsewhere because many don’t have passports. Even the ones that do are barred from travel because no country wants the responsibility of dealing with another refugee.

People think it’s hard to get a visa to travel to America. Try getting a visa for a Sudanese or Iraqi to anywhere with employment prospects. And they certainly can’t go home, since many face arrest, persecution, persistent death threats, and other circumstances that can hardly be imagined. After all, they left their countries to escape danger. The last thing they need is to go back.

So they are stuck, like bugs in honey, without a way to maintain the meager lives they’re living.

I’ve struggled most with this notion of a quota because it means that the elected officials of the richest and most powerful countries on Earth choose to set allowances on immigration before they address the need itself. That is, they make a choice to qualify tragedy by numbering it. We will accept this many people, from this country, for this calendar year. And no more.

The rest get left in Cairo, Amman, Khartoum, and countless other places where they remain unwelcome.

I’ve tried to bring their stories home via e-mails and phone calls. I’m often met with hesitation, silence, or rebuttal. After all, America didn’t start the conflict in Sudan. Or Eritrea. Or Ethiopia. And while America’s responsibility in Iraq is certainly more pronounced, it’s not just our problem. There was war and conflict there before we arrived. America didn’t rape or pillage or light anything on fire just to watch it burn.

In addition, the more refugees we bring to our country, the more liability and risk we bring with them. We have to pay for their services, which they most often cannot afford themselves. Even if a person is lucky enough to be resettled and somehow manages to scrape up a living in their new country on their own, it’s because they occupy a job that could have gone to a native resident.

Given the state of our economy and the political environment that surrounds it, these claims seem warranted. When refugees arrive in any country they are a financial and legal burden. They use resources and need jobs, education, and emotional and physical treatment. They haven’t paid taxes to our treasury, they were not born on our soil, and they rarely bring a relevant trade with them.

So when we, as a voting public, think about immigration reform and the lawmakers that lobby for and against it, we need to answer one question: When do we decide the quality of a human life is worth more than the dollar value we assign it?

Of course these people are strangers and they live so far away it’s easy to never see them. But when I speak to someone at home who is so opposed to my politics, I try to remind them of one thing. Refugees, like everyone else, are human and they deserve a reasonable opportunity to earn a life for themselves. They have friends, and families, and lovers. They have names. The quiet girl from my office is named Ashai, and she is from Darfur.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-dollar-value-of-a-human-life/feed/ 14 http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-balance-long-term-travel-and-distance-education/ http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-balance-long-term-travel-and-distance-education/#comments Sun, 09 May 2010 22:59:00 +0000 Camden Luxford http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4253

Photo: author

Camden Luxford offers tips on how to combine a penchant for travel with academics.

Traveling can be one of the most intense learning experiences on the planet. Far more exhausting than the physical strain of ceaseless slogging through unfamiliar terrain is the overwhelming stream of mental stimuli, unfamiliar language and alien cultures.

Some travelers, myself included, opt to balance the heightened experience of a nomadic lifestyle with formal further education. Many universities now offer the option to move your studies off-campus, and there are even institutions dedicated to distance education. Open Universities Australia is a good example, but there are some less reputable operations as well so research is essential.

Why do I do it to myself? It’s a combination of factors. While I certainly don’t see travel in itself as wasting time, I do like the idea of being able to indulge my hankering for long-term trips while working toward my future academic goals. This lifestyle gives me a deeper understanding technology in today’s world, forces me to manage my time, to self-motivate, and to push on without the comfort of the usual campus safety net. It’s yet another way for me to satisfy a constant yearning to be learning, growing, and challenging myself.

Whether you choose to take one semester by distance or an entire degree, this both frees you to embrace your inner travel addict and ties you down to a stressful balancing act. If you decide to take up the challenge yourself, here are a few tips and tricks to manage it.

Author studying: Gabriel Hernandez Nanetti

1. Plan, Plan, Plan

This is the most difficult part for me. I loathe over-planning my trips, but if you’re balancing the commitments of a university semester with travel, planning is inescapable.

You need to know when you’ll be passing through areas with minimal or non-existent internet in order to download any relevant material ahead of time. It’s essential to know when exams or assignments may be scheduled and to avoid any break-neck travel immediately beforehand.

A dash around Guatemala and south to Panama with limited laptop-charging opportunities left me spending my first two days in Panama City sitting on the hostel patio drinking gallons of coffee and chain-smoking cigarettes while frantically typing up an essay on Marx.

I passed, but it’s not an experience I wish to repeat.

Most importantly, you’ll need to know when your exams are. I never cease to be amazed that I can sit my exams anywhere in the world, but it does require a certain amount of jumping through hoops. Exam centres need to be approved, suitable supervisors found and boy oh boy do you need to actually be where you said you’d be on that date. Always allow for unforeseen travel disasters.

Most institutions will assist you with finding an appropriate supervisor or exam centre. It may take a little work and generally requires passing through a big city, but exams are not an insurmountable obstacle.

2. Tie Courses in With Your Travel Plans

Travelling exposes you to a planet of unfamiliar sensory information: new sights, smells, foods, very often a new language, new people with new ways of interacting with their world. Add to this the demanding flow of information typical of university degrees and you can find yourself cut in two, drowned in a sea of new experiences, facts and ways of looking at the world.

If you can select your units so they complement the countries you’re travelling through, this cuts down on the sensory overload and opens up a whole new perspective on your trip. Studying American foreign policy on a trip through Central and South America, where past US actions have been, well, ‘questionable’ may be the kindest way to put it, has been an enriching experience.

A unit on Democracy and Citizenship opened my eyes to the theoretical basis behind practical experiments in self-governance – and failures of democracy – in a region struggling to define itself after a history of military dictatorships and coups.

3. Prepare and Secure your Technology

Photo: m00by

Studying while on the road essentially settles the laptop vs old school debate. Lectures, assignments, and discussion forums are all online. You’ll need to spend hours trawling through JSTOR or other online databases to compensate for the likely lack of English language libraries with their ready selection of hard-copy sources.

Unless you’re prepared to spend hours and hours in internet cafes, you’ll have to drag along your machine. Get yourself a good padlock, and don’t forget regular and possibly duplicate backups. Think seriously about what machine you’re bringing along, and how you’re going to secure it.

Other handy technological devices you may want to bring include an iPod for listening to lectures on long bus trips, a USB stick and/or portable hard drive, and an extra battery pack. Consider getting a Kindle. I have yet to take the plunge, and there’s not a huge wealth of textbook material available as yet, but a considerable amount of other useful sources are yours via instant download.

You may also want scan your textbooks before you leave. This decision is a matter of weighing up the time investment of scanning against just how much those books weigh, and how often and for how long that pack is going to be on your back.

4. Be Kind to Yourself

Travelling and university study, each taken on their own, can be stressful and exhausting experiences. Put them together and you’re asking a lot of yourself. Travel slowly, don’t be afraid to spend twice as long as you usually would in each place. Consider a private room instead of a dorm for the most intense portions of the semester, and search out a nice, peaceful hammock from time to time.

5. Study Something You’re Passionate About

Travel is a hugely absorbing and fascinating process. You can and will lose yourself in the tiny alleyways, ancient forests, sights, smells and colors of local markets, and the intense and exciting friendships with the people you meet.

Study things you enjoy. If the intellectual journey you’re on during your travels isn’t an equally compelling adventure, the actual journey of boats, buses, trains and border crossings will win every time.

I wish, for the sake of my academic career, that sounded like a worse thing.

Community Connection

On top of traveling and working on her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, Camden is also a student at Matador U.

Want to learn the craft of travel writing?

Sign up for Matador’s new Travel Writing School and get the skills you need.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-balance-long-term-travel-and-distance-education/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-lengshuijiang-china/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-lengshuijiang-china/#comments Wed, 05 May 2010 18:45:26 +0000 Jolie Lee http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4203

Feature Photo: Ray Devlin Photo: Mike Heth

A day in the life of an English teacher in rural China.

After eight months in a small city in central Hunan Province, my daily routine falls in step with my students’ tightly regimented schedule.

Morning

A blast of trumpets pulls me out of sleep. The military music blares from the loudspeakers throughout the school campus where I work and live. The sound tells me it’s 6:45 a.m. and my students are doing morning exercises out on the dirt track.

By 7:30 a.m. the music switches over to something more to the students’ taste – Chinese, Korean and American pop. I am among the procession of clinking metal spoons and bowls headed for the dining hall.

Breakfast is noodle soup with a fried egg. In the United States I was careful not to make a lot of noise when eating. But this is China. People unabashedly slurp, suck, burp and make other bodily sounds. I slurp away too.

Class starts at 8:15 a.m. I teach between two to five classes a day, splitting my time between seventh and tenth grade. My smallest class has 55 students, the largest almost 90.

Photo: Kent Wang

As the oral English teacher, I don’t have a textbook to follow. I teach what I enjoy and what I think my students will like. On this day I have a lesson about music. “You are a deejay for the day,” I say. I play songs from my laptop. My students know Britney and Avril and Lady Gaga, but who are the Beatles?

Noon

By lunch, I am famished and return to the dining hall. I surprise myself with what I like to eat. Pig tail is really good, river snail quite tasty and cow stomach not bad. Whatever the dish, my tongue is always on fire after a few bites. This is Hunan Province, after all. Chili peppers are as common as salt.

While eating, I listen to the other teachers’ conversations. Even though I speak standard Mandarin, or Putonghua, I can understand very little of the local dialect. It might as well be German or Swahili. Even the Putonghua is accented by the local inflections. Sometimes a teacher will say something to me and I won’t understand. Everyone will have a big laugh. I just smile my goofy, clueless foreigner smile.

Afternoon

Lengshuijiang literally means, “Cold Water River.” The name conjures an idyllic country scene. But the city is actually smoggy, industrial. Downtown, with its three supermarkets and various clothing shops, is only a ten-minute, one-yuan bus ride away. Still, I can’t stand the traffic and pollution, so I rarely leave the quiet, tree-lined campus.

If I do venture out, it is to one of the small shops lining the road outside of the school. I usually have to sidestep the chickens pecking at heaps of garbage. After lunch, I treat myself to a cup of milk tea with tapioca balls for 1.5 yuan. I don’t go to the first milk tea shop I pass but to the second, called Big Taipei. It’s much better, all the students tell me, and I have to agree.

I spend the afternoon checking e-mails and reading the news. I still keep up with the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times. The stories don’t affect me now, but I do it as a way to connect with home.

There are four periods between lunch and dinner. By the time I hear the third set of bells, it’s late afternoon and I am restless. I need to run. I change into sweatpants and head out.

Photo: Qilin

On the way to the track, I pass grandpas and grandmas walking with bundled babies against their chests. While mom and dad teach, the grandparents are the main caretakers. I take these opportunities to lightly pinch a rosy cheek. “Say aiyi,” – or auntie — the grandparent coaxes.

When I reach the track, some students are having P.E. class on the adjacent basketball courts. The more outgoing students abandon their games of volleyball and badminton and jog alongside me to practice their English. The less fit ones wait until I’m doing a walking lap to join in.

I started running years ago because it was a solitary sport; I could get lost in my thoughts. Running has the opposite effect in China; here, I’ve met the most people while breaking a sweat. After being alone most of the afternoon, I always look forward to these group runs.

Evening

As I sit in my apartment office reading or preparing the next day’s lesson, my students sit at their desks studying. They have another three hours of evening self-study, broken only by a 15-minute eye exercise.

At 8:15 p.m., a high-pitched female voice takes over the loudspeakers and counts off in Chinese, “yi…er…san…si…” as the students massage their eyelids and temples. Sometimes, I make the circular motions around my eyes too.

Night

The bell rings at 9:30 p.m., signaling the students are finally free to leave the classroom. But freedom is relative. They have nowhere to go but to their dormitory, twelve students to a room. I picture them lining up at the two sinks in their room to wash their faces and then collapsing onto the narrow bunks. A final bell rings at 10 p.m. Lights out.

Not long after the final bell, I set aside the book I am reading and it is lights out for me too. Outside I hear a dog barking and the train passing. Soon these sounds fade too, and I won’t hear anything until the trumpets announce morning.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-lengshuijiang-china/feed/ 5 http://matadorabroad.com/5-things-i-learned-about-living-in-xinjiang-china/ http://matadorabroad.com/5-things-i-learned-about-living-in-xinjiang-china/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 14:07:48 +0000 Josh Summers http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4183

Feature Photo: sandandtsunamis Photo: reurinkjan

Expat Josh Summers spent four years living in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in the far west of China.

My wife and I were packing for another vacation getaway on the motorcycle when a single phone call ruined our travel plans.

“Turn on your TV,” my friend told me. “There’s some scary stuff going on in the capital right now.”

We did as he said and both stared in shock, unwilling to accept that massive ethnic riots in Ürümqi were killing hundreds of people in China’s western province of Xinjiang, our current home. We knew that any more preparations would be useless. Travel, at least for this next week, would not be wise.

The events of that evening changed more than just our current travel plans though. The riots changed the way we lived and traveled in Xinjiang, period. The internet had been completely shut off , international phone lines were down, and new security measures were put in place to secure the region.

For eight months following the riots, my wife and I dealt with these frustrating circumstances and still managed to explore new parts of the beautiful province. Here are some of the things I learned during this time in Xinjiang.

1. Opening a Sina Account is the Only Way to Use Email

Photo: Josh Summers

It wasn’t until six months after the initial riots that email became a practical means of communication again. The government announced that Sina.com.cn, a Chinese-language news portal, would be the only email provider to send and receive messages within the province.

My excitement over this new development was short-lived, however, when I realized that my entire address book was stored online. Sites like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail were still completely blocked and I never realized how much information that I kept I stored online until I no longer had access to it. On my next trip outside Xinjiang, I printed out a list of all my email contacts so I could add them to my Sina account.

Because nobody knows when full email access will be restored, it’s best to have what you know will work. If you plan on visiting Xinjiang, open a Sina account before leaving and set it up so that all your emails can be forwarded there during your tip.

2.Living Without Internet Is Doable

When I first found out that the internet had been completely blocked, I wasn’t immediately alarmed. China is well-known for its “Great Firewall” that censors unwanted material, but the proxies and programs available to avoid this block are numerous.

Unfortunately, something about Xinjiang’s internet situation is different. Almost every option to circumvent the block, both free services and paid private networks, fails to work. The work-arounds that are available are usually very difficult to find and extremely expensive. A satellite link I saw in Ürümqi ran about $300 per month with a $500 set up fee!

For eight long months I learned to live isolated and globally uninformed. Eventually I was able to check news on major Chinese sites or book flights on Ctrip.com, but updating my website or communicating with family was almost impossible.

3. Guidebooks Can be Invaluable

Having no internet meant it was impossible to access online travel guides and forums while in Xinjiang. While planning a visit to Turpan, a popular Silk Road outpost, all research for what I wanted to see and where I would stay had to be done well in advance.

This was one of the few instances where I found those hefty travel guides to be worth their weight. I found that both the Lonely Planet and The Rough Guide have detailed Xinjiang information in their China editions that many other books don’t cover. Although they may have taken up valuable room in my bag, these thick books proved useful on more than one occasion when I found myself in a tiny desert oasis with few other travelers and no internet recommendations to guide me.

Turpan, Photo: Josh Summers

4. Taking Photos Can Get You in Trouble

The most visible change I noticed after the July riots was the increased police presence in popular tourist towns such as Ürümqi, Turpan and Kashgar. Groups of police were stationed at almost every street corner for a few weeks after the incident, and even now they can be seen in small patrol groups.

A good friend of mine had her camera confiscated and the memory card erased after accidentally taking a photo of a patrol near Kashgar’s Old City. She was given back her camera but had unfortunately lost all the pictures she had taken up until that point.

Lesson learned: Little boys playing in the street like their picture taken; camels in the desert like their picture taken; police and military do NOT like their picture taken.

5. The News Shouldn’t Stop You from Traveling

The most important lesson I learned over the past four years of traveling in Xinjiang is that news has a way of creating unnecessary fear. Both the Uyghur and Han people, the two sides of last year’s ethnic riots, are beautiful people groups that are a joy to get to know, even if they don’t always get along with each other.

Safety is a valid concern, but I would have missed out on so many beautiful cities in Xinjiang had I allowed fear to dictate my journey.

After only a short time, I completely forgot that I couldn’t access the internet or send an email. I got used to the added security and the highway checkpoints. It all became part of the experience of living and traveling in Xinjiang, and I believe the value of what I learned surpasses the inconveniences I faced along the journey.

Community Connection

Want to live and work in China? Check out Matador’s China Focus Page or read up on How Much it Costs to Live in China.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/5-things-i-learned-about-living-in-xinjiang-china/feed/ 12 http://matadorabroad.com/classroom-experiences-dealing-with-plagiarism/ http://matadorabroad.com/classroom-experiences-dealing-with-plagiarism/#comments Sun, 02 May 2010 12:53:36 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4156

Photo: purplepick

An English teacher struggles with pervasive plagiarism in the writing classroom.

I had made it clear that glitter and ribbons should not accompany college level assignments , and that any offending projects would promptly make their way to the bin rather than into my briefcase. A significant amount of class time had also been spent explaining what plagiarism is, how to avoid it and what the consequences would be for anyone who attempted it, so when one student handed me a glitter-contaminated poetry portfolio, I was immediately suspect.

During my three years in Pakistan, I worked with local universities and teacher training institutes. In this particular situation, I was conducting a course on Teaching Creative Writing for undergraduate education majors.

He seemed confused when I asked him if he had conducted a séance to get the poem, considering this alleged ‘cousin’ died in 1882.

None of the students had ever been taught creative writing, and many lacked basic writing skills, so I focused on modeling creative writing units rather than asking them to strategize about how to teach something they had no experience doing themselves.

My students had a good amount of time to write in class, as in previous semesters I’d learned that plagiarism is common for both academic and creative work, and I liked to actually see them produce something.

Once a local student in my eighth grade class handed in a poem by Longfellow with his own name on it. When I asked him about it, he straight up admitted he didn’t write it. He then added, “Actually my cousin wrote it.” He seemed confused when I asked him if he had conducted a séance to get the poem, considering this alleged ‘cousin’ died in 1882.

Photo: Carmela Nava

The college students were passing in a collection of work they had written and revised over the previous month. Glitter girl frequently missed class and didn’t manage to write more than a few words during in-class writing sessions. I had told them that any over-decorated projects would be left ungraded, but I was curious to see what she’d come up with.

The first page was a famous limerick that she had obviously cut and pasted, and the second page, decorated with numerous hearts and flowers, was this:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 14:4-7)

Yeah…she did it. She somehow managed to plagiarize the Bible as well.

My past confrontations with Pakistani plagiarizers had generally gone well. Longfellow’s ‘cousin’ gave up on copy-pasting and became one of the best writers in his school. Another girl who started off her year giving me copied work ended up writing extra narrative essays in her free time, and we published one of her restaurant reviews on the class blog.

The key with these successful students is that they were able to admit they cheated and move on. In a culture that often places saving face at a higher value than fessing up, this was a significant move for them. Glitter girl wasn’t able to cross that threshold.

She knew that I knew she was lying, but she wouldn’t confess.

I tried to lay it out for her: "Look, you didn't write these poems. This one is a famous limerick. It was written well before you were born. Did you write it in a past life? And this one, this one is from the Bible! It's almost two thousand years old. Don't even try to tell me you wrote this."

"Miss, miss, but I did write those poems! Can I resubmit? I will email it to you."

During more than 20 minutes of begging, not once did she admit that she copied. She knew that I knew she was lying, but she wouldn’t confess. At the same time she was defending herself and saying she didn’t plagiarize, she was asking for a chance to re-do the portfolio. My logic could not wrap around this discrepancy.

Photo: dcjohn

I wondered if local teachers simply let their students know that they were on to them and offered a chance to re-do assignments, rather than calling them out and giving them zeros. At what point do I stick to my own ethics, and at what point do I give students more leeway?

A Pakistani friend of mine spent her secondary school years in Lahore before moving to the US for college. During her freshman year, she got caught plagiarizing. The professor was furious, but my friend actually didn’t understand what she had done wrong. She had cut and pasted different passages from different websites, compiled them into one document and included the links. That was how she had always ‘written’ papers, and her teachers had accepted them.

