Tired of Playing the Foreigner

What is it about culture that makes it so difficult sometimes? Sometimes when I am talking to my students and Chinese friends I feel very close and think, “we are all just people. We are all very much alike.” But then other times I am frustrated by the difference. Despite our love for each other or desire to be open and honest, there are constant misunderstandings. I feel that about half the time we are talking past each other. The slightly-perplexed expression leaves our faces only in those brief moments of connection.

Or maybe it is that you have to start at the beginning, trying to explain something. Is the TV show “Friends” what life is like in America? Are families very traditional or more open? How do you answer questions like that? I really am a “representative of all Americans” -even though I know that I am some crazy kind of a representative. When you know 500 people that are all very different, how can you lump them all together into one vague generalization?

Much as my students may like me, mostly they like me because I am foreign and fascinating, a little weird and very white. While discussing cultural differences is interesting and enlightening, often I think both sides come away thinking, “Wow, we are so different…” Even the complements – “You are so beautiful…Your skin is so white…You are very adventurous” – are all just because I am different. One guy even told me, “Your eyes are like the sky,” which is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard since my eyes are brownish-green. Umm, a tornado sky…?

Tonight my students complimented me on a green skirt I wore this week. “We all talked about how much we liked it.” Another student, who I had only met one other time, chimed in and said, “Oh yes! I saw you wearing that skirt too, and it was very beautiful.” I don’t know…it still weirds me out a little that my students discuss what I wear and that everywhere I go, random strangers are noticing my clothes, my hair, my shoes... Students say things like, “You are thinner than last semester,” or looking at pictures, “I think you are prettier now.” I’m not really sure how to take things like that. Just when I think I am feeling at home in the culture, I remember that I am still uncomfortable with the spotlight. I wonder if we’ll ever really connect, and I get a little disheartened when I think about starting the process all over again with new freshmen in the fall. Oh, it’s been good. I will miss my students and friends. Tonight though, I am just tired.