being special
the moment i came back to the states i made the depressing realization that i am not, in fact, exotic. at least every 3rd person here has blond hair, and even more if we include the fakies (no offense). here, i'm not a giant, i'm average height. the only thing i may still have going for me are my eyes, which are not a too common color.this is a disappointing realization. when i was in Cusco, whenever i went alone to the plaza and sat down, waiting for a friend, inevitably a guy would meander over to me, sit down uninvited, and start talking to me. i never really minded, because i knew that sooner or later the person i was meeting would show up and save me from the horror of small talk. this happened because in Peru, every 200th person has blond hair, and that's probably because s/he is a tourist. in Peru, i am exotic.
i jest about it being so disappointing, but being the minority is an important aspect of traveling (to places other than canada and west europe) and it is an interesting feeling, to say the least. for someone who has lived her entire life in the majority in terms of appearance, social status, and education, looking different from the people around me makes me much more self-conscious, even if all reason tells me not to be. you begin to associate people with geography and this divides the world. because of this mental division between race, class, etc, the most important part about traveling is talking (actual dialogue) to the people who live where you are traveling to. it is by talking to people that you discover that despite our physical appearances, we all get hungry, laugh, cry, have hopes and desires and love.
posted by leah v @ 11:23 AM
8 Comments:
Just a touch about the advantages of the US - having 1 in 3 being blond is actually indicative of a progressive kind of community. In Taiwan, it is appropriate for children to gawk at, pet the arm hair of, or cry when seeing foreigners; young children often grow silent and stare at anyone who looks different; old people can not take their eyes off of you. This is because the society is extremely superficially homogeneous. There are a variety of unique cultures and indigenous groups with their own customs, and the majority here have a blended blood and family line which links them to some unique Asian culture. However, on the outside they look very similar. People are not used to seeing anyone who looks different from them. While one may not stand out in a crowd in the states, it really puts it into perspective what a great deal of diversity we have naturalized in (some) places in the US that residents of some other countries may not receive during enculturation.
i agree that the U.S. has a great deal of diversity but i'm not sure i would call this "progressive."
in fact, here in the U.S. we still stare at people who are different, usually that is people with physical disabilities. i have a friend who came to college never having met a Jewish person. actually i think that all over the world it is the same-there is a much greater diversity in the cities than in the country and people who live in the country/rural areas are much more homogenized. i feel like there is nothing wrong with staring and gawking, as long as hate is not involved. curiosity is natural after all.
what does enculturation mean?
I agree that there is nothing wrong with slight gawking as long as it is motivated by curiosity and not hate; I let them pet the fur on my arm. My point was that there is diversity of different varieties, and that seeing the curiosity in everyone's eyes, children, parents, elderly, reminded me that there are many places in the world that do not have such regular exposure to difference. Granted, I understand there are many homogeneous places in the States, and that I also had a rather diverse (for the Midwest) college experience. All cultures have much to learn about the variety of forms that life comes in, US clearly still so.
Enculturation can't be dictionaried (neither can that, but you get it) but I've heard it used in anthropology settings to describe the process of acquiring culture, especially amongst children. I might be wrong on it though.
Send me an email sometime if you feel so inclined; would love to hear from you.
right. i know you know some of that. i guess what i'm wondering is, and this just arises from your comments it's not an attack on you, is "regular exposure to difference" a good thing? this has been a question that has nagged me for some time; ever since i was in Saraguro and saw how beautiful it was. i appreciated how valuable their customs, dress and culture are but the young people necessarily don't. and from this "exposure" through the media, tourists, etc., they long for something different and dress in Western clothing, listen to Western music, etc. and this makes me sad because i worry that the culture of Saraguro will get lost with the youth. but at the same time, i have thought about the natural process of being a teenager and sometimes it happens that we go through a rebellion stage and then come back to our roots once we have "figured ourselves" out. anyways, i just wonder if such exposure is always a good thing. i still haven't figured out the answer, and i'm not sure there is one.
you are probably right that there is no answer to things like that, particularly no easy one. It is sad and scary to think about what will happen to local cultures in the increasingly globalizing world. I guess we can't expect anything in this photographed, traveled, videotaped world to remain pristine and untouched. For those who have never known different living in the beautiful culture that we from the outside see as unique, there seems only limited time before they are confronted with the forces (already affecting them, even if they are unaware) of the world, forces that come in shapes and sizes and labels completely alien and different. These powers dictate social movement, and unless one believes ignorance is bliss, they are good forces to know. In my mind, it is the basic purpose of education - to show children how the world as we have it now is working, and clue them in to where they can change it. It seems children with regular difference around them may have that advantage.
Como siempre entendí poco de tu post. Glubs. Sorry.
Creo que debo mejorar mi inglés.
Sólo te diré que me gusta la diversidad, la mezcla de razas, de culturas...
Creo que así se avanza. Cogiendo lo bueno de cada una. Lo otro me suena a otros años que se vivieron en la vieja Europa.
El español se mezcló primero con los romanos, luego con los árabes y después con los indios de latinoaméricano.
A pesar de las diferencias, el es siempre Hombre. Sea rubio, moreno, indio o chino.
Un saludo.
it is always an interesting concept/experience to step outside of ourselves to see how we might look through another pair of eyes[culture]...too many people are looking at tunnel vision from the inside out;
traveling is a wonderful way to put yourself into those situations - but sometimes the real trick is to be able to do it in our 'everyday' life & reality!
Talking with strangers is a big aspect of travel in many ways. I talked to a person from Tibet and a person from Somalia during my trip. They were really interesting and made me re-realize that I am living in only a small part of the world. As a consequent of my travel, I got a lump (you know who I am now). But, I won't stop traveling! Anyway, you are already exotic to me. Being different is sometimes frustrating, but fascinating!
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