I didn’t allow Glitter girl to resubmit the assignment. Sitting there in the class, listening to her grovel, and having the same conversation over and over for 20 minutes was one of the most uncomfortable moments in my teaching career.

I handed in her sparkly portfolio to the department head as evidence and dropped off my grade sheet with the registrar. Due to her low average, I was sure that she would fail the course.

A few weeks later, I found out that everyone in the class, including her, had officially passed.

I had pressed for the truth and stuck to the rules, but it was me who ultimately ended up losing face.

Have you ever been faced with a situation like this in the classroom? How did you deal with it?

Community Connection

Think you can deal with plagiarism in the cross-cultural classroom? Learn How to Become an International Teacher or check out Matador’s Teaching ESL Focus Page.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/classroom-experiences-dealing-with-plagiarism/feed/ 10 http://matadorabroad.com/body-image-and-culture-my-watermelon-butt/ http://matadorabroad.com/body-image-and-culture-my-watermelon-butt/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:19:06 +0000 Meagan Kelly http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4110

Feature Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography Photo: shoobydooby

If I were a fruit, I’d be a watermelon. Why? Blame my butt, according to a Turkish woman.

“Meagan, your popo like watermelons! Mine like apple,” said Nida, a professional dancer in Fire of Anatolia. We were standing backstage in our underwear, preparing to change costumes.

I had been dancing in Turkey with Fire of Anatolia for two months. I actually thought my butt was in great shape from hours of squeezing it in ballet class. At the very least, I saw myself as more of a pear than a watermelon.

It was time to put Nida in her place. I made her follow me to a mirror in our skin-colored booty shorts.

“See!” I proclaimed. “ Not watermelons! Maybe not apples…but not watermelons!” I wouldn’t normally do this in a bathroom, but my rear end’s reputation was on the line.

Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography

Then Nida peeled away my confidence. She pointed and laughed at my butt, which appeared to be twice the size of hers. I had never so closely compared cheeks with anyone, and now I knew why. It made me feel inadequate, inferior, and fat.

Back home, friends call me “the skinny one.” I take good care of my body, and I’m healthy, strong, and confident. However, standing at the mirror with Nida, I couldn’t deny it anymore: dancing in Turkey was damaging my body image.

I was warned about the importance of sticking to a “dancer’s diet” if I wanted to fit into the company’s costumes. I was supposed to watch what I ate, but more often I found myself watching what the other dancers ate. They were filling their plates at the buffet with mounds of pasta and baklava. Yet, these women strutted around with slender stomachs and nearly non-existent inner thighs. I figured they burned through all the calories in class. I relished in the idea that I too could indulge in a few desserts and still have a six-pack.

At first, the calories didn’t catch up with me, and my stomach toned up from Pilates. After a few weeks of dining at the buffet, however, I stepped onto the scale and the numbers taunted me. I had gained weight, and I knew I couldn’t chalk it all up to extra muscle. Some of the dancers had already pointed in horror at my miniature potbelly. I would have probably never noticed it, but dancers can detect every ounce.

I was aware of certain physical standards I had to adhere to as a dancer, but I didn’t realize just how important those standards are at the professional level. I don’t dance for the muscles; I dance because it gives me joy. I wanted to be moving to music, not counting every calorie.

When Nida gave me the nickname “watermelon popo,” I reached the peak of my insecurities. I felt like a forbidden fruit, and I realized my body image could mirror how a culture perceives my shape, for better or for worse.

Photo: Scott W Charters

Similarly, within minutes of arriving in Hong Kong, I felt like I was starring in a film titled Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. I’m just below six feet tall, but I felt like a Hong Kong skyscraper. I towered over the crowds of petite women in this megacity. I walked onto the subway for the first time to see that most of the passengers barely reached my armpits, making me feel freakishly tall. I had to duck in doorways, crouch through alleys, and sleep with both feet dangling over the edge of my bed.

Just when I started getting used to standing tall in the crowd, a visit to the market brought my confidence back down. I was merely browsing through a rack of floral-printed skirts, when the shop owner promptly snatched the item I was holding. She slammed it back on the rack.

“No big sizes!! No big sizes!!” she declared, frantically waving her arms around. It was as if she was banishing me from the shop for being too large. I’m only 148 pounds, a perfectly acceptable weight for my height. I told myself the owner didn’t really mean big, she meant tall, so I moved on to another stall to try on some t-shirts. Even the alleged XL shirts barely covered my belly button.

I thought back to the last time I went shopping abroad, which had a markedly different effect on my body image. In Rwanda, I felt as confident as ever, surrounded by other pear shapes just like me.

A month into my stay, I had fallen into a fashion funk of cargo-pants, sandals and t-shirts. I decided it was time to don my floral yellow sundress. Little did I know, my dress would drive the Rwandans wild.

Photo: configmanager

The maid, the cook, and the guard stopped in their tracks. “You look so smart,” they told me. As I walked towards to the local newspaper where I worked, a car slammed on the brakes, kicking up a cloud of red dust.

“I love your dress. It is very beautiful and it makes you look beautiful.” I stood there in astonishment, showered in dirt and compliments. I had a bounce in my step for the rest of the day.

While in Turkey the other dancers saw any extra ounce of fat as negative, our Rwandan cook Mary kept telling me to eat more because I needed some meat on my bones. For dinner, she often filled the plate with a parade of carbohydrates: spaghetti, potatoes and rice. A few pounds soon crept up around my waist.

At first, I freaked out, and began to devise a way to lose the weight. Mary, however, made a point of affectionately grabbing my little muffin top. It made me take a good look in the mirror, and I recognized that I had blown things out of proportion. Mary was right. My body looked great.

Travel changes perceptions about everything: life, love, freedom, and culture. That’s the best part of travel in my opinion: as I open myself up to other points of view, my point of view transforms. The same can go for body image while traveling. Different cultures have different ideas of what constitutes feminine beauty. I’m trying to learn how to appreciate the cultural norm while still managing to appreciate myself.

I made the first step in Turkey. After Nida made her fruity comments about my backside, this is what I told her:
“You bet I have a watermelon butt: juicy and delicious.”

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/body-image-and-culture-my-watermelon-butt/feed/ 15 http://matadorabroad.com/the-10-cheapest-cities-in-the-world/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-10-cheapest-cities-in-the-world/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:45:06 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=4061

Feature Photo: bradipo Photo of Sana’a, Yemen: Tom Volger

Heather Carreiro looks at the 10 places with the lowest cost of living.

A year ago my husband and I were living in a posh three-bedroom apartment, driving a 2002 Toyota and eating out twice a week. Now we live in a windowless basement, drive a Volvo wagon with over 260k, and allow ourselves to splurge on a coffee date twice a month.

We’re making more money per month now than we were last year, but moving from one of the cheapest places in the world to one of the most expensive places seriously changed our lifestyle. This move made us realize that local cost of living is much more important than the bottom line on any expat contract.

Xpatulator quarterly publishes an index of 282 international cities by cost of living. By comparing thirteen different categories including things like the cost of housing, groceries and recreation, Xpatulator ranks the cities from most expensive to least expensive.

According to the April 2010 rankings, here are the 10 cheapest international cities in the world.

1. Harare, Zimbabwe

While Harare ranks as the cheapest city in the world, there are numerous reasons why expats and travelers won’t be flocking there. Zimbabwe has a 94% unemployment rate and a major refugee problem due to the country’s financial collapse. In 2008 there was more than 150% inflation and the national currency was eventually ditched for the U.S. dollar.

Zimbabwe also scored pretty high on the Transparency.org’s 2009 corruption index with a rank of 146. If you’re not familiar with the rankings, keep in mind that New Zealand is 1 and Somalia is 180. The higher the number, the more corruption pervades every day life.

2. Tianjin, China

Buenos Aires: Armando Maynez

It’s not Beijing or Shanghai, but China’s sixth most-populous city is one of the cheapest places to live. Eating out is inexpensive and you can visit Beijing for a day trip, although the Tianjin expat scene is small and there aren’t really a lot of sights or attractions in the city.

For language students Tianjin University offers Mandarin classes.

3. Sana’a, Yemen

Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, is not only a cheap city to live in but also an excellent place to learn Arabic. Grocery and housing costs are some of the lowest in the world, although opportunities to experience nightlife are limited. Female expats may feel more comfortable wearing a headscarf or full-length black abaya in public, and foreigners may be required to apply for special permits to travel outside Sana’a.

4. Buenos Aires, Argentina

Out of these 10 locations, Buenos Aires has the lowest hardship level according to Xpatulator. “Hardship level” refers to how difficult it is for expats to live in certain place. Foreign employees serving in extreme hardship areas can often negotiate higher salaries or special allowances. While Sana’a scores 40% (extreme hardship), Buenos Aires scores 20% (some hardship).

Buenos Aires is an excellent place to learn Argentine tango, binge on beef and empanadas, and enjoy the street art scene.

But living in Buenos Aires isn’t for “those without street smarts,” as Matador Nights editor Kate Sedgwick warns. Expats need to be prepared to deal with noise, poverty and layers of bureaucratic hurdles. Foreigners can’t sign lease agreements without a co-signer who owns property.

5. Thimphu, Bhutan

Living in Bhutan’s capital and largest city, Thimpu, is relatively inexpensive. The country still hasn’t developed a large tourism industry, largely due to the fact that foreign tourists visiting the country are obligated to spend $200 per day. Matador destination expert Tim Patterson gives the skinny in The Rucksack Wanderer’s Guide to Bhutan .

As an expat you would be able to travel in Bhutan without having to abide by the tourist regulations. Everyday groceries and housing are cheap, but eating out and staying in hotels could run up your monthly budget.

Bhutan: jmhullot

Although living in Bhutan is classified as an extreme hardship, the country has the least amount of corruption out of the 10 on this list. It comes in at 49 even beating out countries that are popular with expats like Italy (63), Greece (71) and Brazil (75).

6. Dushanbe, Tajikistan

Dushanbe has a small expat community, temperate weather and easy access to Central Asia’s Pamir Mountains. It’s a great place to learn Tajik or Farsi, although jobs for expats tend to be limited to diplomatic posts, teaching positions and humanitarian aid work.

7. Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo is a good base for exploring Sri Lanka and India. You can picture what living in Sri Lanka is like by checking out this photo essay or reading about a visit to a Sri Lankan tea estate.

The city has a sizeable expat community, tropical weather and uber-cheap housing, although if you to move to Colombo you must also be ready to experience monsoon season.

8. Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Cambodia and Tajikistan are tied as the “most corrupt” countries on this list coming in at 158 out of 180, and Phnom Penh is listed as an extreme hardship location. At the same time, Cambodia is a sweet jump-off point for exploring Southeast Asia, and it’s much cheaper to live in Phnom Penh than in any of the region’s other capital cities.

Quito: _PaulS_

Learn what life in Cambodia is like in this video about Getting Around in Phnom Penh or check out this Tales from the Road: Cambodia.

9. Quito, Ecuador

Expat and international investor Simon Black recently blogged about reasons to consider Ecuador. Some of the benefits he mentions are quality medical care, low rental costs and excellent fresh produce. At 9,300 feet (2,835m), Quito is also the second highest administrative capital in the world.

On the downside, the country is far from politically stable and alcohol can be expensive. In Simon Black’s words, “Ecuador is great for retirees, hermits, nomads, and internationalists. It’s terrible for hedonists.” It also scores quite poorly on the corruption index – 146 out of 180.

10. Karachi, Pakistan

Most often featured in the international news as the site of political protests or sectarian violence, Karachi is Pakistan’s most cosmopolitan city. It’s probably the only place in this officially “dry” country where you can attend an all night rave on the beach. Karachi is a major business center, has some top quality hospitals and international schools and is home to a dynamic arts scene.

Some expats positions in Karachi require employees to travel with an armed guard, although that is far from the norm for foreigners in Pakistan. If you’re interested in learning more about living in Pakistan, you can check out What NOT to Do in Pakistan and Tales from the Frontier of Expat Life: A Memsahib in Pakistan.

Out of these 10 international cities, which ones would you consider living in?

Community Connection

If you’re interested in moving to one of these cities but aren’t quite sure what you would do to pay the rent, check out 10 Tips for Becoming a Location Independent Professional and How to Decide if You’re Ready to Work Remotely.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-10-cheapest-cities-in-the-world/feed/ 26 http://matadorabroad.com/10-things-to-know-about-turkey/ http://matadorabroad.com/10-things-to-know-about-turkey/#comments Wed, 14 Apr 2010 20:20:56 +0000 Lucy Chatburn http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3961 Feature Photo: Alaskan Dude Photo: laszio-photo

You’ve heard about the endless glasses of tea, the kebabs and how to haggle in the bazaar. But if you really want to get under the country’s skin, here are ten less commonly known things about life and culture in Turkey.

1. Not all Turkish men have mustaches

This Turkish stereotype is remarkably persistent .

While you might see members of the older generation sporting a mustache, young Turks are more likely to be clean-shaven.

2. There aren’t any camels

In Turkish holiday resorts it’s not unusual to see a couple of camels lined up strategically outside the tourist attractions, waiting to be photographed. Like apple tea, someone discovered that tourists like them. Turkey doesn’t have a desert, and it doesn’t have any (native) camels either.

3. The official language is Turkish

The only official language of Turkey is Turkish, although other languages spoken by minority groups include Arabic and Kurdish.

Turkish is part of the Turkic language family; similar languages are spoken in Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Turkish is not related to Arabic, although the two languages have some words in common. Although most Turks are Muslim, they are not Arabs.

Photo: mawel

4. Every meal is a barbeque opportunity

Breakfast, lunch or dinner: the grill can be used at any time of day. Picnics are also popular in Turkey and the portable mangal , barbeque, usually comes along.

There’s also a whole restaurant format devoted to the barbeque: called kendin pişir kendi ye : cook it yourself; eat it yourself. At the table you’ll get a pre-heated barbeque and a plate of raw meat. The rest is up to you.

5. Turkish soap operas are huge

Local studios churn out dizi , soap operas, at an impressive rate. Almost every Turkish region has its own soap opera. Most socializing in Turkey is done at home, and watching soap operas is a favorite pastime.

Turkish soap operas are not only popular inside the country; they are also watched throughout the Arab world and Central Asia. These shows have even been credited for an increase in Arab tourism in the country.

6. Turkish people are extremely hospitable

If a Turkish person invites you to his house after you’ve known him for half an hour, don’t panic.

Turks are incredibly friendly and hospitable and as a misafir , guest, you are highly valued. Many will consider it an honor if you accept an invitation to visit them. Once inside, you will be plied with food and strong black çay or Turkish coffee.

7. Turkish people are also very inquisitive

A typical conversation with a Turkish person you’ve just met might go something like this: “What country are you from?… Are you married?… Is your husband / wife Turkish?… Do you have children?… How old are you?”

Photo: jikatu

If you come from a different culture these might seem like very personal questions. Compared to people in U.K., the Turkish people I know are much more comfortable talking freely about personal details, even with someone they don’t know well.

8. Wearing a headscarf is forbidden in public buildings

This means that a girl who wears a headscarf cannot attend university. Some find ways around this, such as by wearing wigs. In other places, wearing a headscarf is purely a matter of personal choice. The proportion of women wearing a headscarf varies depending on which city or even which part of town you’re in. Interestingly, a recent study by ESI showed that while most Turks think headscarf wearing is on the rise, the percentage of Turkish women who cover their heads actually decreased from 73% in 1999 to 64% in 2006.

9. Like Tarkan? There’s more where he came from

Like soap operas, Turkish pop music is popular throughout the region. Other homegrown musicians to look out for include Sezen Aksu and Öykü & Berk, who are pioneering their own brand of Turkish flamenco. For something a bit edgier, try Orient Expressions or Mercan Dede.

10. Don’t mention Midnight Express

I asked a couple of Turkish friends about the questions and stereotypes they encounter most when they travel outside Turkey, and this is possibly the one that makes them cringe the most. The screenwriter of Midnight Express has apologized for the film’s negative portrayal of the Turkish people, but Turks feel they have to explain to the world that you shouldn’t believe everything you see at the movies.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/10-things-to-know-about-turkey/feed/ 10 http://matadorabroad.com/coping-with-expat-withdrawal/ http://matadorabroad.com/coping-with-expat-withdrawal/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:15:55 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3893

Photo: Lawmurray

For one expat woman, coming home proves more difficult than moving abroad.

A little more than a year ago, my husband and I lit some candles in our Lahore apartment and spread out a world map. This was not some quirky romantic game; the candles were simply to keep the room lit during the power cut we were expecting in the next five minutes.

I took out a month’s worth of obsessive research: files detailing cost of living in different countries, reviews of international schools, salary profiles and statistics on languages and people groups.

With the 120-degree weather in the Pakistani Punjab and the frequent electricity cuts, we were ready to move on. It’s difficult to be an effective teacher when your alter ego is a sleepless zombie woman constantly drenched in a pool of sweat and passed out on the marble floor.

“How about Jakarta? There’s a great school there and tons of opportunities to travel.”

“Too humid. Let’s go somewhere without mosquitoes…somewhere cold. My vote is for Norway,” he countered.

Photo: Rex Roof

“Norway? Too cold for me, not enough sunlight and high cost of living…how about Saudi? Some sweet packages for teachers there.”

“As long as there’s electricity and AC, I’m down with that. I mean it’s desert heat there – dry heat.”

“Yeah, but you’d have to drive me everywhere. That might make us both crazy.”

Working off a list of job opportunities we were pursuing, we each took colored pieces of paper and marked our top ten destinations on the map. We both chose a small city in Takijistan as our number one choice, and dots of red and yellow marked other destinations across Central Asia and the Middle East .

Six months later, we arrived in new temporary home: Fall River, Massachusetts.

This destination had not been on our list.

After attending a job fair in Bangkok and learning more about the international teaching scene, we realized that to move forward with our careers we needed to further our education. This meant putting our top ten on hold and leaving behind the expat lifestyle for the frugal existence of U.S. college students.

Although I was fully behind this decision, I still had trouble coming to grips with it. Coming back to the states after three years in Pakistan threw me into a tailspin of identity crisis. To friends in the U.S. or people I met abroad, I was “Heather in Pakistan.” To Pakistanis I was the American, the linguist, the teacher, the university lecturer.

Americans often thought I was insane for living in Pakistan; Pakistanis were equally perplexed. My identity was wrapped up in my otherness, in being different.

I’ve realized that who I am doesn’t need to be tied up with place.

I missed designing shalwar kameez with the tailor, dodging donkey carts and ogling over the amount of oil my landlady would put in a single dish. For about six months after I came back to the US, my blog lay fallow and dormant, as if it needed to regenerate after three years of continual use.

So often people form identities on place and occupation. Two of the first phrases learned when studying a foreign language are, “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?”

As an expat, the answers to these two questions are often unfixed. Outward identity is malleable, although those with long careers abroad can define themselves in a way that captures this flux: international teachers, journalists, missionaries, foreign diplomats, humanitarian aid workers.

Moving back to the U.S., I lost both place and occupation. My blog stayed empty because I didn’t know what to write about. I held on to about 800 business cards with my Pakistani phone number and “Heather Michelle Carreiro: Linguist & Teacher Trainer” on them, even though I didn’t have use for them anymore.

After one semester of grad school, I’ve started using those old business cards for reminder notes and bookmarks. I’ve moved on from lamenting the loss of my Pakistani identity; I’ve realized that who I am doesn’t need to be tied up with place.

Photo: Heather Carreiro

I want to explore my new hometown as if I’m an expat – find the best coffee shops, photograph local festivals and be in the know about art and music venues. While Tajikistan is no longer on my immediate travel hit list, I’ve come up with a dozen destinations to visit in New England.

Now that I have some distance (and 24-hour electricity), I can creatively reflect on my time abroad. I can share about Pakistan with others whose only picture of the country consists of turbaned Taliban militants weighed down with artillery, bouncing over washed out roads in pick-up trucks. I can serve as a sort of cultural ambassador, helping bridge the gap between perception and reality.

Yes, my experiences abroad are part of who I am, but so is eating cow’s tongue with my in-laws in Fall River. I’m okay now with planning trips that don’t involve crossing oceans, mountain ranges and international borders.

I’m okay now with introducing myself as a student and a writer, although I confess I find solace that in a few years it will be time to change my address, phone number and business cards once again. I find contentment in the avoidance of putting down roots, having a bag packed and ready to go in my apartment, and always carrying a flashlight in case the power goes out.

