Cultural Conditioning

Blog post on a cultural experience

“Wow, look at that hair! Is that a boy or a girl?”

I didn’t turn towards the tourists, partly because I was embarrassed and partly because I didn’t want to embarrass them by revealing that I knew Mandarin. But their words suddenly made me very aware of my unruly afro and androgynous look.  It’s a strange feeling, knowing that somebody is scrutinizing your body, eyes searching to figure out what this alien creature is. Some feature must have given me away, because after a beat, a woman exclaimed, “It’s a girl!” and the group broke into peals of laughter.

In the U.S., my large afro was my grandmother’s sorrow and the delight of white people in supermarkets. Its size attracted some attention at home, but in Taipei, the comments and stares followed me everywhere. On my morning walk to Chinese class, commuting adults stared at me and groups of kids would pause, mouths open in an O. Initially, the stares combined with the sticky morning heat made the small journey feel endless. For someone as shy as myself, passing under each person’s gaze felt like being put through a gauntlet. Going out felt impossible, and I would retreat to my dorm room as soon I could. Socializing was very difficult when going outside required so much mental energy and my body constantly felt as though it was being stared at to figure out what I was.

But later I found that my hair, the very thing that made me anxious about being around people, was what would get me to fully experience Taiwan. Eventually, hunger (the greatest motivator) and the need for interaction pushed me to go beyond the wordless exchanges of the 7-11.  One day, I got up the courage to order food after school (“Could you kindly give me a shaved ice?”). Since she already had my attention, the shopkeeper peppered me with questions about my hair. “Is it real or is it fake?” “Can I take a picture with you?” In the U.S., the frequency of those questions used to irritate me. But by the time I had been in Taiwan for awhile, hungry for social interaction due to my shyness, I started to grab at every warm question like I was starving and they were bread crusts. Every time I felt the surge of pride in understanding and responding to a question about my hair, an unfamiliar one would pop up. “What do you use on it?” “How long does it take?” The momentary embarrassment at not understanding faded away, and I became adept at smiling, nodding, and gesturing to attempt to communicate until I could go home and, hours later, figure out what was being asked of me.

Handling those simple questions gave me the confidence to continue conversations with the shopkeepers and people that I met. Soon people began to ask me, “What are you doing here?” and “How do you like Taiwan?” In the beginning, I wouldn’t have known how to respond. All I knew of Taiwan was my bedroom and the stares of strangers.

After a month of being there, something changed for me. I stopped seeing the scrutiny and questions about my hair as a hindrance and began to see how those blunt questions and observations were simply gentle curiosity that was rooted in warmth– a warmth that I had mistaken as invasive. A Taiwanese friend confirmed that the body is viewed differently in Taiwan, and that pointing out physical differences was not meant to be hurtful; it was simply another topic of conversation, especially between Taiwanese people who know each other well.

When that realization occurred, Taiwan expanded for me. After we covered the topic of my hair, I had conversations with shopkeepers about their children and how much better Taiwanese food is than “American” cuisine. And one day on the subway, a young Taiwanese woman a couple of years older than me stopped me to ask about my hair.  “It’s so cool!” The woman, Joanna, said it with a tone that allowed me to let my guard down, and after a short talk, we exchanged numbers before parting ways, making vague plans to see each other again.

Surprisingly, I mustered up the courage to follow through on those plans. To my even greater surprise, I made it to Shìlín night market without incident and was rewarded with a wave of relief upon seeing Joanna outside. We proceeded to spend the evening drinking 奶茶 (nǎichá–milk tea) and eating various fried foods while I told her the U.S. isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and she told me that neither was Taiwan, though I’m not sure we believed each other. For Joanna, it probably felt uneventful. For me, I was ecstatic to connect with someone and make them laugh intentionally, for once.