Read more about What Happens When We’re Not Traveling from Matador community member Robyn Crispe.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/coping-with-expat-withdrawal/feed/ 18 http://matadorabroad.com/coming-to-grips-or-not-with-violence-as-communication-in-bangladesh/ http://matadorabroad.com/coming-to-grips-or-not-with-violence-as-communication-in-bangladesh/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:17:15 +0000 Amanda Ferrandino http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3728

Feature Photo: joiseyshowaa Photo: ahron

An American living in Bangladesh struggles to understand and adapt to local methods of communication.

After the hour-long scooter ride to a scheduled appointment at a research center and a forty minute wait in the lobby, the secretary finally felt it was time to share that the coordinator was not coming in at all—our meeting was canceled.

Almost nine months into being here, I’ve come to find that in Bangladeshi culture people constantly talk, but no one communicates. Words are thrown around in conversation, but they are seldom concise and often add irrelevant information. Meetings that could have been accomplished with a five-minute phone call turn into an hour commute and a two-hour discussion that digresses from women’s empowerment to the freedom of jungle chickens. It takes my roommate ten minutes to tell me a thirty-second story. I’m constantly snapping at her, “Yeah, I get it—then what?”

Photo: ahron

This lack of communication goes beyond the obvious language barrier. I have learned enough Bangla to communicate my needs and am skilled enough in the art of charades to express to a waiter an order of vegetable soup without prawn. Yet he still argues for seven minutes that the taste will change. “Yes sir, I want the taste to change, I’m a vegetarian.” With the inability to express oneself concisely comes the inability to understand anything that is not repeated twenty times.

I believe the real miscommunication stems from this need for incessant repetition. If you don’t reiterate your needs at least three times, you’ll be misunderstood. As an ex-pat from fast-talking New York, it’s infuriating to have to repeat myself. Telling a rickshaw-wallah that I’m going to Karwan Bazar but ending up on Shatash Road made me late for a meeting. When I told my colleagues why I was late, they dismissed me, saying “You have to tell the wallahs four times.”

Alarmingly, what I found myself doing was adapting to another way that Bangladeshis communicate: through force. After I noticed we were heading in the wrong direction for several blocks, I then repeated to the rickshaw-wallah that I wanted to go to Karwan Bazar. He began mumbling under his breath that I made him go in the wrong direction, while I fumed that he didn’t listen in the first place.

At a turn, the wallah accidentally ran the wheel up a pedestrian’s leg. A typical Bangladeshi male stare-down occurred: the death stare with widened eyes, a raised hand, and a spew of curses so fast it sounds like an enraged auctioneer with a jawbreaker in his mouth.

After several seconds of this “masculine” throw-down as I screamed, “Go, uncle, move on,” I raised my own hand and smacked the wallah in the back to snap him out of his red-blooded trance.

I hit another human being. I resorted to violence, the sort of violence I am trying to combat in my work. In all reality, he didn’t even respond to my hand smacking his back. He just pedaled forward, yelling at the man behind him. But was it appropriate? Though it is culturally acceptable, should I have hit him?

Dozens of times in a day I see the standard “hand-raise-in-preparation-to-hit” directed towards children, women, beggars or lower class men. More often than not, the hand comes down on their cheeks, heads and backs. Physical violence becomes a straightforward method of communication—a straightforward method that their verbal expression lacks.

Photo: TMAB2003

It was pointed out by another expat that this is a preliterate society. According to UNICEF, Bangladesh’s literacy rate is 54%. For UNICEF, adult literacy is determined by the percentage of persons over 15 years of age who can read and write. This statistic can be skewed when people who can sign their name are counted as literate, even when they can’t read or write much else.

No matter how illiterate Bangladesh is on paper or in reality, many adults today never learned to practice comprehensive conversation. In societies with higher literacy, schools teach their students to be direct in essay writing and to clearly articulate their questions. A lot of adults didn’t have that opportunity in Bangladesh, and if they did, they were still raised by parents who didn’t. They were raised by parents who smacked them to make a statement.

This violence is still occurring—on the streets, in my friends’ families, even in safe homes for women and children. When a baby is crying, relatives raise their hand to teach them to listen. And I picked up on it. Humans adapt to their surroundings, but I am not proud of this moment of adaptation. This cultural habit and form of communication is something I can’t accept and I don’t want to mimic. I refuse to believe that hitting a baby will help it listen better. Violence perpetuates violence, and it’s a cycle that should end.

It’s a given that communication goes beyond verbal expression. It involves facial expresions, eye contact, charades, sign language and physical contact. Gently patting a child’s head says “Hello, sweetie.” Smacking would fall under physical contact communication—but it is invasive and violent. Violence will ultimately be redirected elsewhere—perhaps back to you.

As my rickshaw drove away, I saw this negative side of Bangladesh culture I was adapting to. I want to assimilate into this culture but I refuse to absorb a negative trait. Cultures are ever changing and pluralistic, and I’ll assert that ending smacking as a communicative expression would be a positive change for this culture.

There are better cultural characteristics that I could pick up on: patience, for example. Luckily I still have three months left for that.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/coming-to-grips-or-not-with-violence-as-communication-in-bangladesh/feed/ 6 http://matadorabroad.com/the-symbol-factory/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-symbol-factory/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:09:37 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3696

Photos: Fotos China

Every morning in Beijing we were missing something.

“Hey! Did you eat all the eggs?!”

“Shite! No milk?!?”

“Oh, maaaaaannnn. We’re outta coffee.”

“Where did those little cookies go?! Where are those little butter cookies?!?”

Without fail. We’d do a halfhearted doomed search around the kitchen and then there’d be the inevitable battle over whose turn it was to venture out into the frigid hazy morning and try to scrounge up the Chinese vocabulary to get whatever we were lacking.

“You go. C’mon, I’ll make the bed and the coffee and—“

“No, you go! You’re the one that mowed down all the cookies yesterday.”

“Please, nooo, it’s so cold…”

I always lost. Basically because Jorge and his photographer’s attention to detail make a better cup of coffee.

Photos: Fotos China

So I piled on sweater and jacket and scarf and hat and coat and fumbled around for the keys and clunked down the freezing concrete coal-dust covered stairs out into the Chinese morning. Most of the time it was gray — a vague, yellowish gray — and cold.

Making that venture out into the street in China felt nothing like stepping outside anywhere else. Rather, it felt like tentatively emerging from one’s warm wireless-equipped spacecraft onto an alien planet. No matter how many mornings I left the house on some dumb errand it felt equally, strangely the same.

Now, those brief morning walks have become one of those defining rituals that have etched themselves into my brain to be forever associated with China, and the street scene in the morning will still be what pops to mind in 5, 10, 20 years when I think about the surreal year I spent in Beijing.

Moving around so often, I’ve found that what I take with me are symbols that have formed semi-consciously in my mind. The literary term is metonymy—using a small part to represent the whole. This is what ends up happening to me when I leave a place; my mind and my memory resort to metonymy, attaching to certain symbols which come to represent the whole.

The men playing chess under massive trees by the beach in La Réunion symbolize the island and my seven months there. The light afternoon clouds and the salsa blaring out of tiny bars symbolize Oaxaca, and taxi rides past brightly colored boxes of houses and piles of oranges and pineapples will always symbolize Mexico. The morning walk symbolizes Beijing.

Photos: Fotos China

These things aren’t necessarily central to my life in any of these places, but the symbol factory seems to operate on a different level; searching for symbols based on the same subtle, deeply personal criteria that attract one to a particular smell or type of light or smile for reasons she can’t quite grasp.

Thinking of Beijing now, I remember the half-drowsy feeling of turning onto the street and heading to the Muslim cart for sesame bread or the Dia for eggs or the bakery for donuts and cookies.

There are ridiculous amounts of people in the streets even at 7 and 8 a.m. Bicycles are passing and taxis are skirting around them at speeds that make me cringe. Old couples shuffle with bags full of vegetables. A garage of gray brick spills heaps of colorful garbage into the street and stray dogs roam around eating it. People spit. Girls in knee-high boots (if I never see another pair of knee-high boots in my life it won’t be long enough) giggle and link arms and eat puffy steamed dumplings on their way to class. General chaos ensues in it’s calm, inscrutable Chinese form.

And then I climb the stairs (coal-black and prison-esque) again, stamping my feet every few steps to keep the stairwell lights on, and I open the door and the apartment suddenly feels like a warm haven of love and familiarity.

Maybe I remember the morning walk for that reason—for the fact that it made our provisional, “what’s that smell coming from the drain?!?” “home feel like home. For the fact that it formed, ever so briefly, a part of who I was and what I saw and did and thought for a certain period of time, in a certain place.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-symbol-factory/feed/ 5 http://matadorabroad.com/the-tricky-process-of-being-and-becoming-mexican/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-tricky-process-of-being-and-becoming-mexican/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:20:23 +0000 Cynthia Valdez http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3661

Photo: Russ Bowling

A Mexican American confronts her culture and identity in Puebla, Mexico.

I’m waiting in the Correos de México in Puebla, the local post office where I’ve been told I could get an identification card by presenting the proper documentation.

But there is a problem ―no one will believe me when I say that I am Mexican.

For more than an hour now I’ve been explaining to one postal employee after another that despite the fact that on my birth certificate my place of birth is listed as Los Angeles, California, I am indeed a Mexican citizen.

“I know it sounds strange,” I say. “I’m American, but I’m also Mexican. I was born in the States but since my father is Mexican through a law that was passed in the mid 1990s…” But it’s no use.

No, they say. It’s impossible. This birth certificate was issued in Los Angeles by the Mexican consulate. It doesn’t count as an official birth certificate here. They wanted to see a visa. They wanted to see proof.

I should explain.

I moved to Mexico because I decided to investigate my family’s roots. At the time that the post office incident took place I’d been here for only four months. I’d been offered a job and needed this identification card so that I could officially qualify for the job, otherwise they would give the position to the next candidate in line. I was stuck. Exasperated. I’d gone through so much to get this Mexican citizenship.

Photo: Russ Bowling

Only six months prior I had started preparing for the big move. During that time I’d searched for my father’s birth certificate, which had disappeared in the shuffle of green cards, visas and finally permanent residence.

My father, although Mexican, has been living in the U.S. since he was six years old and is now more American than I would sometimes care to admit – he doesn’t even speak Spanish anymore.

“Why do you want to go to Mexico?” he asked me. “We’ve got no family there, your family is here. First you go to Europe and now Mexico?” I tried to make him understand but he wasn’t convinced. I think there are certain things that you can’t really explain to anyone. You have only to justify them to yourself.

After a period of searching for the missing document to no avail, I began a long series of disconnected phone calls, misinformation, complications and dead ends. Having just returned from a three year sojourn in France, I thought I knew what bureaucratic red tape was.

I was finally able to track down the elusive birth certificate through the help of an aunt, my father’s sister, who had kept a copy of hers. Using the information from her birth certificate I was able to track down and request a copy of my father’s, sent to me from Mexico City for a hefty sum. I felt like a veritable sleuth. With my father’s birth certificate in hand Mexican citizenship would soon be mine.

The tricky part of moving to a country where you have ‘roots’ but no family and very little knowledge of the culture is that you just come across as weird. I look no different than the poblanos I live and work with and I have a barely discernible accent, yet I still make grammatical errors. I couldn’t cook a molé or chile en nogada to save my life. And so I have the “I’m not from here” explanation perpetually ready for deployment.

Photo: Russ Bowling

There is a certain ambiguity to being foreign but not glaringly so in Mexico. Clearly I am not from here because of my accent, way of speaking and dress. Yet my Mexico experience has been greatly different, for example from that of my fiancé, who is 6-feet-tall, French and white as a tortilla. Sometimes I think it must be less complicated to be dramatically different instead of subtly different.

There are moments when I have to stop myself and say “Wait, don’t get offended.” The use of the word güero, for example, is very common. If you are pale or blond, redheaded, have light brown hair or eyes any color other than dark brown you risk being called güero, güerito, *güiriche (¿), or any other variation of the word, which loosely translates as “blondie” or “whitie.” It doesn’t matter whether you are from Europe, the United States of America or the United States of Mexico, if you are light-complexioned you will probably have to put up with one of these epithets while here.

In that post office in Puebla a year ago I didn’t expect things to be so complex. I thought that as long as I had the paperwork required and explanation ready things would be easy. What I didn’t realize was that what seemed like a straightforward question of ‘Mexican or not Mexican’ was tied up in a whole network of meaning.

Mexicans have had shifting identity issues since Pre-Columbian days, when they experienced shifts in power between various civilizations until the Aztec period. When the Spanish arrived and claimed this territory as New Spain, there were somewhere around eighty dialects spoken in the North alone. The subjects of this new colony were nothing if not an astoundingly rich mixture of languages, cultures and history. Hence, in my opinion, one of the sources of the characteristic Mexican orgullo, or pride.

And there was I, the privileged American asking (in what seemed to me to be very crude Spanish) to be considered Mexican, just like that.

Just as I was on the verge of being definitively turned away, I decided to assume an attitude that I’d observed on several occasions since arriving in my adopted homeland. It was one that I was uncomfortable trying on, even for a brief moment. Somewhere there was a tiny jab of guilt, like backing slowly into a prickly pear cactus.

“Let me speak to your supervisor,” I said, allowing my impatience to maneuver the situation.

One of the things that bothered me the most about Mexico when I first arrived was the stiflingly rigid hierarchy. In any normal day-to-day activity you never know how many licenciados, ingenieros, maestros, dons or doñas you are going to encounter. All are respectful ways to address older and/or educated people/people of a certain professional or social standing and I am still trying to figure out which to use when.

In any case, the problem only got worse when I started working. Suddenly I was someone that people were tripping over themselves to get out of the way of in hallways, someone who gets their office cleaned for them every morning, someone who has a receptionist to make my phone calls for her.

Also, I was someone who wasn’t necessarily going to get greeted every morning by certain higher-ups. A very clear-cut system, to be sure, but one that is hard to get used to when you’re from a country that pretends that social classes don’t really exist.

And so I always say hello to everyone I pass in the hallway, at the water cooler, etc. But I don’t necessarily make small talk with certain members of the staff, who might get in trouble for chit chatting instead of buffing the wood paneling to a flawless finish. Sometimes I get that prickly cactus feeling, though. Like when one of the maintenance employees sees me carrying something heavy and drops what they are doing to take over and escort me to my office.

And I also have trouble telling postal employees what to do.

But I gathered up my courage nonetheless and stated my case.

“Señor,” I explained, “I’m Mexican but I was born in the United States.”

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-tricky-process-of-being-and-becoming-mexican/feed/ 11 http://matadorabroad.com/one-frenzied-weekend-in-fes/ http://matadorabroad.com/one-frenzied-weekend-in-fes/#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:20:08 +0000 Andrew Farrand http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3647

Photos: author

A sudden water scare in Fes reminds an expat of his inherent vulnerability.

Saturday was the first day all week I didn’t need to wear my rain jacket to walk out the door. It was also the day the whispers began all throughout the medina, and grew to a frenzy.

After almost a whole week of driving rains, culminating in an all-day deluge on Friday, a friend and I spent the morning exploring the Old City and returned to the local salon de thé for lunch in the garden. I was up to my elbows in chicken tajine, baba ghanoush, and cinnamon-spiced potatoes when Denny showed up.

A middle-aged American photographer living in the Fes medina, Denny is a big talker – the kind of ultra-friendly guy who might finish his drink, say goodbye and then tell you three long, intricate stories before he actually leaves. Something about the quantity of Denny’s stories has always made me suspect their quality, and the information he delivered on this afternoon only confirmed my doubts.

He strode into the garden, glowing, like an Oscar winner on his way to the podium. Unable to contain himself, he immediately announced, to no one in particular, “Have you all heard the news? They found three dead cows in the water supply today, so now they’re going to cut off the whole city’s water for three days.”

Photos: author

Stunned silence, and some obvious disbelief, hung in the air. As if it proved anything, Denny reassured us, “It’s true. Just heard it.”

An hour later I was in a taxi and I explained to the driver what I had heard, as taxi drivers are known in Fes as reliable sources of popular gossip and rumor. “Waash kul haad saheeh?” Was all this true? Yes, sadly. Starting tomorrow, they will cut off the medina’s water supply, and maybe all of Fes’s.

When I returned to the salon de thé, the French owner, Cecile, told me I had just missed the city government representative who had passed by to officially inform all restaurants and cafés: at midnight that night, three days sans eau would begin. Cecile, now quite flustered, ran through the implications: How will we flush the toilets? How will we wash the dishes? Will there be bread? How much water do we need to buy if we stay open?

By dinner time, the standard 5-liter jugs of water that usually sell for 10 dirhams were up to thirteen and climbing.

The kids on the stoop outside our apartment were enjoying this, in the way that kids back in the US enjoy approaching blizzards, hurricanes, and other catastrophes which worry their parents and hold the promise of school cancellations. They laughed when I told them I was going upstairs to take three showers. (Whether they laughed at the joke, my Arabic, or the concept of a daily shower I just don’t know).

Photos: author

A few members of the Fulbright group gathered at our apartment that evening. All had heard some story about the water being contaminated, either with dead animals or from muddy runoff from the rains.

We did the natural thing when faced with an impending crisis – drank beer and played cards. In between each hand, I scurried to the bathroom to switch out the bucket under the running faucet and replace it with the next empty one. Like everyone else in the Old City, we were stockpiling.

As the evening progressed, it occurred to us how bizarre was the government’s decision to continue dispensing water to the city when they knew it contained dead cow particles. Why didn’t they just shut the supply off immediately? And what was the point of everyone’s hoarding contaminated water? Perhaps the local water department had concocted the story itself, someone surmised.

* * *

Photos: author

The first sound I heard when I woke Sunday morning was Ryan running the faucet in our bathroom. The water was still flowing.

After all their frenzied panicking of the day before, the Fassis suddenly acted as if nothing had happened. Only when I brought it up would the water situation get a mention: “Oh, yes, that water situation. Well, they shut off the water in the Sidi Bou Jida neighborhood, but not all of Fes, so it’s fine.”

A few, still alarmed, said that the city was using the last of its clean water supplies now but would soon run out, and could cut the flow at any moment. Even they soon forgot it all, and the frenzied panic of the previous day dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. By the time we got to class Monday morning, neither of our professors could be convinced that they knew anything of any such water crisis.

The speed with which a whole city reached full panic mode and then returned to normal only made the incident seem more surreal. I’m still a bit dazed.

But then, I expected surprises here, as I wrote soon after arriving. The popular advice “so long as you are in Morocco, let nothing surprise you” captures the great irony of successfully living abroad, precisely because it is impossible to obey.

No visitor to Morocco can avoid being utterly baffled sometimes by daily occurrences here, and those who try to know what’s around every corner merely frustrate themselves.

Photos: author

Being completely bowled over by Morocco is like being the brunt of a friend’s practical joke. It makes you feel vulnerable, and the natural reaction is to lash out, to erase the vulnerability. But at that moment, embracing one’s vulnerability, accepting that you were fooled, and laughing along with your friend can bring you to a new level of familiarity and trust.

And so the saga of this weekend, which all began with three allegedly dead cows allegedly in a reservoir and ended the same as any other weekend, was simply another reminder that I live in a medieval city, and that sometimes it will act like a medieval city, and that maybe I just need to learn to sit back and enjoy it. It might just be the start of a solid friendship.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/one-frenzied-weekend-in-fes/feed/ 5 http://matadorabroad.com/looking-back-on-the-first-year-in-paris/ http://matadorabroad.com/looking-back-on-the-first-year-in-paris/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:38:18 +0000 Cynthia Valdez http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3613

Feature and Above Photo: orazal

An expat looks back on her first year abroad.

In Stendhal’s “The Red and the Black,” the heroic (but mostly tragic) Julien is the petty bourgeois son of a carpenter who, through a mixture of luck and intelligence, obtains a promising job that under normal circumstances would be beyond his reach. During a period of illness Julien’s boss, the Marquis de la Mole, suggests that Julien come visit him wearing a blue suit as opposed to his usual black cleric’s garb.

To Julien’s surprise, the day he shows up wearing the blue suit the Marquis treats him like a totally different person. Suddenly, he finds himself being spoken to respectfully, thoughtfully, as a friend. Class boundaries and other social delimiters suddenly dissipate.

I think that on an subconscious level, my decision to leave Los Angeles for Paris came very much from a desire to shed my cleric’s robe and try on a different personality, in a place where no one would be able to pick out, like, the Southern Californian inflection in my speech, spot my Mexican-American background, or judge me by my (suburban) area code.

Photo: david.nikonvscanon

Consciously, I had quite simply decided to go abroad to become fluent in French. My imagination having been piqued by years of fervently watching Mais Oui instructional videos and practically every film by Truffaut, the obvious choice was Paris. I would have none of Aix-en-Provence or some other Francophone country.

It had to be Paris. And so Paris it was.

Since I’d waited until my senior year of university to study abroad, I was slightly older than most of the other international students I met upon arriving. This became obvious through my choices to live alone instead of with a roommate, to not get together with “everyone” at the American Bar once a week, to take regular courses at the University of Paris instead of special classes for American students. The unexpected byproduct of my independent spirit was that suddenly I found myself completely isolated; which, as it turned out, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

There was probably nothing more exhilarating during those first few months in Paris than flinging open the windows to my first floor apartment and smelling the fresh bread and coffee wafting upstairs from the shop just underneath. From my perch I could witness all sorts of Parisian action on the flagstones of my quaint street. My neighbor and her musician boyfriend would be playing the piano and laughing.

Photo: Did_

Soon I learned how to navigate the metro, how to proudly boast that I lived in the Bastille for a scandalously low price, how to keep away from certain clingy streetwalker types who didn’t care if you had a boyfriend (invented or otherwise).

I realized I would have to drop my West Coast ways after repeatedly misjudging the weather (for me a sunny day meant I could go out without a jacket). I learned how to ask for a baguette in the bakery without undergoing too much anxiety.

But winter inevitably came. My classes were spent oscillating between confused frustration and overexcited reverie ―I was lucky to be able to understand enough to get a paragraph of notes out of a two-hour class session.

I spent a week in the middle of winter without electricity or hot water, because of an Electricité de France website error. My landlord was forgetful and flippant, and suffered from what appeared to me to be bipolar disorder. Also, I was inconsolably lonely.

The silence of winter in Paris when you live alone and have only a few friends and no family is unnerving.

I began to drink alone. But I also watched films, wrote in my journal, got to know myself better. I started to frequent the panoply of museums and galleries that Paris offers. My Louvre was the Centre Pompidou; I spent every spare minute I had in the temporary exhibitions and film screenings. I went to concerts on the outskirts of the city by myself via the infamous suburban trains, called RER. I discovered the maddening meaning of the word grève, or strike, when all my classes were canceled for a month and a half straight. Just to remind anyone who might be too academically motivated, the entrance to the university was blocked by a 6-foot-tall barricade of chairs and tables.

I repeated phrases I overheard in the metro to myself in my empty apartment. Every day I carried a notebook with me and, stealing glances at my fellow passengers, jotted down phrases from the books they read on their commute to work or school or gilded lives I would never know anything about. I convinced myself that this was the only way I could ever know what they were thinking.

Photo: FunkyFlamenca

It never occurred to me to actually try to speak to people, much less in French. It seemed that the new personality I’d been looking forward to trying on was that of a misanthropic loner, who had to hype herself up for 10 minutes before working up the courage to make a simple phone call.

Needless to say, my French skills weren’t exactly improving that winter in Paris.

My expenses, although minimal in comparison with some decadent semester abroad students I knew, were also adding up to more than what I’d expected. So, I thought, that’s what roommates are for.

When a group of the semester abroad students who’d been working at a technical school as English teachers were getting ready to fly back home, leaving a number of job openings, I saw my opportunity and seized it.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, teaching English was also going to be my best opportunity to speak French.

Arriving at the technical school, which I’ll call “Omnitech” I realized the job, deceptively simple on the surface, was much more complex when seen up close. In the entire school, which was located on the outskirts of the city, there were only a handful of girls.

The whole student body, it seemed, was made up of socially hesitant post-pubescent techies, whose genius for programming was surpassed only by their reluctance to speak English. We, the English teachers, or “Suzies” (incidentally all attractive young women) were expected not only to bring them out of their shells, but to get them ready for the English test they would be taking in the spring.

In order to facilitate the process we Suzies were required to take the students, who signed up for classes voluntarily, on excursions into the “real world.” This could be anywhere from a movie to a museum or even a bar. The only requirement was that the class had to be held in 100% English, 100% of the time.

Responsible for reinforcing this was our patriarch, who I’ll call “Ed,” a vociferous Santa Claus-esque character with an affinity for innocently hitting on any Suzie who bothered to pay the slightest attention, in a “fatherly” way, of course. I avoided Ed at all costs, and was appalled at how many of my fellow Suzies were willing to bestow their charms on him.

Also surprising were the stories I started to hear about the high turnover at Omnitech due to teachers allegedly going against the rules. I also heard about Suzies who took things farther with some of their pupils, and would hold all their class sessions in bars, totally wasted.

Photo: Alexandre Moreau

Certain girls had reputations, and their class enrollment reflected this ―Omnitechies signed up by the dozens. To me it seemed so simple to just insist that everyone speak English, to be firm and offer interesting dialogue.

For my first class outing, I decided to take my class to a Dada exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. I uploaded my carefully worded class description, expecting a handful of art-loving students to sign up, eager to discuss the merits of Dada and the impact they would eventually have on the Surrealists.

To my surprise, arriving at my appointment at Rambuteau station about 15 nervous-looking guys were waiting patiently to peruse the exhibition that I’d already fanatically devoured about three times. After introducing myself and asking if anyone had any questions, I realized that everything I’d just said had been lost on my students, who were staring at me rather blankly.

“I think you have to speak more slowly,” a tall, lanky blond student with a very pronounced accent told me. “They didn’t understand anything. Most of them don’t even speak a word of English.”

I had, of course, labeled my Dada class “Advanced.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, I found myself lapsing into French more and more frequently during my classes. Some of my class sessions even included the consumption of alcoholic beverages. I found that this social lubricant could actually completely transform some painfully awkward students who just needed to relax a bit.

Luckily Francis, the tall blond student from the first day, and his best friend Romain — both of whom had excellent English skills — became my dedicated students, never missing a class and almost never asking me to speak French.

They began to fill me in on the workings of Omnitech and the dangers of getting on Ed the English department head’s bad side. Despite my rare encounters with Ed, I began to get the feeling he really didn’t care for me. Since I was a good teacher who got along well with my students, however I felt I didn’t have anything to fear.

One day, I witnessed for myself Ed’s explosive temper when he publicly berated one of the English teachers, who wouldn’t have any of it. She promptly told him to fuck off, and said she was quitting. But it seemed like the more disrespectful she was towards him the more facile he became. He asked her not to leave, and told her how valuable she was to him, words I knew I would never hear from Ed. I quietly resolved that I would leave Omnitech as soon as possible.

That time would come sooner than I thought, since right at the beginning of spring I met an engaging non-Parisian who was willing to discuss the implications of Dada in French. We met in a museum, and at first he thought I was Italian.

That first year was singular in that it permitted me to actually live in the moment. Although I ended up leaving Paris two years later my first year there was probably the most interesting; there was that certain immediacy that you can only experience when you know what you’re feeling won’t last.

In a way, it didn’t. Although there would be more Paris moments, never again would I step so completely outside of myself for the first time, feel so disoriented while learning a new language, learn how to overcome a fear of the Other by reaching out in a foreign language.

For that brief couple of semesters in Paris, I personified that other, blue suit-wearing person I had envisioned from the start: adventurous, independent, a hazy past…possibly Italian? And then, as the years went by, I became more and more Parisian.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/looking-back-on-the-first-year-in-paris/feed/ 16 http://matadorabroad.com/my-day-of-african-justice/ http://matadorabroad.com/my-day-of-african-justice/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:13:11 +0000 Mary Richardson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3563

Photo: geotheref Feature Photo: vince42

A Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia learns that justice, too, is culturally relative.

“You can’t handle the truth!”

This was my line, and I said it just like Jack Nicholson from the witness box.

We were sitting inside an African courtroom, summoned to start proceedings at 9:00 am. Victims of a crime, it was finally our day of retribution.

However, the hour was already 11:00 am and not one single person had managed to show.

No judge, no lawyers, no defendant. Just two foreigners naïve enough to actually arrive on time.

To fill the stuffy empty space, we reenacted scenes from movies like “A Few Good Men” and famous news cases. OJ Simpson kept us occupied for at least forty-five minutes.

My housemate Nicole and I were Peace Corps teachers living in an isolated desert region of Namibia. That day we experienced an eye-opening brush with an African legal system.

All the events leading up to that day and its aftermath taught me that just like ideas about time, family, and relationships, basic concepts of fairness and punishment are also not universal. Justice is culturally defined.

Strange Disappearances

Photo: fiverlocker

Over the previous year, we had noticed things go missing from our ramshackle house in the township. Most items were inconsequential– chocolate bars, small bills, or wooden figurines. Not anything to be stressed about.

It got serious, however, when our battery-operated boom box and favorite mix tape, a compilation of 90s hits, disappeared.

Living in a remote place, music was an important outlet for us. That boom box was so much more than just entertainment. It was our friend and often our therapy. Needless to say, as volunteers living far away from home with so few resources, we felt violated. We were also troubled that someone was entering our private locked space.

Spurred on by indignation, we asked neighbors if they had seen any trespassers. Amazingly, they answered yes. The perpetrator was Eiseb, a 15-year old local schoolboy and well-known thief.

In that moment, we learned our first lesson about the Namibian sense of fairness. Not wanting to rat out one of their own, our neighbors did not intervene in the least. That is, until we asked. Then the floodgates opened.

After Nicole and I identified the boy to the police and filed an official report, events got stranger.

Eiseb was taken into custody, and we were invited to retrieve our own possessions from his home.

There’s nothing quite like conducting your own search and seizure, I was to learn next. It’s unsettling.

When we arrived at Eiseb’s dusty shanty home on the other side of town, I did not feel righteous at all. Instead, shame crept up inside me.

Eiseb’s mother stood out front, holding a baby in one arm and stirring an iron pot with the other. A goat wandered through the yard. The mother waved us into the house without even flinching.

Inside Eiseb’s musty dark room, we found all of our missing items and even a stockpile of things we didn’t know were gone.

One of my blouses, a pink and purple plaid L.L. Bean was found crumpled in a ball in a corner. Eiseb’s mother later revealed that her son enjoyed wearing it often. His family knew good and well it was stolen from the house we lived in.

Relieved that our thief was Eiseb and not someone much worse, Nicole and I were ready to forgive and forget. The only thing we really wanted was to listen to Hootie and the Blowfish again.

However, the police had to retain our things as evidence. What’s more, we were obligated to appear in Namibian court.

At first we resisted the court day, not wanting to stir up trouble. It can be tricky being a foreigner living in Africa. But eventually we agreed, considering that Eiseb could easily graduate from breaking and entering to more serious crimes. Besides, he had violated the law, hadn’t he?

Photo: geotheref

Most of the community also encouraged our decision. Coworkers regularly shook their head and lamented Eiseb’s bad behavior. Neighbors apologized that we endured a bad experience in their village.

“Terrible what these young kids are doing these days,” they would say and cluck their tongues.

The Verdict

After months of waiting for our court day and then three more hours for the legal parties to arrive, we finally brought Eiseb to justice, African style.

In a nutshell, Eiseb was found not guilty, and he received no punishment.

Moreover, we never got our possessions back.

We’ll never know who ended up with the boom box and the pink and purple top, not to mention the money, wooden figurines, bras, books, shoes and very embarrassing cleavage photograph stolen.

And even to this day, my “American” sense of justice doesn’t completely understand the ruling.

We had evidence, witnesses, and police and community support. And what lesson did it teach Eiseb or other kids who might be tempted to do the same?

A short time after, I met a wood carver at a tourist spot outside of our village. As is common in Africa, where locals know everyone’s business, he also knew our case.

The wood carver put it all in perspective for me.

“It is your own fault. You come here. You are rich. You have money. You have things.”

Ouch.

I guess I can’t handle the truth.

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]]> http://matadorabroad.com/my-day-of-african-justice/feed/ 27 http://matadorabroad.com/cooking-in-lahore-an-american-woman-in-a-pakistani-kitchen/ http://matadorabroad.com/cooking-in-lahore-an-american-woman-in-a-pakistani-kitchen/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:24:57 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3554

Photo: Duarte Carreiro

I watch Nasreen as she carefully measures out four entire cups of ghee. I feel like I’m breaking out just being in the kitchen with this concoction. Four cups of clarified butter, almost pure saturated fat, is being used for just one dish. The golden globs sizzle and crackle as she tosses in the cows’ feet.

“You know how I learned cooking?” asks Nasreen. “From my mother. Before marriage, I learned everything. How to make chapatis, biryani, kabobs, chicken, mutton…so many things! Before marriage I was so smart and slim, but now I am very healthy,” she boasts as she makes the wrestler pose that inevitably accompanies the word ‘healthy’ in Pakistani English.

Breaking the Hulk Hogan flex, she giggles heartily. “Now you…you are looking so weak. You must eat rice and meat today.”

I smile. We’ve had this conversation on a twice-weekly basis since I moved into the upstairs apartment six months ago. As today Nasreen is teaching me how to cook her style, I decide it’s best not to explain that my version of ‘healthy’ differs markedly from the prevailing concept in Lahore.

To many Pakistani women, the more you eat means the healthier you are, and my stomach simply fails to comply. To terminate an endless deluge of food I often joke, “Bas! Mera pet Pakistani nahin hai!” No more! My stomach is not Pakistani!

Pushing a wisp of black hair out of her eyes, Nasreen rummages through the cabinets and pulls out an array of spices. “First we need to make the salan, sauce, for the biryani,” she explains. Throughout South Asia there are dozens of different biryani recipes, but Pakistan’s staple variety consists of chicken, aromatic basmati rice, onions, tomatoes and a complex cocktail of spices. Nasreen’s biryani is better than any I’ve had at a restaurant in Pakistan or even across the border in India.

She hands me ten garlic cloves along with a stone mortar and pestle. I haven’t used a set since high school chemistry, and Nasreen finds my ineptness amusing. In my fridge upstairs I’ve got a jar of pre-crushed garlic paste.

For me, the need to cook disrupts my daily routine like the arrival of an unwanted and unexpected guest. Almost everything must be made from scratch in Lahore unless you’re willing to shell out for expensive imported items. The temperature outdoors can be over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are often power cuts that incapacitate fans and air conditioners. In the middle of the night, I’ve woken up in a cold sweat, dreaming that I was hosting a dinner party.

I can’t remember ever hearing a Pakistani housewife grouching about how she has got to cook, but it’s something I grumble about at least once a day.

Photo: Duarte Carreiro

Whenever Nasreen comes upstairs to share the latest gup-shup (gossip) about the maid or drop off a utility bill, she asks, “What did you cook today?” If she discovers that I’ve made only soup and sandwiches, she’ll send me a tray of daal and rice or a curried meat dish. More than once I’ve gone downstairs to see her after 9 p.m. and found her thawing substantial amounts of meat.

“Wow, Nasreen Auntie are you having a party?”

“No no. No party. Just my sister, my brother-in-law, their five sons and my three cousins are coming for dinner.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes yes. They are coming are 11 o’clock…you must meet them! I am making mattar qeeema, chicken, shami kabobs and daal-chaval.”

Usually I manage to decline the invitation only after tasting the smorgasbord of dishes. Today we’re cooking for only seven people, but she’s just as exuberant while she explains every step. We finish the salan and move on to the rice. I wonder why we didn’t have both cooking at the same time, since the rice will take much longer to cook. Before putting the rice in the pot to boil it, she soaks it and lets all the tiny insects and broken casings rise to the surface.

“It is very important not to touch the rice. You should shake it; don’t mix it with your hands.”

We wait at least 15 minutes while the rice expels the unwanted elements and sends them swirling towards the top of the bowl. Nasreen picks out each little bit separately and throws it in the sink. I stir the cows’ feet and remove the dish from the flame.

Westerners may look on the lives of Pakistani women and imagine them to be hapless housewives, banished to days of slaving over a hot stove. Only one out of every three women in Pakistan can write well enough to sign her name on official documents, and only a very small percentage work outside the home. It’s tempting to see the kitchen as an oppressive prison, but most ‘inmates’ I’ve met are in no rush to stage a jailbreak.

I once asked a middle class Pakistani housewife if she’d rather be out working. “Work? Why would I want to work? Whole the day I spend cooking, eating snacks, drinking chai with my friends, having some gup-shup…”

Nasreen checks the pot of rice, determines that it’s done cooking, and strains out the extra water. We thoroughly mix the rice with the salan and carefully dot yellow food coloring on the top. As the biryani steams, we set the table and gather the family for lunch.

Pulling off the lid excitedly she exclaims, “See, now you know how to make the real Pakistani biryani!”

And now, it’s time for us to dig in.

Community Connection

Check out Heather’s blog for Nasreen’s biryani recipe. Heather is a student at Matador U.

Want to learn the craft of travel writing?

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]]> http://matadorabroad.com/cooking-in-lahore-an-american-woman-in-a-pakistani-kitchen/feed/ 21 http://matadorabroad.com/life-as-an-expat-in-havana-cuba/ http://matadorabroad.com/life-as-an-expat-in-havana-cuba/#comments Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:02:32 +0000 Conner Gorry http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3508

Photo: exfordy Feature Photo: malias

An American expat in Havana examines the process of adjusting and readjusting to life in Cuba, and confronting that old, persistent question of just what home means.

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.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/life-as-an-expat-in-havana-cuba/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/the-origin-of-the-ugly-american/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-origin-of-the-ugly-american/#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 15:30:59 +0000 Amanda Ferrandino http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3477

Photo: Desmond Kavanagh Feature Photo: space cowboy

The phrase “ugly American” actually has two historical meanings, although we’ve tended to ignore one in favor of the other.

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.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-origin-of-the-ugly-american/feed/ 18 http://matadorabroad.com/group-and-ceremony-one-expats-experience-with-japanese-culture/ http://matadorabroad.com/group-and-ceremony-one-expats-experience-with-japanese-culture/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:26:16 +0000 Tom Shuttleworth http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3452

Photos: author

The food, the chopsticks, the no shoes rules : no big deal. But the group mentality?

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.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/group-and-ceremony-one-expats-experience-with-japanese-culture/feed/ 12 http://matadorabroad.com/burakku-black-culture-in-japan/ http://matadorabroad.com/burakku-black-culture-in-japan/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:16:37 +0000 Ricardo Arthur http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3396

Photos: author

An expat moves to Japan and discovers a fascination with his own culture.

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.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/burakku-black-culture-in-japan/feed/ 33 http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-a-memsahib-in-pakistan/ http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-a-memsahib-in-pakistan/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:51:34 +0000 Heather Carreiro http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3385

Photo: author Feature Photo: Zainub

An American expat in Pakistan finds herself confronting the color of her skin everywhere she turns.

“Sardar ji, Memsahib has arrived.”

I suppress a cringe at being identified as the “white foreign woman.” Memsahib is my least favorite Urdu label. I’ve gotten somewhat used to the staring, the whispering of “Dekho! Ghori larki hai!” (Look! It’s a white girl!), and constantly being referred to as Angrez or British. I often surprise my admirers by cheekily responding to them in Urdu that I am not British, but am in fact American.

When someone refers to me as memsahib, I know they’re doing it to be polite, but it evokes an entire history of well to do British army officers’ wives palling around in exquisite drawing rooms in the mid 19th century. I don’t want to be called memsahib or ghori; I’d rather be referred to as a teacher or a writer or anything else that identifies me aside from the color of my skin.

I smile at the guard who called me memsahib while I count out change for the rickshaw driver. The guard raises his hand to his wrinkled forehead and offers me a salute. His hand is stiff to attention at his drab olive-colored felt beret, yet his eyes glisten with kindness. I offer a wave and a greeting in return as I make my way toward the college’s main building.

Photo: kash_if

It is in Pakistan that I have had to come to grips with the inherent advantages and disadvantages of historical and cultural white privilege. Fair and Lovely beauty cream can be purchased at almost any roadside beauty shop, and every ladies’ beauty parlor offers multiple ways to whiten and lighten your skin tone.