After that, we spent many evenings indulging in 臭豆腐 (chòu dòufu–stinky, fermented tofu) and talking in the Taiwanese night markets. Our conversations taught me so much about this little island, and the topics ran the gamut from gay culture in Taiwan to politics to dating, inevitably returning to food. As I got to know Taiwan– the students, the trains, the bubble tea stands–I no longer noticed being stared at and no longer felt like an oddity. As anyone with curly hair can testify, proper conditioning takes time, and the cultural kind is no different.

It’s Not Just the Bag

Blog post on a cultural experience

AP English Class. Saint Johnsbury, VT. Friday Afternoon.

This time was always the highlight of the week, when everyone brought in snacks to share with the class and talked about the books they were reading.

I brought Tie Guan Yin, Iron Bodhisattva, one of my favorite kinds of oolong tea for my friends to enjoy. I tore open the vacuum-packed bag, tipped the pearl-shaped tea beads into a teapot, filled it with boiling water, let it brew for a few minutes, and poured it into everyone’s mug. As the tea beads uncurled in the heat, turning the water into an olivine color and sending forth the sweet aroma typical of oolong tea, someone held up a tea leaf she’d picked out of her mug and asked, “Is it spinach?”

I convinced her to take a sip, which in turn convinced her it was not spinach. Many classmates told me that the tea was amazingly delicious, but I also noticed that some hesitated before they drank from the mug with those spinach-looking leaves.

I didn’t feel offended or anything like that, because it was not the first time that I’d had to “defend” loose-leaf tea and demonstrate its worth outside China. Tea has always been a big part of my life. I grew up in Hangzhou, where one of the best kinds of green tea, Long Jing, or Dragon Well, is produced. Before going to Vermont for the last two years of high school, I filled my suitcases with my favorite kinds of tea, knowing that quality Chinese tea would be difficult to find there, as Americans haven’t been big on tea since the Boston Tea Party.

But I didn’t prepare myself for the fact that, even among those who enjoy drinking tea, not only do many accept tea bags as the norm, but they also think of loose-leaf tea as something bizarre. I have come across various reactions to the tea leaves in my mug or thermos, from stares and gasps to “this is like a cow eating grass”.

I was told that a tea bag makes life so much easier. You steep it in a mug, or a plastic cup, and throw it away after a couple of minutes before adding milk or sugar or honey to the tea. Only when you are feeling hip do you shop for “loose-leaf tea” and probably for an infuser or strainer, too, so that a stray tea leaf doesn’t end up in your mouth.

This is not the case in China. In fact, the term “loose-leaf tea” is redundant in Chinese. (Cha, the Chinese word for tea, automatically means loose-leaf tea.) In a tea shop or at the market, tea is sold by weight, and the clerks will offer you different samples until you find one kind that pleases you. “Bagged tea” is what you need to specify if you prioritize its convenience. Most Chinese people don’t think highly of bagged tea, because it lacks the subtle, mellow taste of “real tea”.

But does a bag really make such a big difference?

In fact, it’s not just the bag. The difference between loose-leaf tea and bagged tea lies in the production process and, consequently, the flavor.

Quality loose-leaf tea is made from hand-picked buds or whole leaves of tea trees. Not so with tea bags. I was startled to learn that the content of most tea bags consists of leaves and stems picked from tea plants regardless of their qualities, and then homogenized to maintain a standard for the final product. As if that weren’t bad enough, the tea leaves are shredded for the purpose of fast brewing and therefore turn bitter and puckery if steeped in hot water for too long.

Loose-leaf tea preserves the subtle flavor so much better. A handful of tea leaves can be re-steeped again and again and yield multiple cups without getting bland. The majority of leaves eventually sink to the bottom after a while, and a few stray leaves won’t choke you or fill your mouth with chewy bits. (Most Chinese tea, made from tender buds or leaves, is edible.)