For weddings, women use white powder and foundation to make themselves look lighter; the ones who overdo it end up looking like ghostly waifs in full bridal array. More than once when I asked an older woman about her daughter-in-law, the first thing she responded was, “She is very fair, not wheatish or dark-skinned.”

Because I am light-skinned, less educated locals often assume a lot of things about me. At first glance many see me as rich, educated, American and simultaneously a Christian and a loose woman.

A gaggle of men will surround me within seconds of emerging from a train, bus, taxi or rickshaw. “Ji, you want to buy carpets?” “How about some gold jewelry for a pretty lady?” “Taxi service to my brother’s hotel?” In addition to the typical touts, men try to grab me or brush up against me.

Photo: *_*

White women tend to be equated with prostitutes since most local men’s experience with white women is limited to pornography and Hollywood movies. “Eve-teasing,” as the Indian press terms it, is certainly not limited to white women; white women are just more likely to be targets of this popular pastime than local women.

Although being melanin deprived certainly has its disadvantages on the Indian subcontinent, there are also many privileges, or at least what are perceived to be privileges, granted to those who are fair skinned. Many times when a white person visits a local church in the Punjab, the ghora or ghori is garlanded with flowers and asked to stand in front of the congregation and greet everyone. The pastor may ask the foreigners to sit in the best seats, or even on the stage. Sometimes the white guest will be asked to preach with no prior notice consideration of whether said guest is a Christian or not.

I was offered several jobs just because of my foreignness, even though I was completely unqualified for the positions. Once I was asked to interview for a school principal job, even though I only had one year experience teaching in a K-12 school. Another time I was brought along to an advertising meeting. I thought I was going to meet up with some friends, and then suddenly I was being presented as a “foreign consultant.” My Portuguese husband was offered a position to teach college-level Spanish. He doesn’t even speak Spanish.

Photo: author

More often than not, we had to explain to locals why we were NOT the best people for the job. I spent an entire week persistently telling a local publisher in Lahore that I was not the person to write a complete K-8 English curriculum for Pakistani schools. The publisher’s response: “It’s okay, we just want your name on the front of the book, and a nice picture on the book cover. Find two or three other foreigners in America, and we can put their names on the cover as well. That’s the new trend; they don’t need to contribute. It just looks… nice.”

When I first arrived in Pakistan I was impressed with the hospitality of the locals, and I still am, although I am now wary of unsolicited hospitality and invitations. Being a memsahib can be tiring, especially during wedding season.

“Hello, Heather, are you free tonight?”

“Um, I’m at home. What’s up?”

“It is the marriage ceremony of my second cousin from my uncle’s village. You must dress smart and come to the barat with me. Thik hai?”

When people I barely knew started inviting me to three-day wedding ceremonies of a distant cousin, I started to get the gist that certain individuals wanted the company of my skin color more than me.

I turn on the lights in the classroom and take out the teeming folder of papers to pass back during my creative writing seminar. Today is the last day of class, and I have not failed to dress smartly in a fashionable shalwar kameez. I know my students will have their cameras. Most have never taken a class with a foreigner before, and they’ll want photographic proof for their families and friends.

I know I’m white. I know people who see those pictures will refer to me as the ghori or the memsahib or the Angrez. I put on a fresh coat of lipstick and give in to being a novelty.

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]]> http://matadorabroad.com/tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life-a-memsahib-in-pakistan/feed/ 31 http://matadorabroad.com/metric-map-which-countries-dont-belong-with-the-others/ http://matadorabroad.com/metric-map-which-countries-dont-belong-with-the-others/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:05:15 +0000 Kate Sedgwick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3312

Map : author

What sets the U.S apart from the rest of the world?

The U.S. is one of only three nations in the world (the other two being Liberia and Burma) which clings to its outmoded system of measurement, failing to get on board with the rest of the world and use the metric system.

We don’t even use the British Imperial system (that the British don’t even use anymore) – we use some bastard child of the Imperial system called “the United States customary system.” Ask any American how many ounces are in a gallon or feet are in a mile and you’re almost sure not to get a correct answer.

What does this mean for you as an American? It means that when you travel you look like an idiot. When someone asks you for directions, you are suddenly at a loss, unable to estimate distance in kilometers. If one of your South American friends asks you how cold it is, you have no idea what to say. Is 30 degrees hot? Is it cold?

There are more communist countries than there are countries not using the metric system. Everyone else has come to the conclusion that it just makes for sense to use the system everyone else in the world is using in which all units are divisible by ten.

Just try to pass the right wrench to someone and you’ll see how stupid this system is. “I need the five sixteenths hex wrench. No! I said the five sixteenths!” Of course you did.

OK. Maybe it wouldn’t be cost effective to tear down all those mile markers, but just imagine the jobs it would create to start adding kilometer markers to every highway in the U.S. of A.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/metric-map-which-countries-dont-belong-with-the-others/feed/ 66 http://matadorabroad.com/curses-kikokushijo-foiled-again-by-jun-japanese-women/ http://matadorabroad.com/curses-kikokushijo-foiled-again-by-jun-japanese-women/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:22:10 +0000 Christine Garvin http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3166

Photos: Conveyor belt sushi

It’s not easy for a Japanese woman-of-the-world to pair up with even the most progressive Japanese man.

Jun-Japanese. Or “pure Japanese” girl. Apparently, they are what all the Japanese men are into. The only ones they’re into.

So says Cherie, a blogger born and partially raised in Japan, partially raised in New York. After attending college and working in Boston for several years, she was placed in her firm’s Tokyo branch. Now, she is following the love trends of the young and hip in Japan’s largest city.

About the preference for Jun-Japanese woman, she notes:

Recently, the hot topic among my friends are the unpopularity of fashionable, successful, intelligent, beautiful Kikokushijo (returnees) among Japanese men…whether the guy is a Kikokushijo or a jun-japanese, they seem to prefer the typical demure, proper, cute Japanese girls to outspoken, adventurous, successful Japanese girls.

Ok, interesting. I can’t say I’m necessarily surprised, with the culture of tradition which still prevails in Japan. But in Tokyo? Even with the young and hip?

Young, Hip and Traditional

Cherie essentially blames it on ‘men being men,’ saying, “Yes, yes, I know. At the end of the day, men prefer to be praised and admired by women then have a great partner of his match, challenging him and stimulating his intelligence.” Oh, lordy…really?

I guess even the Japanese guys raised outside of Japan still prefer the Jun-Japanese ladies:

Destinations

Community Connection to Japan

There is the successful banker guy who was BORN in the UK and spent all his life in London…nothing should intimidate him, for someone with great education and status! But yet, immediately arriving in Tokyo, he starts dating a Jun-Japanese girl who praises him and admires him but not share anything of his experience in the UK, never mind about dancing to Chemical brothers or sing “Champaign Supernova.”

I can’t help but think of some of the situations faced by one of my best friends, who is of Taiwanese and Irish descent (yeah, she’s gorgeous).

For some reason, she has always tended to be into Korean guys. You can see them almost salivating over her, and yet more often than not, they won’t date her because they “want” a Korean girl. The whole concept of tradition outweighing love has always astounded me.

But I guess it’s something the Kikokushijo women are forced to face as reality. I wonder if that means more of them will end up dating/being in a relationship/marrying non-Japanese men.

And if so, how long will the Jun-Japanese last?

Anyone who has lived in Japan agree or disagree with Cherie’s take? Share your thoughts below.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/curses-kikokushijo-foiled-again-by-jun-japanese-women/feed/ 6 http://matadorabroad.com/15-signs-you-might-have-been-in-oman-too-long/ http://matadorabroad.com/15-signs-you-might-have-been-in-oman-too-long/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:12:56 +0000 Baxter Jackson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3078

Photos: author

Baxter Jackson weighs in on too many years in Oman.

1.

You get resentful when you actually have to work.

2.

You use your hazard lights more than your indicators.

3.

You don’t consider the table fully set until there’s a box of Kleenex on it.

4.

You think that double and triple parking is ok when you can’t find a spot right next to the door.

5.

You say ‘inshallah’ even when referring to events that are actually happening.

6.

You leave the plastic on your car seats until it falls off.

7.

You think that ‘hellohowareyoufine?’ is an appropriate greeting.

8.

You consider eating with a fork or spoon, ostentatious.

9.

You accept one word answers like ‘haram,’ ‘Muscat’ or ‘change’ as legitimate responses to the question of ‘why?’

10.

You’ve stopped asking why.

11.

You think men in dresses look stylish.

12.

You don’t find any sexual connotation in ‘girl passage.’

13.

You have wasta.

14.

When you see ‘haram’ behavior in a film, you ‘tisk’ the actors.

15.

Doing nothing all day makes you tired.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/15-signs-you-might-have-been-in-oman-too-long/feed/ 9 http://matadorabroad.com/call-for-submissions-tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life/ http://matadorabroad.com/call-for-submissions-tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:09:07 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3052

Photo: author

Submit your stories about expat life.

I’m looking for stories about expats exploring the complicated terrain of cultural differences, attempting to come into some sort of a mutual understanding.

I’d like to hear about how you navigated the ups, downs, sudden about-faces and gradual revelations of attempting to integrate yourself into another culture. Your stories could take place in the classroom, on the street from your perspective as a man or a woman newly aware of your gender in another culture, in a restaurant or a smoky kitchen, in wellies knee-deep in the mud, in a board conference room at a meeting with inscrutable colleagues, smoking a pipe around a campfire.

The point is, give us a sense of place and a sense of movement, internal as much as external. Move us through your changing perceptions as you adapt to life abroad. Please, please, avoid the maudlin and the cliché. Avoid a pretty little realization wrapped up like a Christmas gift with no tape snaking round the edges of the gift wrap. Show us the tape: the process. What cultural assumptions have you confronted? How? Where? What cultural differences have you bumped up against, have surprised you, interested you?

Please send your submissions (under 1,200 words) to sarah@matadornetwork.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/call-for-submissions-tales-from-the-frontier-of-expat-life/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/expat-artists-how-living-abroad-facilitates-the-creative-life/ http://matadorabroad.com/expat-artists-how-living-abroad-facilitates-the-creative-life/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:03:57 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=3007

Photos: Fotos Oaxaca

Why artists choose to become expats.

There is, of course, a long tradition of the expatriate artist. Fitzgerald and Hemingway left a trail of expat glamour along the left bank that still beckons smitten American intellectuals today, and artists from Gauguin to Kerouac have fled the confining norms and lifestyles of their home countries to search for inspiration abroad.

The New York Times recently ran a piece about expat artists in China, profiling several of these artists and exploring their reasons for heading East. Among them are familiar expat justifications for leaving home: lowered costs, the escape from gentrification and market-and-money driven societies, and the creativity that emerges from the challenges and constant stimulation of immersion in a foreign culture.

China, with its relentless blind march into modernity coupled with its low cost of living, has a particular appeal for expat artists. Living in Beijing I remember being stupefied by the size and scale of the art in the Dashanzi art district, the way it rambled boldly this way and that drunk on sheer exuberance. There were giant boobs. Massive installations in old factory spaces. Life-size Maoist soldiers and rooms full of TV’s. Dashanzi didn’t have the stale, postured pretension of other art districts in major Western cities. It was giddy and taken with its own life force.

It is this type of energy that expat artists seek, and China provides it (along with a fat heap of frustrations, cultural differences and political threats which are stimulating when not maddening). But the same energy can also be found in many other places, particularly developing countries where artists don’t have to obsess as much over striking the balance between earning and creating, and where daily life serves up a chaos of encounters that get the creative brain off and running.

The uncertainties; the need for constant observation and awareness; the thrill in detail and novelty; the conscious and unconscious struggles to dig in deeper; the search for local stories and puzzle pieces to put together; all of these components of expat life are also keys to the creative process. So it seems that living overseas and creating are natural compliments.

Then there’s the sense of creative abandon abroad, the liberation from whatever aesthetic, social, cultural norms might reign in the artist in at home. To put it very simply: you’ve just got to pay more attention living overseas. And that’s what artists do – pay close attention to the world, and then remake it.

I live in Oaxaca for a host of reasons – my husband’s Oaxacan, I can’t imagine living in the States after five years abroad, I can survive off of a meager salary and still treat myself to beers and good food from time to time. But living here also keeps me sharp. There is always something to study, intellectually or aesthetically, from the smell of the air to the old man carving spoons outside the market. There’s always a new puzzle, be it one that makes me want to scream and bemoan the loss of cheddar cheese and an easy sense of belonging or one that delivers me once more to that childlike state of awe.

So expat life, for many artists, is a way of tapping into and enhancing the creative flow, even if it means at times you get bowled over by a river you can’t control. It allows artists the freedom and stimulation to create. And to take breaks from such creation to eat fresh, warm, hand-rolled tortillas at the market, as I’m going to do right now.

Community Connection

And you, Matadorians? Have you considered living overseas? Are you currently an expat? What were your motivations for going?

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/expat-artists-how-living-abroad-facilitates-the-creative-life/feed/ 15 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-thailand/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-thailand/#comments Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:24:35 +0000 Katherine Stone http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2986

Feature Photo: darcyinKoreaPhoto:zoutedrop

Learning to live like a Thai.

I am a 23 year old, a year out of college, who desired a nomad life, a life of extraordinary ordinariness.

So I moved to Thailand. I’m learning how to live like a Thai. Instead of trips, I hit the road for lengthy “stays”. I like to live, not visit. I find being a temporary tourist is just not as satisfying.

My day begins with the breaking sun at six am. The heat is enough to get me out of bed without much difficulty. Living in a tropical climate with one fan means you wake up flushed and damp. It’s a good thing that a cold shower in the morning feels good because that is the only temperature available.

I tune into streaming NPR podcasts, usually “All Things Considered” or “Talk of the Nation.” It helps me feel connected to the outside world when home can seem so far away. During this part of the morning I laze around in my room, listening to the radio and hanging up laundry to dry in the sun.

Photo: jessicarabbit

I find that it’s easier to do laundry little by little. Laundry is overwhelming when you are forced to hand wash a huge pile all at once. I’ll cut up papaya I bought for 30 baht from the local fruit stand and mix it with yogurt and muesli for breakfast. I try and ration out the muesli, as it can be quite expensive.

I head to school around 8:30 am. I’ll hop on a motorbike to take me the two miles to school for 10 baht. I head into my office, organize my lessons for the day and wait for assembly to start. Everyday they play a patriotic hymn to signal that assembly is going to start shortly.

We make our way down and stand with the 700 students as they sing the Thai National Anthem and list off announcements in Thai. We can’t understand what is going on but making the effort to be a part of assembly is a significant part of ingratiating ourselves amongst the other Thai teachers.

I head over to Adubon, which is the kindergarten building to teach classes in the morning. My methods consist of singing songs and corresponding dances to help the kids learn. For kindergarteners it is all about play and through that play, with high hopes, they will retain a portion of what I am trying to teach them.

Class begins and ends with the kids piling on top of me trying to hug a piece of me. The Head of Adubon, Teacher Oo, is usually eying me disapprovingly. I just ignore her sneer. I love that the kids are so much more comfortable with me, that they feel safe with me, and humored by me.

When lunch rolls around I am crossing my fingers for my favorite dishes. Lunch is always a surprise. Some days’ lunch can be rather unfortunate, such as fish cakes. The fishiness overwhelms the canteen; and on those days it is the first smell upon entering school.

Most of the time, however, the canteen serves delicious traditional Thai food with Thai desserts. I eat with a couple of the Thai teachers. They talk in their best English and I talk in my best Thai. We have somewhat stilted conversations that always seem to find their way to a solid middle ground.

After lunch, I’m usually exhausted from the heat and having eaten my biggest meal of the day. I always have the hour after lunch free so I cozy up in my office, turn on the fan, lean back in the chair and put my feet up. I see the Thai teacher’s doing it, so I assume I can get away with it. I can pass out within seconds listening to the din of the kids playing in the courtyard, the feel of the stale heat as I breathe in and out and the fan breeze blowing the hair out of my eyes.

Photo: flydime

Once I finished up my classes for the day I normally feel in need of another nap. Afternoons are more difficult to teach; the kids are tired from the starchy heat and lunch always inspires a more talkative mood. After the first twenty minutes of trying to settle them down end up fruitless, I have to resign myself to accepting my efforts are futile. Since our school is a private institution, it is much more laid back than others in Thailand.

In the late afternoon I drop by the Olympic size pool in the back of the school. It’s nice to jump in the pool after a long hot day and swim out any frustrations through laps. It is also highly meditative and allows me to organize my thoughts. In regards to bathing suits, I do have to cover up my shoulders and stomach with a rash guard. As an ajarn I am expected to act and dress much more conservatively than anyone else.

I tend to enjoy the walk home after a swim. It’s only two miles and it’s nice at sunset. I stop by Pi Jiep’s and buy a coconut smoothie freshly made for 15 baht (about 40 cents). For dinner, oftentimes I will cook at home on the hot plate. I’ll mix up some veggies such as fresh eggplant, beans, cabbage, tomatoes with garlic and onions and make some sweet green curry, known as gaeng kaeo wan. I’ll make rice in the cooker.

Other evenings I visit the cottage vendors and have dinner with some of the teachers. The cottage vendors are people in the community who want to make some supplemental income by selling various deep-fried snacks or often serving full meals.

I make my way back through the neighborhood , while trying to avoid the packs of dogs that follow me home biting at my heels.

I take a cold shower so I can fall asleep in the heat and get ready to do it all over again.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-thailand/feed/ 15 http://matadorabroad.com/gringos-in-mexico-and-that-elusive-quest-for-authenticity/ http://matadorabroad.com/gringos-in-mexico-and-that-elusive-quest-for-authenticity/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:05:43 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2972

Feature and Above Photo: Fotos Oaxaca

A traveler goes for a ride on a gringo tour bus and comes away with some unexpected observations about authenticity.

We piled on the bus like a group of awkward middle-aged kindergarteners, fumbling around and smacking our heads against the plastic TV’s. My mom, sister and I, the slightly skeptical cool kids, formed a little grouplet in the back of the bus. There must’ve been around thirty of us altogether, masses of white flesh, sandals, and outdoor wear. The Spanish teacher proceeded to make very slow, meticulous announcements about where we were going and how long it would take to get there, and the middle-aged gringos shuffled around in their seats, chatting.

The bus pulled out of the city and glided onto the highway into the valley. Gringo murmurs filled the cool bus air and the valley opened up into greens, yellows, and rocky buttes, long squares of corn and grass stretching up to dry peaks. Half-built tin houses and orange-green mezcalerías with small maguey fields hinted vaguely, half-heartedly, at the presence of people.

The journey to Mitla was uneventful, all those gringo bodies carted around in a big clean gringo bus that bumbled through ramshackle Mexican pueblos, towering above the moto-taxis and pedestrians and squat Ford stick-shifts, us with our white faces stuck to the windows looking out onto hot, brown-green Mexico.

Photo: author

It felt bizarre. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a tour bus. I’m skeptical of the ol’ backpacker standard affirming the inauthenticity of the tour bus vs. the authentic quest of the “traveler” but damn, I must say that being on one of the things does throw one’s perspective for a loop. Even for someone who thinks she’s cynical enough to grasp and honor the postmodern lack of authenticity behind just about any travel experience, the organized tour can be a bit jarring.

In the beginning, I couldn’t get over the stark inside/outside divide. We sat on our big blue seats in our big white bus looking out on the jumbled cubist scenes below, disarray in various shapes, colors, and sizes, foreignness sprawled out there before us like a movie set we could venture into and shrink from when it got to be too much, and eventually wrap up neatly into a few trinkets and photos so we could say, proudly,

“One time, in Mexico…” or “In Mexico, they do this…” with that satisfied smack of the captured experience.

We got out of the bus in Mitla, blinking, stumbling, little swirls of dust rising around our feet, plunk, plunk, plunk, one gringo after another plunking out of the bus like penguins wandering dazed out of a cave under the watchful eyes of zoo-goers. The sun was high and hot at 10 a.m. and we were standing on the side of the road in a dusty pueblo.

Photo: author

The Spanish teacher guide shooed us this way and that, speaking very carefully as if one of us might dumbly wander over to the other side of the road and get lost, a scenario that I had to admit wasn’t terribly unlikely. Her Spanish came in the cadence of the kindergarten teacher who has spent years explaining how not to hit one’s neighbors and why one shouldn’t eat the glue.