Long Jing (Dragon Well), one of the best kinds of green tea

To me, tea drinking is not about consumption of caffeine but is an experience. I love watching the movement of tea leaves in the water, a ballet that tea in a bag will never be able to perform. Each kind of tea is different in shape, in color, and in the way it dances in the water. The tea buds of Yin Zhen, Silver Needle, float vertically when they first come into contact with the water. There is a kind of hand-crafted tea which blossoms in steaming water just like a flower bud opening in the warm spring air.

Even though now I don’t have exquisite tea sets with me at college, I still follow certain procedures: always boiling water in a kettle, preheating cups with hot water, brewing black tea and oolong tea with boiling water and green tea with water slightly cooler. Never milk. Never sugar. Only the pure fragrance and flavor.

Although conversion of the western frame of mind on tea seems like a long shot, I think I have succeeded in changing at least some of my friends’ attitude towards loose-leaf tea by preaching at them about its superiority and hounding them until they tasted my tea. After all, life is too short to waste on bad tea!

Shy American Bigmouth

Blog post on a cultural experience

I was a nineteen-year-old with a tendency to bite off more than she could chew. I was staying in Mbuji Mayi, a rural town in the south-central Democratic Republic of Congo. I had traveled there to make a documentary for a locally-run scholarship program. I was charged with nervous energy throughout the trip. One of the foremost sources of my anxiety was the Congolese law against cameras in public. The Congolese government is unstable, and the large country is extremely divided politically, so the law was enacted in an effort to prevent propaganda that would push the Congo further from unity. I had no intention of making any divisive political propaganda, but I still had to bury my camera equipment deep inside my suitcase and hope that none of the airport personnel pawing through my bags would find it. I remember holding my breath at every security checkpoint.

Despite my years of schooling in French, I’d been dismayed to discover that I could understand almost nothing my host family said. They conversed dizzyingly fast at loud volumes late into the night, their conversations dotted with lilted Tshiluba and other Congolese dialects.

This was an important morning: it was the first day of filming interviews with the students in the scholarship program, an ambitious group of high school-aged girls. I had written and memorized a short speech in French about who I was and what I was doing there. I should mention that I’m terrified of public speaking (even in my native English), so naturally, I was filled with dread.

In typical Congolese fashion, my host family and I were running extremely late—an hour and a half late, to be exact. When we finally arrived at the Lycée Muanjadi, we walked in to a classroom full of eyes: some eager, others wary. My heart raced, and the hot Congolese air felt even more sweltering than usual. The classroom was small, walls covered in chipped sea foam green paint, and packed with people. People standing, people sitting, people laughing and talking and yelling. I felt claustrophobic.

When I was in Mbuji Mayi, I was hyperaware of my whiteness, of my Americanness, of my privilege. Whenever we drove through town, windows down because the car’s air conditioning was broken, the crowds strolling about the streets gave me waves of rolling stares. My host family pointed out to me that I might be the youngest white girl most of the townspeople had ever seen, that I looked like the people in the movies with my pale skin and light hair. As such, I felt a constantly nagging pressure from within myself not to rely on my whiteness to make me worth listening to. I wanted to be more than a white voyeur visiting their community. I wanted to be someone who had come to listen and learn, not to teach and patronize. All of these thoughts swam about in my mind as I stood beside the blackboard that stifling day, waiting.

The time came for me to speak. I began to rattle off my memorized French sentences, pushing myself to speak louder, louder. “I hope to talk to each of you about the problems you perceive in your communities,” I began, “my question for you is: what could be done to improve one local issue close to your heart?” I paused at the end of the first paragraph, and everyone in the room burst into deafening applause. I waited for it to stop. It didn’t. Did they even hear what I said, or were they just applauding because I was an exotic white girl from America who could kind of speak French? The clapping went on and on, seeming to signal the end of the speech I had just begun. I panicked—if they thought I was finished now and I continued to ramble for two more paragraphs, surely they would think of me as some American bigmouth who just couldn’t get enough of her own voice. Scrambling to improvise a plan, I decided to cut straight to the conclusion.

I’d omitted many important details and some key examples of interview topics, and the tropical air felt rife with misunderstanding. The rest of the morning was a disaster. It was chaotic, sticky, hot, noisy. The interviews I had filmed with the students were long and circular, full of cultural disconnects and misinterpreted words. My camera batteries died. By midday, I was thoroughly overwhelmed. I broke down to Sandra, the founder of the scholarship program. She listened, and when I sobbed to her about my awkwardly shortened speech, she stopped me. “Hanna,” she exclaimed, “their clapping wasn’t to tell you to stop speaking! That’s how the Congolese show that they like what you’re saying—it’s normal to have several long rounds of applause during a speech.” I was at once relieved and horrified at my misinterpretation of the audience’s reaction. I was used to streamlined high school assemblies and Christmas choir concerts and National Honors Society induction ceremonies, gatherings of busy, punctual people who preferred to save the palms of their hands for a single pragmatic round of applause. Unbridled, unscheduled clapping was unfamiliar to me.

In rapid-fire French, Sandra explained the confusion to the group of girls surrounding us, mercifully saving me from attempting to explain this small cultural difference in my own clumsy French. I blushed through a spirited round of laughter, embarrassed by my misreading of the situation. As the crowd of students laughed, I tried to gracefully accept my role as the foolish other. Much as I wished I could fit seamlessly into Congolese culture, my foreignness was as loud as the unexpected applause had been. Whether I like it or not, I’ll never be able to erase my American cultural background and replace it with another—sometimes I’ll be the outsider being stared at, and sometimes I’ll be the inconspicuous girl next door.

From Ceebu Jën to Spaghetti and Back Again

Blog post on a cultural experience

While studying abroad in Senegal, my most cherished activity was cutting tomatoes. I was given a dull knife – for my own safety – and only half the tomatoes – because I was so inefficient. But, I relished the chore. The family maid Adama ruled over the tiled corner room with efficiency and a terrifying orderliness. Only a year older than me, she was already a master of her craft and utterly confident in her domain. Not to be bothered by a clumsy American student. Plus, according to Senegalese tradition, men and guests were not allowed in the kitchen. Even when I had become more family than guest, I had the distinct feeling that Adama was only letting me help so I would stop pestering her. Nonetheless, someone had to cut the tomatoes – numerous tomatoes – which were crucial to the flavor of the quintessential Senegalese dish, ceebu jën (cheh-boo jen).

Ceebu jën literally means rice with fish in Wolof, the regional language. Although the meal sounds simple, it is actually a comprehensive dish that encompasses all the food groups. For casual dining, an entire Senegalese meal is one course, which consists of grain, vegetables, and a protein. This dish is served on a single large saucer, from which everyone eats. You have your own little tranche of the bowl. And, if you’re lucky, you have access to everything you want – some rice, cabbage, and fish – in your own sector. If you’re unlucky, a family member might have to push something over to your part, but you never grab from them.

Since my host family had shared so much of their culture and food with me, I wanted to share a bit of mine with them. Towards the end of my four-month stay, I gathered up the courage and Wolof vocabulary to convince Adama to give me free reign of the kitchen. I had decided to cook a “traditional” American meal, spaghetti and fried chicken. I was extremely proud of this slapdash dinner. For one thing, this gesture of cultural exchange had involved several expeditions to grocery stores and roadside vendors. I also had sheepishly asked Adama for help in bartering with the local halal butcher for the best cut of chicken. Even so, the challenge of gathering the ingredients gave way to a larger culinary adventure.

This was the first time I had cooked a meal from scratch in my host family’s kitchen. We cooked with a cast-iron pot sitting over an uncovered kerosene tank on the ground in one corner of the cubical kitchen. So, I had the pleasure of frying chicken in hot oil up close and personal. Inevitably, splatters burned my wrist. I endured this for an hour and half – a much longer cooking time than it would have been in my American kitchen. Even so, when I declared that dinner was ready, Adama and my host family were amazed.