We filed into a family home. One gringo after another, looking this way and that, smiling politely and trying, in all earnestness, to squeeze poignancy and insights and deeply meaningful authenticity out of everything from flowers to dog to grandma. We just kept coming in, one after another, until the simple living room, with its old faded couches in the corners and its pretty altar adorned with photos and flowers, was packed full of gringos.

The Spanish teacher admonished us to make room for the new arrivals and we kept packing in, squeezing into corners and crowding round the couches, the never-ending gringo parade. When we were all relatively settled and quiet, our gringo minder presented the house’s grandma, an older woman with gray-white hair and a gray dress, whom the gringos actually applauded, with no sense of irony or absurdity, in an outburst of gratefulness – A Mexican! A real one! And she’s old! And folkloric! And representative of everything we want to feel and experience and care about before we go back to work on Monday!

Eager and primed on all sorts of travel lit and the spiritual necessity to squeeze every ounce of Culture out of the experience, it’s hard to fight the urge to applaud Grandma Mexico.

The grandma talked about the altar and why she’d built it, and maybe half of the gringos understood, but everyone nodded because they knew she was talking about Culture and whatever it was was deeply moving and emotional and poignant and something they should talk about in hushed, contemplative tones with their friends and co-workers in a few weeks. So they nodded. The grandma finished explaining and took her leave under the mixed gazes of pity and admiration and perhaps, caught up somewhere in there, a tame form of envy.

Then they served the mezcal. We partook – five tiny plastic cups, five people sipping and laughing. We had one foot out of the experience and one foot in, but for all we tried to look at it on a meta-level our gringoness and the inherent absurdity of our presence in that house in Mitla was exposed and handed to us on a platter.

Tourism, that ugly condition “travelers” like myself try to hide, was branded on our foreheads. A gringo stepped in the flower pot containing zempasuchitl, the flower of the dead, and flowers and water went everywhere. The gringo tried to extract himself, ready the pot, tidy up the flowers, and a swarm of Mexicans surrounded him and removed him from the situation. Everyone was milling around drinking mezcal, turning red, swapping travel stories.

We went to the cemetery slightly buzzed and fully immersed in the absurdity, blinking into the sun, stepping gingerly over the speed bumps and rocks and discarded gravel of the pueblo road, the gringo parade now on full display for the town.

“I feel like we should be singing the national anthem or something,” I whispered to my friend. To complete the full-on gringo show, to make the consumption of pre-fabricated cultural assumptions a little more mutual. We were, I felt, tall and fat and white and nearly all in sneakers or sandals and professional outdoor wear bought from some glass-walled shop in the parking lot of a giant shopping complex somewhere in America.

The blue sky exposed us, the people of Mitla cast bemused passing glances at us and hurried on, and we sipped our little plastic cups of mezcal and soaked up the nearby mountains rising, the white, hot, yellow dryness of Mitla.

The cemetery was a jolt back into reality. Not the reality of the gringo imagination, but the reality of the Day of the Dead in Mitla, of Mexicans going through a ritual that was actual and felt and present and, dare I say it, genuine in that moment. A reality that would exist with or without the presence of the needy wandering gringo-child.

Photo: author

Flowers were everywhere and on everything, calla lilies, marigolds, vibrant purple masses of furry flowers on white-gray graves. The flowers, the sun, the blue sky, made a kaleidscope of color. People bustled in the unhurried way Mexicans bustle, stepping around graves, lighting incense, sorting flowers, carrying babies, sweeping.

There were babies and old people and couples and people laughing and señoras with twin braids with silken fabric woven into them. There was an old, rusted bike I focused on for a minute, narrowing my vision down to one thing. I could start to pick out the tourists after a few minutes, but they were irrelevant, all caught up just as I was.

We walked around for awhile, dazed, looking at graves and at people sweeping and dressing them in flowers, taken aback by the reality of it.

The Spanish teacher tried to keep the order of the cultural lesson in tact, instructing in the same careful tones how the family kept up the grave of the maternal grandparents and then the paternal grandparents, but the neatly packaged and constructed pseudo-authenticity of the experience had briefly disintegrated as people dispersed into different corners of the graveyard, some still chatting about travels through Sweden and only barely catching a glimpse of the spectacle of here and now in Mitla Mexico (would they even remember the town’s name? I doubted it. But it wasn’t really necessary for “one time in Mexico I went to…”) but others absorbing, sorting through that confusing mental stew of outsiderness and insiderness, of wanting to understand and almost understanding, of experiential learning where reflection and experience go side by side, jostling each other.

Then we left. It was back on the street, a little quieter, fireworks going off everywhere around the town now. The little, poppy, jolt-you-out-of-your-skin fireworks they set off every minute of every day around Mexico. Smoke trails lingered in the sky against the blue. People were “bringing back their dead” according to a friend of mine, who managed to walk through the whole experience – bus tour, family home, cemetery, mezcal – with calm grace and humility. A drunk, brown, round nut of a man in a white straw hat weaved towards and away from our gringo parade.

“I live in U.S.,” he slurred in broken English, weaving. “Atlanta.”

Only my teaching experience could help pick out the words. Other gringos shied away from him, wary. I, stupidly, caught his eye and gave a “buenos tardes,” which he latched on to instantly. I spoke in Spanish, he responded in English.

“Trabajas en los estados unidos?” I asked politely.

“I live there,” he slurred, “I’m a resident.” He was half-looking at me and half weaving.

“Ok,” I said, “y qué haces aquí?”

“Vacation,” he said, “I’m on vacation!” There was something much more doomed than enthusiastic about it.

My mom attempted to join the conversation but couldn’t understand a word the man said. We reached the house and started filing through the door again, and the man knew his vacation was ending there. There would be no authentic Mitla and mezcal sipping for him, not there, anyway. He took advantage of one last try and took my mom by the hand, pulled her aside, and attempted a gallant kiss on the cheek.

“Beautiful, very beautiful woman!” he said.

We went inside, laughing, but I felt a little sickened by the interaction with the man, jutting into the tidy cultural experience of our gringo parade. There wasn’t time for sociological analysis or guilt, though, as we were all soon crowded back around the altar and the family was crying and fireworks were going off outside and my family was crying over the death of my grandparents and then we were drinking beers and eating mole around a table on folding chairs, and a gringo was bragging about how he bought a belt off a peasant in Guatemala for “more money than that guy had ever seen in his life” and when my friend asked how the peasant held his pants up, the gringo shrugged and said, “pins or something.”

I couldn’t really deal with that without making everyone slightly uncomfortable, so I had to stand up and go hover around the baby, who was almost as exciting a gringo attraction as grandma. Being at a susceptible biological moment in my life, I couldn’t resist the baby pull.

She was a little girl called Carlita, oblivious to the oddness of the beaming white faces staring down at her, giving little coos and bubbly smiles to her adoring foreign audience. I let her clasp my finger for a bit and then wandered outside, to where my sister had escaped from the increasingly suffocating swapping of travel tales (“you’ve been to that place in the highlands of Guatemala, too? Almost no one goes there…”)

There was a yard out back, a scrappy little dog, and the quiet sense of life going on as it usually does off down the dusty roads.

The Spanish teacher instructed us that the señoras in this house hicieron trabajos artísticos muy bonitos and we should consider buying scarves porque esta familia nos dio todo gratís y son muy amables, muy amables. It was like having a National Geographic for Kids voiceover distilling the experience for us, dictating where our emotions and priorities and attention should be at any given time. Most people complied with the voiceover’s instructions and bought scarves, lots of them, and soon the gringos were bedecked in bright greens and pinks and blues, beaming over their purchases.

I stood back and observed, and I saw in their faces – trying in broken Spanish to talk with the Mexican grandma, trying on scarves, fondling the material – the desperate need for connection. Something, anything spiritual, anything “real” would do, they just wanted to be a part of it.

If they could buy it for twenty pesos it was an enormous relief, mission accomplished, and if they could give that money directly to this Mexican grandma it was like some big, sweet gulp of water in the parched spiritual desert of the American marketplace, of daily American life.

It was the brief relief from some sort of long detachment and disconnect, and maybe it was all they needed, maybe it was just a vain construct in a world gone so postmodern that even relief from commodification fed back into greater commodification, but it could also have been the spark, the indication, of something much greater. An indication of yearning for a certain connectedness between people, traditions, and beliefs outside of the realm of what could be commodified, bought and sold.

How many of those Columbia boots and jackets and t-shirts had been made in Cambodia somewhere, by a five-year old, and yet their wearers were so desperate to get a little bit of connection here, to feel like this act of buying was noble and was helping to preserve and respect something they honored and even, perhaps, envied.

Instead of seeing that paradox as ironic, I wanted to see it as hopeful – the desire to participate in and respect this culture and its people, to show gratitude for it, and to be respected by it, overlapping the blind, disconnected and detached decisions that go into buying a pair of pants at Target. Maybe the former would usurp the latter, or at least question it.

So perhaps it was the mezcal, but I felt hope there. Of course we then piled back onto the bus, with people already formulating their anecdotes to tell on next year’s trip to Belize, and promptly stopped at a sprawling tourist market full of Mexican souvenirs made in China.

Everyone plodded out and plodded on again, but hardly anyone bought anything. Perhaps that was simply an anomaly, an indication that they were all too tired and sunburned to care. But I like to think it was because they’d gotten a taste of a certain connectedness, and they were still wrapped up in it. And perhaps, the rest of it felt false. Who knew how long it’d last, who knew if it was all a figment of what I wanted to believe. Twenty minutes later we stepped back onto the colonial streets of Oaxaca and parted ways, so I suppose I’ll never know.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/gringos-in-mexico-and-that-elusive-quest-for-authenticity/feed/ 13 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-osaka-japan/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-osaka-japan/#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 20:43:06 +0000 Eva Sandoval http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2965

Feature Photo: joopdorresteijn Photo: zemoko

08:00

A beautiful Saturday morning in Osaka. What to do … a day-trip to historic Kyoto? An abandoned railroad hike in Hyogo? If only. Saturday mornings in Japan often mean work so I stretch once more on my futon before beginning my day.

08:30

Breakfast is shokopan toast and a carton of aloe yogurt. I throw a couple of wrapped negitoro onigiri – tuna and scallion rice balls – into my purse for lunch.

9:00

Photo: antijeverena

I ride my bike to the Abikocho JR Hanwa train station and chain it near a restaurant – never near at the station itself, where it’s prey for the Osaka bike police. At Tennoji Station, I switch to the Loop Line. On board, there are obaa-chans in kimono and salary men in their traditional black suits, white shirts, and black ties.

We pass shopping arcades, convenience stores, and gray Japanese homes roofed with tiles that curve like ruffled bird feathers. It’s autumn, so trees aflame with red maple leaves dot the landscape. Blue mountains and the heron-winged Osaka Castle loom in the distance.

10:00

At work. Like most expats in Japan, I teach English. I work for one of the big conversation school chains; we wear suits and the customer is always right. Today, I’m early – no need to fill out a Lateness Explanation form.

10:15

Photo: akahige

My morning classes start.

I quiz the kids: “How are you?”

“Five,” they answer.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“Fine.”

I try to start a game. Miyabi complains. Chio and Sara gab loudly. Yuki throws a book at me. I lose my temper and scold them in Japanese; a no-no at my company. Did I mention I’m a writer, not a teacher? My subconscious whisks me away to my happy place – Yudanaka onsen overlooking the Nagano Mountains. Rocks. Petals falling on still water. Steam. Bliss!

These Saturday kids are nothing like the ones I teach the rest of the week. Those sweethearts run into school shouting, “Where’s Eba-sensei?” They love learning and I leave class feeling proud.

Teaching in any country is the best of times and the worst of times.

12:30

Lunch. We don’t get meal breaks at my school so food must be eaten in the ten-minute gaps between classes, hunched over a shared desk. At lunch, the other teachers and I catch up:

“How’s the karate?”

“Great – how’s the Japanese study coming?”

“It’s coming. I’ve started ikebana lessons, too.”

“Nice!”

“… I wish I didn’t have to teach. I only do it for the Visa because I’ve never been as creative as I am here in Japan.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

13:00

Afternoon classes. Adults ask me if I can use chopsticks; children hide my flashcards.

16:05

Photo: sakura_chihaya

Quitting time. I punch out and head to a nearby takoyaki stand. Takoyaki – a quintessential Osaka snack – are delicious ball-shaped octopus fritters. I’m too hungry to wait for them to cool and immediately burn my tongue on the creamy but volcanic batter.

16:45

On the train home, I study Japanese passive verbs. As I’m studying, my keitai throbs with texts from my friends. It’s Jeff’s’s birthday and everyone wants to know when we’re meeting. I tell them what Chisato, Jeff’s girlfriend, told me; we’ll meet at 7:30 in Namba. From there, the usual: izakaya and karaoke.

17:15

My bike is still parked where I left it – phew.

17:25.

Home. My boyfriend, Sean, is watching a TV cooking show where women are making nabe, a traditional cold weather stew. They slice daikon and brew dashi while the host watches. He takes a sip and blinks in shock at its deliciousness before shouting: “Umai!!!” Delicious. Commercial break: “comedian” Kojima Yoshio prances out in his Speedo to hawk AU cell phones. We change the channel.

19:45

Namba. Everyone’s here – five Japanese girls and eight expats with accents from all over the English Speaking World map.

“Otanjoubi omedetou!” we shout at the birthday boy. As we head to the neon cacophony of Dotombori street, we pass pulsing pachinko parlors and otaku kids dressed like goth Strawberry Shortcakes. As we reach the famous giant Dotombori crab, I see a Dachsund dressed as a cheerleader. Several meters on, a Chihuahua dressed as a sailor.

20:30

In the smoke-filled izakaya. I order plum wine, sashimi, and several kinds of barbecued yakitori skewers including roast beef and tasty chicken heart. Had you asked me two years ago if I’d ever voluntarily eat organ meat I’d have said, “As if.” Ask me today? “Pass the tongue.”

21:30

Photo: 416style

Karaoke! We rent a private room for an hour. Inside, we order fruity chuhai cocktails, beer, and sing “Happy Birthday” to Jeff. Tomoko sings something by Bump of Chicken, I go for old-school Iruka, and Martin rocks Men at Work.

22:30

Oh, what the heck, make it two hours. More chuhai, beer, and J-pop.

23:30

In a standing-room-only shot bar for the countdown to Last Train. A typical Osaka dilemma: leave at midnight or stay out until 6 a.m. Cabs? Not at 3500 yen to get to Abiko. Sean has his Japanese calligraphy class tomorrow and I’d like to get some writing done so we decide to make the last train. But first, shots. We toast: otsukaresamadesu.

00:15

Made the last train – yosh! It’s filled with red-faced salary men slumping on the seats.

Sarariman why/

do you slump on the train seats?/

are you tired or drunk?/

00:45

Home again. Tipsy internet check. It’s noon back home in New York City and my friends are online.

“Come home,” they type.

“Soon.” I reply. As usual.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-osaka-japan/feed/ 9 http://matadorabroad.com/the-foreigner-nod/ http://matadorabroad.com/the-foreigner-nod/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:28:47 +0000 Anne Merritt http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2956

Feature and Above Photo: alex_s

Have you gotten the nod?

The other day on the subway, I saw two suitcase-laden travelers thumbing through a Lonely Planet Turkey. One caught my eye immediately and gave me The Nod. Oh, you know the nod; the silent exchange between two tourists that says “…sooo…traveling, huh?”

As a blue-eyed, large-nosed, pink-skinned white girl, there are few countries in which I could pass for a local. Even here in Turkey, where blue eyes aren’t a total rarity and some blondes are natural. Every day I get called out as a foreigner, and as a result, I’m no stranger to The Nod.

This exchange can vary greatly on the amiability scale. I’ve ranked them below, from most hostile to most friendly.

Dead Eyes

Photo: rich115

This is when your fellow tourist sees you and looks right through you. Who, me? Their eyes say in that split-second connection. You think I’m like you? Sucker, I blend into this culture like [local uncommon spice] into [local uncommon dish]. Just to prove it, I’m going to tell a joke to this chestnut vendor in the local language. Yeah, just TRY and laugh along, tourist!

A variation to Dead Eyes is outright, unconcealed disappointment. This occurs when a tourist fancies themselves to be a trailblazer off the guidebook path, and hates the thought of another foreigner doing the same. Once, in a tiny alley in Beijing, a backpacker actually groaned in disappointment when she saw me.

The Sympathizer

It’s like the “shucks, small world!” nod you would give in a coffee shop to someone reading the same novel as you. I once rode a 20-minute subway in Korea, seated across from a white guy who didn’t once speak to me. Instead, he glanced at me throughout the ride with co-conspiratorial gestures and faces. Whoa, look at that guy’s pink jeans! Those schoolgirls giggle loudly, huh? Whoo, this foreign currency is confusing!

It was an oddly nice experience; a shared joke between two strangers. It’s an attitude of unity. “What surprises me surely surprises you too, so let’s get a kick out of it together.”

Photo: Smart Destinations

The Weak Chit-Chat

Sometimes you’ll meet the hyper-social, hyper-friendly traveler who is thrilled with the opportunity to relate to someone. Once they spot a fellow foreigner, they’ll sprint across a crowded museum or park to come and chat. About what? About being fellow tourists.

“Where are you from?”

“Are you here on holiday?”

“What have you seen so far?”

“Oh yeah, we saw that. Wasn’t that great?”

…it usually flatlines when you realize there’s little common ground beyond both being foreign. So it ends, awkwardly, around here.

The Burning Ears

Another form of the foreigner nod occurs in travel when you realize that the people beside you are chatting in English. Aha! Fellow tourists! You glance at one another, exchange some form of The Nod, and then your conversation is finished. Why? Obviously, the other English-speaking party will eavesdrop, and vice-versa. It’s almost impossible to tune out your native language when it’s spoken in a foreign country.

Community Connection

And you, Matadorians? Does this resonate with your experiences abroad? Share your encounters with foreigners below.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/the-foreigner-nod/feed/ 23 http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-be-a-vegetarian-in-korea/ http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-be-a-vegetarian-in-korea/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:44:23 +0000 Ahimsa Kerp http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2854

Feature Photo: roland Photo: jensen_chua

How to be veggie in a meat-loving land.

Coming to Korea as a vegetarian is a little like going to Nashville if you hate country music. There’s not a lot that’s going to interest you. More omnivorous folk will enjoy Korean barbecue (galbi) and an astounding array of seafood. But vegetarians (in particular vegans) will have a much harder time of it.

For those who can compromise a bit (by, say, picking the pork out of their rice ball) Korea won’t be so daunting. But if you’re more committed to your salad diet, it’s not going to be easy. There are three main problems for vegetarians in South Korea.

Ignorance.

Photo: anja_johnson

There is no word in Korean for vegetarian and the concept is often quite foreign to Koreans. Even my employer, who lived abroad for years and knows what a vegetarian is, will cheerfully offer me fish, chicken, spam, or tuna and is always quite surprised and sad when I turn it down.

Restaurants rarely make provisions for vegetarians, and special orders are not accepted. This is different in foreign friendly and ethnic restaurants, but the vast majority of restaurants here feature the same menu, the same interior, and seemingly the same adjumma (married woman) waiting at the door.

The Sheer Prevalence of Meat.

Every meal here, nearly, features some part of an animal. (Often a part of an animal that is quite surprising to Westerners). Even Kimchi, fermented cabbage, is so frequently made with shrimp or fish sauce that it’s off-limits. Soups and broths will have everything from chicken stock to floating fish heads.

Photo: anja_johnson

You can apparently find vegetarian kimbap, (sushi) but it’s not easy (I haven’t actually found it in 10 months). Even rice isn’t quite so safe–it too is often enhanced with small shrimp. The one true veggie-friendly dish is bibimbap, a mixture of rice, vegetables, and chili sauce. Vegans though will have to ditch the egg and sometimes it has ground beef.

Culture.

The language barrier is, if not insurmountable, a real challenge. Koreans are not as used to hearing broken Korean, and communication can be haphazard at best. Harder still is the Korean custom that you eat what is given to you. There is no such thing as “hold the onions” or “can I get tofu instead of cheese?”

This is by and large not culturally permissible here, most particularly in Korean restaurants.

Photo: anja_johnson

Those three challenges are foreboding, to be sure. But there are also three corresponding things you can do to surmount these obstacles.

Cook.

Cooking for yourself is fun, and the pluses are obvious. It’s cheaper, you get exactly what you want, and you know what you’re eating. Find an E-Mart or Homeplus and you can stock up on staples like rice, pasta, produce, marinara, chips, salsa, peanut butter and jelly, soy milk, and baked beans.

A problem with this is that you can’t read the ingredients on anything, and so things like instant noodles or really any pre-packaged food are out. Something else to keep in mind is that there is a high probability that you will not have an oven, so be prepared to take a year off from baking.

Photo: anja_johnson

Also, make sure you check the expiration date–they will sell things a year or two past here. Nonetheless, it’s quite easy, affordable, and pleasant here to cook up some pasta or stir fries.

Explore.

Ever so slowly, the numbers of veggie friendly places are increasing. You can get really good soy cream at a scattering of Soy Delicious outlets throughout Seoul. The artsy district of Insadong has vegetarian restaurants, though I find them to be expensive and not all that nice.

Also in Seoul, there’s a vegan bakery in Mok-dong and a vegan restaurant in Sinchon that sells everything from veggie burgers to mandu (Korean Dumplings). The restaurant also sells mock-meats, vegan bread, vegan ramen, and other goods that you can take home. Itaewon, famous for its rowdy nightlife, has half a dozen Indian buffets and a foreign food market where you can find lentils, chickpeas, oatmeal, and extremely frostbitten tempeh.

Embrace Pringles.

To be honest, you will probably be hungry a lot. If not either at home or one of the foreigner friendly zones, finding something you know is vegetarian is often not possible. You can usually find fruit for sale on roadside trucks, and occasionally 7-11 will sell yubu (Korea’s answer to inari) but often you may end up with a best-case scenario of snickers or potato chips.

If you can plan ahead and bring food, this will be best, but it’s often difficult to always be prepared.

Finding food you can eat as a vegetarian may be one of the biggest challenges of your time in Korea. But there are options out there if you’re willing to put in the extra effort.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/how-to-be-a-vegetarian-in-korea/feed/ 19 http://matadorabroad.com/being-foreign/ http://matadorabroad.com/being-foreign/#comments Sat, 26 Dec 2009 14:47:58 +0000 Tim Patterson http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2835

Separate spheres. All photos by Irargerich

Being foreign is a revelatory experience, but not all travelers are able to return home.

Last week my section of Cathay Pacific flight 882 from Hong Kong to Los Angeles was full of refugees from Myanmar, a nervous group of 39 men, women and children bundled up in winter coats, each clutching a plastic bag emblazoned with the logo of the International Organization for Migration.

During the long flight, the man next to me – an ethnic Chin – struggled with his in-flight entertainment system. Finally, he got a movie to play – a Beverly Hills 90210 sort of film, featuring wide-eyed blonds flirting with country club pool-boys and shopping on Rodeo Drive.

Fractured clouds

Watching the man watch an idealized vision of America as we cruised over the Aleutians, I thought about the the transition he would face adapting to life in the real America. How would he reconcile the gaps between expectations and reality?

He didn’t speak any English. He was going to the state of Washington.

No matter how well this particular Chin refugee dealt with the transition to life in America, he would have to adjust to being a foreigner in an unrelentingly foreign culture and environment.

The concept of ‘being foreign’ is central to the experience of travel, but mainstream travel media rarely seems to address it head on. The British magazine The Economist recently published a thoughtful meditation on being foreign. One line was especially resonant for me, as I thought about the refugees, exiles in a foreign land:

For the real exile, foreignness is not an adventure but a test of endurance.

We voluntary travelers are so fortunate, in so many ways.

Community Connection

For a look at the challenges the refugees overcame before getting on the plane to America, check out the article Waiting For Life to Begin in a Burmese Refugee Camp.

Clearly, refugees need a lot of support here in the States. Does anyone know how to help out? What nationalities are being resettled in your area? Please leave a comment below!

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/being-foreign/feed/ 7 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-santiago-chile/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-santiago-chile/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:49:18 +0000 Eileen Smith http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2709

Photos: author

Bikes, protests, skateboarders and microbrews – a day in the life in Santiago.

The first sound I hear most mornings in the springtime is chirpity birds with their own version of the piropo, a pseou-pseou chirrrp.

Then comes the fffft fffft of someone sweeping the sidewalk six stories below, and the squeeeeeeal of my across-the-hall neighbor’s stovetop teakettle, an oddity in the land of electric ones that turn themselves off automatically.

Later, as my neighbors wake up, I hear the whrrrr of the elevator and the old school wooden gate that you must pull shut before moving down. A floor-mate or two commutes by bike and I hear the clickclickclick as they wheel their steeds down the hall.

Then the building is ours, the work-at-homes, stay-at-homes and one crotchety elderly shut-in, a foreigner like me who came to live in Chile when she was young and able-bodied. She’s angry now, which is either the cause of or result of her bad relationship with her grown children.

The day plods on. I scoop precious fine ground coffee into the espresso maker and wait for the sputter to let me know it’s done. I have maybe some yogurt and fruit or toast and cheese for breakfast, and my day gets underway.

Depending on what I have scheduled for that day, I’ll get to work. I’m a writer, translator, teacher, editor, blogger, photographer and community outreach ninja for Matador. Some of that requires attention every day, some only sporadically. I’ll spend from eight to about noon working on sundry projects or drumming up more if I can see an empty space looming in my schedule.

If I hear a protest from my house or see reports of one on any of my local news sites or Twitter (which I bounce back and forth between in between sentences, phone calls, etc), I’ll usually stop what I’m doing and go get a better look, and maybe some snaps. At around 12:30 I’ll check to make sure I don’t have any outstanding invoices to send or follow-up on, and start to get ready for the gym.

I’ll click and slide and whirr downstairs, bike in hand, and head off to the gym, where I’ll either go indie or let a very tiny piston-legged man we affectionately refer to as “el pitufo” (smurf) urge me to ACCELERA! And with MAS CARGA! I’ll do some weights, cool down, shower and if I’m lucky, meet a friend for lunch around Paris Londres, a quirky little cobblestoned neighborhood that’s suddenly safe and hip, or maybe downtown to El Naturista on the pedestrian street Huerfanos for a fresh vegetarian lunch with carrot juice.

If not, it’s home for nibbles, which I will do while catching up on whatever happened since I was last here. Emails and back to writing, fanning the flames under more work, translating, occasionally hunting down an event to shoot (photo) in the afternoon, and hopefully making plans with a friend to meet up later. If it’s an especially free day, I’ll turn my attention to some writing projects I have that are long-term, and as yet, unpaid.

In the later afternoon, around 7, if work permits, I might head out and take pictures of the skateboarders at Parque de Los Reyes. The kids know me, and call me tía, (auntie), a testament to my age, not our family affiliation. We exchange kisses on the cheek and they show me their latest skate-acquisition, hats and t-shirts, shoes and boards. I duck past the cuchuflí vendor and do not buy any of his cream-caramel-filled wafers, focusing on flailing arms, big air and stern looks of concentration on the (mostly) boys’ faces.

By sunset I head out of there, and either head up to Bellas Artes or Providencia to meet up with friends, or maybe cajole someone to coming down to Barrio Brasil, where I live to check out the newly-opened Le Garage, a gothic-interiored building with leaded glass windows and way more space than tables. We’ll nibble and yammer, maybe take a walk around town, and if there’s an outdoor concert or performance on, as there often is during summer months, check that out. Or we might go to Per Piacere, a pizza place with a good selection of artesenal Chilean beers, including my new favorite, Los Volcanes Rojo, which is flavored with cinnamon.

I’ll get home usually between 11 and 2, and at that point make sure there are no fires to put out re: work, make a list of what needs to be done tomorrow (admitting that sometimes items drift across the week without ever getting done), read some nonfiction (usually), and drift off to sueñolandia (dreamland), awaiting tomorrow’s pseou-pseou chirrrp.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-santiago-chile/feed/ 6 http://matadorabroad.com/culture-shock-when-where-and-how-has-it-hit-you/ http://matadorabroad.com/culture-shock-when-where-and-how-has-it-hit-you/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:06:28 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2697

Above Photo: Sarah Menkedick Photos: Jorge Santiago

There are cultures, then there are cultures within cultures, and then there are more cultures within those cultures. Cultures within cultures within cultures. Yes, I’m repeating this that many times to make you feel like you’re watching a spinning top, because that’s what culture starts to look like if you peer at it too closely – all the lines blur together and your head starts to spin and whir. Just when you think you’ve got it and you start to say:

“Mexico is…” some cultural entity pops up and smacks you in the face. Scratch that, you think. I don’t know. Don’t know what this culture is, and don’t know how I feel about it.

That’s why it seems to me that culture shock is the real constant in all of the exploration and exchange that happens traveling. It happens on the first day of your first trip overseas in a foreign country. It also happens on a regular basis in your eleventh year of living abroad. It’s ubiquitous and inevitable and it creeps up at the most unexpected moments.

Even after several years in Mexico, there are still little things that jolt me, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, most of the time in a confusing gray zone between the two.

Why is it that so many men riding in cars feel the need to bark at my dog? At first I thought it was just the street sweepers in a pathetic, bored, macho pick-up attempt. But then it happened again, and again, and I realized, men notice the dog, they pay attention to the dog and…they bark.

I could make attempts to analyze this through the lens of machismo, which wouldn’t be too hard (man sees big dog, man sees girl walking big dog, man feels slightly less manly, man barks) but I actually think it goes further than that. I think it’s about contact.

If you establish some sort of connection to a person, paying attention to their kid or their dog or something about them, you’ve got to follow through with it. I think it harks back to a time when Oaxaca was still a pueblo, and social norms called for a “buenos tardes, señorita,” or its equivalent for everyone you passed. Now those times have (mostly) gone, but still, passing people on the street, I feel a strange obligation to take them into account like I don’t feel anywhere else.

There’s less of a personal space barrier here overall, and when you’ve made eye contact, you’ve made contact. There’s this pressing, suppressed need for acknowledgment. I feel that a lot, and the dog barking incidents are the most recent manifestation.

So when I came across this gorgeous, bone-deep photo essay on culture shock, I immediately related to it. Yep. As a traveler, this is a familiar feeling, sometimes jarring and unpleasant, sometimes thrilling, but indispensable to that experience of being outside one’s comfort zone.

Thus in all of that squirming around you’ve done trying to get comfortable in other cultures, what sorts of shocks and surprises have you had? What have you found traumatic, exhilarating, or both? Please share your culture shock stories below.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/culture-shock-when-where-and-how-has-it-hit-you/feed/ 8 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-gunpo-city-south-korea/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-gunpo-city-south-korea/#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:39:45 +0000 Seth M. Baker http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2679

Feature Photo: Nurpax Photo: Damon Garrett

Expat life in one of the world’s most popular teaching destinations.

Morning

Most mornings, my alarm clock rouses me from sleep, but at least a couple days a week, I’m awakened early by the fruit propagandist. Today is one of those days.

From dawn until noon, the fruit propagandist yells out the day’s deals on pears and persimmons, his rhythmic, authoritarian voice booming through the PA speakers strapped to the top of his fruit-laden truck. I imagine his pitch: East Asia has the best persimmons, better than Oceania. East Asia has always had the best persimmons.

Listening to him, I boil water for instant coffee. As the water boils, I look out the window to check the air pollution. Today it’s so bad the nearby mountains look silver. On the rare days the air is clear, I like to go running. I still want to get outside, so I decide to hike to the temple before work.

Photo: nagyman

Breakfast is a smoothie, fried eggs, and coffee.

I write from nine until early afternoon. As I work, I look out my fourth-floor window at the beige and off-white apartment buildings lined up like dominoes and wonder about the lives lived inside.

My wife likes to sleep late. I try not to rouse her.

Early Afternoon

When I finish my writing for the day, I leave the apartment for my hike. Every day, my guitar-playing neighbor leaves his door open. Today is no different. His riffs fill the gray concrete hallway like smoke as I wait for the elevator.

On the ground floor, I pass the lady in the flower shop. Because of her, my window sill is filled with wilting plants and my Korean vocabulary includes the words for orchid, cactus and violet. Now, though, I don’t need any more plants. I wave to her and continue towards the mountain.

At the base of the mountain, I stop to fill an empty water bottle from the fountain. The fountain is a giant concrete turtle with a spigot coming out its mouth. The water comes from a spring inside the mountain. The icy water washes the taste of instant coffee from my mouth.

I follow the steep trail a kilometer up the hill to the temple. The temple is really a small red and green pagoda with an altar in the middle. A sign tells me villagers from the valley below used to leave sacrifices of food and livestock to appease the mountain spirit and ensure a good harvest.

Even here in the forest I can still hear the drone of the traffic from the highway that rolls over the hills like a spool of wire.

Back down the hill and on to work.

Late Afternoon

Photo: watchsmart

My school is a private English academy in a building with four other English schools, a music school, a dentist, and a raw fish restaurant. The front of the building is lined with bubbling tanks filled with shrimp, squid, and croaker.

I work from three to nine. The kids are young but not babies, between eight and fifteen. Many of them attend public school and two or three after-school academies, but even after a twelve-hour day, they are still bouncing with energy as I teach them Yankee English. Their enthusiasm is contagious. Sometimes ten-year-old girls in pigtails and purple glasses tell me to die.

I drink a lot of instant coffee between classes.

Evening

After a full day of classes, my brain turns to red bean paste. Since the weather has turned colder, I like to stay home and read a novel for a couple hours. Sometimes I’ll dust off my guitar and sing a couple songs for my wife. Evening is the time we spend together, the concerns of the day behind us.

If we want to get out of the apartment, we’ll go ‘downtown,’ an eight-square-block area around the train station. Seoul is an hour away, so we only go there on weekends.

Attached to every eight-story building are vertical signs advertising pubs, restaurants, retail stores, and PC rooms. Their flashing neon lights illuminate the pedestrian streets below.

Stuck in Seoul

My wife and I frequent two restaurants. One is a galbi place. We sit on the floor while pieces of marinated beef cook over a bucket of glowing coals set in the middle of our table. The other is a Chinese pub, complete with red fabric lanterns, bamboo lattice work, and a replica of a soldier from the terracotta army. My favorite dish is described in the menu as ‘happy spicy chicken parts, fried.’

Not so much since I quit smoking, but some nights we’ll meet other teachers for drinks at one of the two popular expat bars in town. At one place, you get your beer in a frozen ice mug. After you finish, you throw the ice at a target in the hopes of winning a free beer. The other place features bartenders who juggle and breathe fire.

Some nights we’ll go with our English-speaking acquaintances to the singing room. There, we don multi-colored wigs and sing Bohemian Rhapsody until our vocal chords ache.

On our way home, we ignore the crosswalk signs and lean on each other for support against the waning night. We know we’ve stayed out too late when we see the fruit propagandist setting up for another day’s work.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-gunpo-city-south-korea/feed/ 4 http://matadorabroad.com/hiking-in-korea-is-like-raving-only-better/ http://matadorabroad.com/hiking-in-korea-is-like-raving-only-better/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:25:43 +0000 John Eperjesi http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2658

Feature photo: Jrwooley6 Photo: Nagyman

Now that I’ve been in Korea for a while, I’ve come to understand that hiking here is like raving, only better.

Koreans are the most stylish hikers on the planet. Forget high-fashion: K-hikers rock high-altitude style. Back in the mid-nineties in the U.S., we called them techno preppies or gangster ravers: high-performance sports gear, vests, plaid shirts, polar fleece, cargo pants, visors, backpacks (minus the pacifiers, glowsticks and sparkles). Instead of the Running Man, they do the Hiking Man for 8 hours straight and still look like they just came out of the shower.

jlfacine

Koreans hike for 6 to 8 hours, then head to small tents for the after-party. But instead of doing drugs, they do shots of soju and magkeolli (a milky rice wine) in joyous constellations of friends, family, and random dharma bums. Drinking several bowls of pure, uncut magkeolli after hiking all day is one of the best highs in the world. Hiking creates surrogate families, postmodern mountain tribes, linked not by biology, but by the mountain spirits, or San-shin.

Seventy-five percent of the Korean peninsula is covered in mountains. As David Mason points out in his survey of the spiritual landscape of Korea, Spirit of the Mountains, this is one of the few places in there world where mountain-worship, a hybrid of Shamanism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism, is still practiced. The mountains of Korea have been serenely multicultural for thousands of years, waiting for the rest of the country to catch up.

JCT(Loves)Streisand*

When you approach the mountain, you see various tribes merge, combine, and then split off on different trails. As you climb a bit, you begin to smell incense and hear trance music in the distance. But instead of Nag Champa and Sasha and Digweed, it’s Buddhist chanting, gongs, drums drifting out of one of the 2000 temples that punctuate the mountainsides.

The chanting and incense blend with the pine-infused mountain air (much healthier than a surgical mask coated in Vics), piercing your lungs and mind, and suddenly you feel alert in a way you never do in they city. Problems and anxieties dissolve.

jlfacine

You become mindful of leaves and trees and clouds and horizons and rocks and smiles and annyeongs. Your mouth tastes clean, your sweat feels warm, you feel connected. People spend a lot of money and waste a lot of time trying to feel this way, and all you’re doing is walking up a mountain with friends or in a densely populated solitude.

At its best, rave culture hoped to tap into something primordial, deep spiritual beats that have migrated from Africa and Asia through Euro-America and back again. Rave culture is alive in Korea, not in the nightclubs, but in the mountains. While there is a desperate shortage of PLUR on the streets of Seoul, there is an abundance of peace, love, unity and respect on the mountains.

Riding the subway home from the mountain reminds me of the bus-ride home from one of those renegade parties back in the day. Some hikers are exhausted and passed out on their backpacks, some still high and chatting and joking and flirting with their friends, some are just dazed and just staring out the window.

Like a good party, coming back from the mountain leaves you refreshed, and a bit cracked out, ready to deal with work, school, or whatever. And after a good long sleep, you wake up, and the first thought that pops in your head is doing it again next weekend.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/hiking-in-korea-is-like-raving-only-better/feed/ 12 http://matadorabroad.com/do-you-represent-your-country-when-you-travel/ http://matadorabroad.com/do-you-represent-your-country-when-you-travel/#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:37:02 +0000 Sarah Menkedick http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2637

Feature Photo: fleno Photo: TheAlieness Gisela Giardino

In travel, the little things can have a lasting impact.

I saw them before I set foot in the pharmacy. They had the bunched up foreheads and overly neat appearance of lost tourists in Mexico, and they were stopped in the middle of the street, staring vaguely off in opposite directions. I gave them a sidelong glance and stepped into the pharmacy to use the ATM. It was broken.

I tried again and again to jam my card in while the man stepped gingerly inside the pharmacy and said in French, “Banque? Banque? La banque?” It was the standard technique of repeating something over and over in the hopes that the person who doesn’t speak your language will spontaneously understand. The girl at the counter shook her head and the man walked out shrugging.

I am sometimes skeptical of offering help to tourists because half the time they look at me as if I’m insane, or as if I’m one of those know-it-all expats who says smugly, “Oh, you don’t know where the bank is, you poor things? Well, I speak fluent Spanish and have lived here for years, so let me just share my expertise with you.”

But I know I am always so grateful when I’m standing on a street corner in some distant country and someone, anyone, steps up with a little guidance.

“Vous allez à la banque?” I asked in French, using my rusty French skills for the first time in four years.
The woman’s eyes lit up. “Oui!” she replied quickly.

“Follow me,” I continued, “I’m going there too.”

They fell into line behind me on the narrow Oaxacan streets, and I slowed my serious dog-walking pace a bit for the two blocks it took to get to the bank. We paused at the light across from the bank entrance and chatted a bit. They were from Paris, on vacation for a week in Mexico. I told them that I’d studied in France seven years ago and that my husband was Mexican and I lived in Oaxaca now.

It was one of those brief, street-side exchanges that is sometimes so much more illuminating the the long regular conversations you have with people you see everyday. One of those little exchanges that seems to reaffirm who you are in two minutes.

When I said goodbye to them outside the bank, I heard the woman say, “C’est une américaine très gentile”: she’s a very kind American. It reminded me that for as absurd as it may be to think one person can represent a country, at least these small interactions and gestures can do something to alleviate resentment against the U.S and perhaps sow affection where once there was scorn.

Walking home that old why-I-travel question nudged itself to the forefront, and I thought, as usual, it’s about the little things. Two-walk blocks to the bank. Brief swaps of who-are-you? And perhaps little seeds of curiosity and compassion, planted.

Community Connection

What do you think, Matadorians? Do you feel the responsibility to represent your country when you’re traveling? What are your stories of brief encounters from the road? If you’ve got a good story of such an encounter, send it along to sarah@matadornetwork.com with “brief encounter” in the subject line. And please sound off below about the little moments and interactions that have changed you on the road.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/do-you-represent-your-country-when-you-travel/feed/ 13 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-istanbul-turkey/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-istanbul-turkey/#comments Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:37:00 +0000 Anne Merritt http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2597

Feature Photo: atilla1000Photo: author

Waking up and going to bed to the rhythm of prayer calls.

4:30am

The first call to prayer of the day. The nearest mosque is one block away, and on nights of restless sleep, it wakes me up. It’s a reminder that slowly, slowly, the city is waking up too.

7:00am

I leave the apartment to catch the service bus that will take me to work. The private high school where I teach English should be a twenty minute drive away. With Istanbul traffic, it can take up to an hour.

At the bus stop, I chat sleepily with the physics teacher. She tells me about her boyfriend who is in his compulsory two years of army service. Her stories are on the lighter side; how she hates his regulation haircut, how he couldn’t even wash a dish in his pre-army days. She misses him.

8:00 a.m

Once at school, the teachers crowd into the neighboring bakery, Bum, whose name always has me giggling like an 8-year-old boy. Turks are highly social folk, and though the teachers are all still sleepy, they flock to the cafe tables to plan lessons and chat over tea and breakfast. The pastry is inexpensive and fresh from the oven. I buy a warm, buttery peynirli poagca (a bun with white cheese) and orange juice.

9:00

In the school, students are buzzing about. Their uniforms are maroon and blue, the colors (so it’s said) of the principal’s favorite football team. Between lessons, the pop English of TV and music trumps the classroom stuff any day, and I’ll hear the odd catchphrase of, “legendary!” or “it’s all good.”

A group of girls are singing “come on Barbie, let’s go party,” and they see me cracking a grin. “Miss Anne, do you know Barbie Girl?” I find myself starting a sentence with “when I was your age…” It’s something I’ve never said before, but these students have an odd interest in 90s music.

Here, if the importance of English is stressed, it’s being done lightly. The students seem to pursue English for their own motives. Some are dying to learn English in order to study abroad, work for international companies, or marry Robert Pattinson. Some are slackers whose obsession with pop culture has them turning up to my class just to chat about Lady Gaga lyrics.

In my beginners class, we talk about home vocabulary. “How many rooms are in your house?” I ask. One student puts up her hand. “I talk about my apartment or my house, or my villa?” she asks. Hoo boy.

12:10

Lunchtime in the cafeteria. On my meal tray, the white carbs are bountiful and the meat is unidentifiable. Here, spaghetti is served with a great dollop of yogurt. Lemon juice is as common a table condiment as salt. The juice boxes contain apricot or black cherry nectar. It seems no one has ever heard of a nut allergy. We’re not in Ontario anymore.

4:50

The homeward commute goes by in a haze, and I’m happy to breathe some clean air as I walk home from the bus stop. I pass the mosque whose garden is always full of cats. Even in the cool autumn, the vendors on my street will set up plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk, between parked cars, anywhere they can squeeze a few seats.

They’ll sit and chat over tea and cigarettes, jumping up when a customer enters their store. I wave hellos to the Turkcell clerk, the brothers who run the greengrocer stand, the bored salesman in the camera shop. The always-cheery deli vendor waves me in to sample a new batch of olives; green ones stuffed with white cheese, floating in oil with chili flakes and lemon slices. I buy an enormous bagful. The cost? Just under three lira ($2USD).

7:00

My boyfriend and I get dinner at the restaurant known amongst our friends as “the homecooked place.” It has a name, but none of us know it. A small buffet of creamy desserts and vegetable-heavy dishes are displayed, and we point and choose our favorites.

The restaurant is run by a chatty family, but the dining room is cozy and always quiet. The mother-daughter team in the open kitchen always pause from their cooking to say a warm hello and bring us bread. Our plates are piled high with tangy potato salad, spinach pastry, bulgur patties and eggplant stew.

8:30

After dinner, we pop into the convenience store beside our building for beer. We buy an Efes and Efes Dark, one of each, and the clerk patiently engages in our Turkish textbook small talk. I’m told that locals refer to a basic grasp of the language as “Tarzan Turkish.”

It’s an apt description for our simple sentences; “Me go cinema today.” “You happy?” “What is your girl-child name?” It’s probably painful to the ears, but our clerk kindly plays along as he packages the beer in a black plastic bag.

At home, we sip our beers on the couch and chat. I’ll write, he’ll play music, or we’ll watch a movie together. When it’s warm, we move our chairs onto the balcony, where the breeze is refreshing and the view of the mosque is perfect. At half past ten, we hear the final call to prayer, usually as we’re brushing our teeth or washing dishes, or else lying in bed with our books in hand. Slowly, slowly, the day is ending.

Community Connection

If you like these windows into expat lives, take a look at A Day in the Life of An Expat in Copenhagen, Denmark, A Day in the Life of A Writer in Zagreb, Croatia and A Day in the Life of An Expat in Oaxaca, Mexico.

And remember, Matador Abroad is still accepting submissions for the Day in the Life of An Expat series – if you’re interested in submitting a day in the life story, send it with “A Day In The Life of An Expat in….” in the subject line to sarah@matadornetwork.com.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-istanbul-turkey/feed/ 8 http://matadorabroad.com/what-do-you-miss-most-oversea/ http://matadorabroad.com/what-do-you-miss-most-oversea/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:28:12 +0000 Linda Golden http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2582

Feature Photo: gúnna Photo: joi

What do you dream about when you’re far from home?

After volunteering for two years in Togo, I was ready to come home. Yet as my departure approached, the anxieties set in – with whom would I practice my French? Where would I eat plantains with rice and peanut sauce? Who would express as much excitement about my daily front door exit as the Togolese children?

I had no desire to extend my time, but the thought of malls, Fox News and the job search almost made me want to run screaming back to village.

Then I arrived and rediscovered some of the joys that I’ll probably start taking for granted in two months. But for now, I’ll continue reveling in:

1. Cheese

At home, there’s cheese on everything! Cheesy fries, extra cheese on pizza and a Parmesan shaker on the table, cheese fondue, free cheese at art openings, cheese enchiladas – how I missed you, cheese.

And while I’m on the topic of food, let’s talk about fruit. Apples are available for sale in the streets of big West African cities, but one costs the same price as two hard-boiled eggs or four small bags of plantain chips. I’ll sorely miss the mangos and pineapples of West Africa, but try finding fresh berries or peaches at an open-air market in Togo.

2. Seasons

Photo: *micky

Togo’s hot season, rainy season, and the windy season, called harmattan, are not the same as the standard winter, spring, summer, fall cycle. I usually run from cold weather, but now that I’ve experienced heat rash and hot season,

I’m ready to watch the leaves change, snuggle under a down comforter, don a scarf and make a snowman. Or at least watch the snow fall while drinking hot tea inside a heated house.

3. Extended daylight hours

Living near the equator means nightfall comes around 6 PM all year long. Sure, the day isn’t really longer at home, but when the sun sets at 9, it feels like I just got a gift certificate for extra hours. I’ll use my extra hours to go for an after-dinner walk, or read at an outdoor café until I have to start squinting around 8:45.

4. Hot showers

Photo: avancini

After two years of bathing from buckets and cold showers, I get excited every time it’s shower time. In Africa, I planned to save water when I returned by keeping my showers short, but my deep appreciation for hot water constantly flowing from the shower head has made this challenging.

Is there more waste in running the water or turning it on and off between shampooing and conditioning? Until I know for certain, I’ll have to let the hot water run.

5. Flush toilets (with toilet paper!)

Great for running to when the cheese, fresh berries and Wendy’s Frosty with fries give you digestion difficulties. In Togo, you can go just about anywhere if nature’s call is too loud and you’re not shy. If you’re well-prepared, you’ll have remembered to pack your paper handkerchiefs (for sale almost everywhere for about 20 cents).

Not so in the States. I haven’t tried it, but I think dropping my pants in the park or in an alley would get me arrested. But losing the freedom to go outside has been replaced with the knowledge that no matter where I am – on a road trip, in the park, at the store – a toilet is nearby. A flush toilet with toilet paper, a sink and paper towels or a hand drier. But I’ll take my paper handkerchiefs, just in case.

Community Connection

Expat life is a complicated mixture of emotions and experiences. Check out some of the the little things that make it worthwhile and read up on the expat conundrum and expat/tourist relationships.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/what-do-you-miss-most-oversea/feed/ 26 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-copenhagen-denmark/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-copenhagen-denmark/#comments Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:27:46 +0000 Susan Overcash Walker http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2569 hygge: the art of cozying up with your significant other (or friends and family) to ward off winter.]]>

Photos: author

A day in the life of an American in the midst of a Danish winter.

I’ve lived in Copenhagen long enough to know punctuality is the cardinal rule of Danish etiquette, and yet my day somehow still goes like this:

Eight(ish) :

Waking up early in Copenhagen is surprisingly complicated. Today, with one foot planted in the Scandinavian winter, sunrise is just before eight and hidden behind the patter of rain. My husband tries to roust me before leaving for work, but even then, with the casual work-life balance here, he’s barely out the door by nine.

After pillaging our carbohydrate stash for breakfast – dark bread called rugbrød and real butter – I dash down the four flights from our walk-up and head for the gym. Between October and March, we get, at best, six to eight hours of grayish daylight, so cycling, the gym and running at leafy Fælledparken keep the winter D’s – vitamin D deficiency, depression and drinking – at bay.

Ten(ish)

And… I’m late. Today it’s for coffee with a Danish friend at the Royal Library café downtown, so after the gym I hurry through the corner market where a tiny Egyptian stocks hummus, flatbread and veggies. Normally he practices his English on me – we’ve gotten up to “Have a nice day!” – but I’m trying to avoid an impending punctuality disaster, so I snack fast, clean up and choose the bus over biking downtown.

There’s a rumor here that bus drivers worsen exponentially through the winter, and today’s ride is proof. The driver plays chicken with cyclists and cars while out the window, crumbling yellow buildings and green copper spires punctuate the gloomy sky.

Noon(ish)

Finally at the café, I sip a ten dollar latte and chat about babies and maternity leave (one year, fully paid – just one of the many social services supported by high Danish taxes). Outside, the reflection of the library’s streamlined façade in the Øresund is an interesting juxtaposition with the 17th century apartment buildings across the water.

It’s easy to hate on the Danish winter (and I do, often), but the weather can also be a catalyst to see new parts of the city, like the library, or old parts through a new lens.

Three(ish)

After coffee, I make a quick trip to the supermarket, ignoring the ridiculous prices while loading my basket – the only way to stay sane while shopping. After, I poke around local boutiques until a random Dane pops out of a chocolate shop and offers me a piece of candy.

I’m so shocked at a gregarious (while sober) Dane popping out of anywhere, I accept without a second thought. That’s a fun part of living here; at first the Danes seem very reserved, but then little surprises make me remember how friendly and funny they are just under the surface. It’s also great not to have to worry about the whole candy/strangers issue.

The city is so safe mothers leave babies in prams on the sidewalk while shopping or eating in cafés. So, munching on my chocolate, I set off down the crowded sidewalk towards home and am rewarded with another treat: the setting sun peeking out of the clouds in a patch of ethereal blue. Less than an hour later, it’s night.

Dark.

My husband arrives home at eight to find me wrapped in a blanket, writing, reading email and planning our next trip. We light a few candles, lounge on the couch and snack on smoked salmon. The Danes call this hygge: the art of cozying up with your significant other (or friends and family) to ward off winter, while outside, the night settles over the city like a blanket. The dark, at least, is punctual.

Community Connection

If you like peeking into a day in the life of an expat, check out A Day in the life of An Expat in Oaxaca, Mexico, A Day in the life of A Writer in Zagreb, Croatia and A Day in the Life of An Au Pair in Breukelen, The Netherlands.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-copenhagen-denmark/feed/ 6 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-au-pair-in-breukelen-the-netherlands/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-au-pair-in-breukelen-the-netherlands/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:35:15 +0000 Nancy Harder http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2533

Feature and article photos: author Photo: thms.nl

7:15am:

Wake up. Huddle under the covers as long as possible. Hear the DeBruijn family downstairs getting ready for the day. Senseo coffee is brewing and dull light stretches through the windows. Throw on jeans and black sweater from the day before.

Mr. and Mrs. DeBruijn depart for work, leaving me and their two kids, Lotje (7) and Meno (4), to get ready for the school day. A ritual commences: snack pack, lemonade, shoes, scarves, jackets, gloves, hats. We each get our own bikes out of the garage.

8am:

Drop off Lotje and Meno at preschool and primary school. Greet neighbors with “Goedemorgen!” Make my breakfast of bread and eggs. Catch up on e-mail to friends and family back in North Carolina. Shower and straighten the kitchen, living room, and kids’ rooms.

9:30am:

Practice piano. Today: scales, Schumann’s “Aufschwung” from Fantasiestücke, Bach “Prelude and Fugue in C# Minor”, from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I.

Possession of a piano was an important criterion in selecting an au pair family. When I return to the US I will resume my piano performance degree. Mrs. DeMaat, the next door neighbor, waves through the window; she’s told me she loves hearing Bach.

12pm:

Pick the kids up from school for their lunch break. Prepare fresh bread, butter, and hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), a typical lunch. We eat and converse in mangled Dutch and English.

1pm:

Lotje, Meno, and I ride our bikes back to school. I head to the market to buy groceries for dinner. Tonight I’ll cook shoarma (shawarma). I buy meat, pita bread, lettuce, cucumber, and toum (garlic sauce). The cashier, an older woman, smiles silently as we load my cloth bag. She knows my Dutch ends after “I’m doing well, thanks.”

1:30pm:

I drop off the groceries and pedal ten minutes north to see Magda. She makes more money working as an au pair than she would back in Poland with her Masters in psychology. We drink tea and discuss philosophy and boyfriends.

2:30pm:

Pick the kids up from school. Take them to swimming lessons or back home. In the warmer months we take snacks and blankets to the backyard. More often the coldness keeps us inside and we draw or play games. The kids aren’t allowed to watch tv. I help Lotje with her piano practice and think it would be so much easier to help if I spoke better Dutch.

4:30pm:

Mrs. DeBruijn returns home and I return to my attic bedroom to catch the latter half of Oprah, a connection to the US. The sun sets and the darkness inspires reflection.

5:30pm:

I cook shoarma for the family, although Mr. DeBruijn is rarely home in time for dinner. I converse with the mom in English about her day. The kids talk to the mother in rapid Dutch.

6:30pm:

Salad plates from dinner are left for Mr. DeBruijn to clean. I bundle up and head to teach a voice lesson to a teenage girl nearby. She speaks fluent English and wants to learn songs from American Idol. We talk about more than voice as she confides the career dreams her mother disapproves of.

7:30pm:

After our lesson I stop by the village pub to meet Magda and other au pairs. We drink a Dommelsch pilsener, commiserating about our days. I am the only American, the only au pair choosing to work in the Netherlands for enrichment versus necessity. This makes me feel guilty and grateful.

9:30pm:

Bike home. The night is mysterious and soft. Burning firewood scents the air. I reflect on tomorrow as the wind cuffs my face. I wonder if the kids are asleep and how parents do what they do. Even my part-time parenting demands energy and patience.

10:30 pm:

I wave goodnight to Mr. and Mrs. DeBruijn downstairs. The attic feels comfortable, almost like home. Elliott Smith plays on my ipod and I journal in my moleskine. The day is done.

]]> http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-au-pair-in-breukelen-the-netherlands/feed/ 14 http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-kagoshima-japan/ http://matadorabroad.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-expat-in-kagoshima-japan/#comments Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:43:12 +0000 Turner Wright http://matadorabroad.com/?p=2513

Photo: shiokaze_k

Living the life of the famed salary man in Japan.

The smoking volcano Sakurajima is the first thing I see each morning, assuming the summer winds decide to offer a break from its showers of ash. I awake on the molded brown futon in my apartment in the heart of Yoshino, just north of Kagoshima city.

This has the fortune of allowing me easy access to my shigoto (company) on foot, by bike, or via the private bus, but makes it a little difficult to stay downtown after 10 PM, when the buses decide to take a break and let the taxi drivers make a living.

Running to the lookout point of Terayama Park every day almost guarantees me a great view of the sunrise over Kinko Bay. Nearly every local Japanese knows “that crazy foreigner who jogs uphill”… not quite half marathon distance, and I don’t even get to come home to a banana pancake breakfast, but fresh mutsu apples and insanely thick toast usually suffice.

Photo: laverrue

Unlike many foreigners in Japan, I do not teach English as a second language with the JET Program or with private companies like AEON, GEOS, and ECC. I was lucky to get assigned to Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories as a technical editor and international liaison, as my Japanese skills are sub-par and I was sneezing throughout the interview.

Life in a real Japanese corporation (but far from Tokyo) drew me to this position in Kagoshima, especially after teaching English my first year of residency.

My first order of business for the day of this prestigious assignment? Sneak up to the deserted 7th floor for a nap before the official start of work; I am such a lazy foreigner.

The daily grind. My job keeps me staring at a computer screen 90% of the time, checking over translated pharmaceutical reports and consulting with study directors over the best use of their English… fun fun.

Photo: author

I always make time to play catchup with my Matador articles and plan vacations to southern islands in Kagoshima prefecture like Ioujima, and Tanegashima.

The familiar song being broadcast over the intercom has the same effect as a man ringing a bell to call his dog: all employees drop their paperwork and scramble for the nearest food source. Hiruyasumi desu or, in layman’s terms, lunch.

Our office has a great cafeteria offering Japanese dishes, but on occasion, I brown bag it western-style from 2-3 import stores around the city; just try to find a turkey sandwich and a soft chocolate chip cookie outside of Tokyo, I challenge you!
If time remains and my head isn’t spinning from all that rice, I’ll head to the company hot springs (onsen), to soak my feet and avoid giant spiders that enjoy crawling around the bath.

Photo: kevin (iapetus)

In the winter months, it’s dark by the time the bus returns to take us home; I try to stare out the window at the green landscape surrounding the office and thank god I don’t work in the gray world of Tokyo. En route to town, I think of new exciting blog entries and more weekend plans… maybe catch up on my language studies with flash cards and read about current issues regarding racial discrimination in Japan.

The bus stops just north of the main shopping district, Tenmonkan (“heavenly building”). After a ritual 15-20 minute walk to Kagoshima Chuo Station, home of the shinkansen train line, the only movie theater in town, and the best gym in the prefecture, Seika, the sights are so commonplace I almost forget how amazing this country is: 100 yen stores, 8-year-old boys catching the bus home by themselves, no non-Japanese in sight (unless I catch my reflection), the essence of ramen spilling out behind curtained doors, the Buddhist monk extending his alms bowl…

Photo: David McKelvey

All that sitting at a desk and pent-up aggression is hammered out with an hour or two at the bench press. Maybe working out will increase my chances of meeting some nice Japanese lady folk… or maybe my foreignness is already enough for them. I’m certainly already well known around city of 700,000, as I can’t go a day in the gym without someone walking up to me and mentioning he or she saw me running/at the store/at the festival/on the bus. Strangely enough, encounters with with other expats are few and far between.

My stomach has been patient after a full day and extended workout, I always reward it western style at an adjacent restaurant, Pirouette. 1500 yen dinner set for soup, salad, meat, pasta, dessert, and a drink. Oishiyo! The waitstaff know me so well at this point they gave me a free round when my parents visited Japan, and if I sense that one particularly friendly waitress is in a good mood, I use the opportunity to practice a few Japanese phrases I had been reviewing on the bus and welcome her corrections in pronunciation.

The bus back to Yoshino is one of the oldest in service, with faded red interior and no digital signs. If I hadn’t gone to get buff, I’d probably just be toweling off after a long relaxing soak in Yoshino Onsen