“It’s done? Already?” My Senegalese family was equal parts surprised and indulgently amused, “That is truly an American meal and not an African one.”

During my four months in Dakar, I had learned that late dinners and a general indifference to timeliness were key Senegalese behaviors. The fastest food was at the school cantina. Even then, pre-prepared plates of maafe or yassa poulet required a ten to thirty minute wait. Nonetheless, I wasn’t sure what my host family meant by, “Already?” Martha Stewart would certainly say you were doing something wrong if cooking spaghetti and fried chicken took you ninety minutes. As I discovered much later, Adama had made a difficult and grueling task seem effortless.

I didn’t know how long African, or at least Senegalese, cooking actually took. That is, until a few weeks ago. I decided to make the classic ceebu jën to pass the experience of “eating around the bowl” to my American family. Just one plate of ceebu jën, how hard could it be?

Harder than convincing Adama to let me help in the kitchen. The dish naturally preserves all the flavors of each ingredient – meaning every piece of fried fish, carrot, or tomato had to be added and removed to ensure the essence of each element without overcooking it. I finally understood why Adama was so eager to have me out of the kitchen. Timing the addition and removal of ingredients was crucial – and difficult to execute with distractions. Channeling Adama’s gently assertive tone, I shooed my parents away from my kitchen whenever they asked me, “Is it done, yet?”

In the end, I spent five hours cooking ceebu jën. Five hours of adding and removing ingredients. Five hours of crumbling spices into the broth. Five hours of burning my fingertips. These were the same five hours Adama spent every day in the kitchen to cook for the family. The same five hours I never thought twice about while I cut those tomatoes. Cooking ceebu jën re-opened my eyes to the richness of a culture that is not as punctual as our own. Ceebu jën requires more time, but it is far more gratifying than a plate of spaghetti and fried chicken.

Mexican Coke and Pokémon, a Few of My Favorite Things

Blog post on a cultural experience

It felt like an eternity had passed on the McAllen-Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge before we even reached the Texas-Mexico border-checkpoint. Cars were bumper-to-bumper, vying to get access before sunset. The wait was excruciating. I was eight-years-old and stuck in a small car with my older cousin Victoria and her cousin Matt. Mom was trying to distract us with promises of the famous Mexican Coke from Los Tres Hermanos, but all I wanted to do was turn the car around, back to McAllen, so I could watch Pokémon.

After hours of searching, we approached a desolate and dilapidated building. With no visible markings or signs to indicate its existence you could have easily missed it. The only way we knew about the location of Los Tres Hermanos restaurant was by word-of-mouth, a secret shared between locals.

However, the exterior gave no clues to the interior; inside Los Tres Hermanos was a five star restaurant, with silk tablecloths and fancy candles. The restaurant was packed, but magically a table was already set for my family. Mustachioed waiters in black vests and white button down shirts asked for our order like the penguins in the Mary Poppins movie.

“Quequierestomar?” He asked all in one breath as if there were no spaces for pauses in this language. Victoria and I just looked at each other, then back at our waiter.

Luckily our parents ordered for us. “Coke.” A universal word no doubt known on Pluto.

In less than a second the waiter returned with a glass bottle of Mexican Coke the size of my face for Victoria, Matt and me. We couldn’t believe our eyes. One bottle contained the same amount of sugar I would consume on Halloween night. Five Mexican Cokes later, Victoria, Matt and I were in a sugar rush so wild we convinced ourselves we should reenact the Pokémon theme song for fun.

With our five empty bottles of Coke in front of us, we each grabbed a utensil and proceeded to bang on the bottles in the key of annoying sounds. We each sang our lungs out, trying to prove who knew the complete lyrics of the Pokémon theme song.

“I want to be the very best…that no one ever was…” I began and soon we hit the chorus, “Pokémon, gotta catch them all, its you and me I know it’s my destiny!”

As we sang our voices reached the ears of every guest present. We were on the third refrain when my mother tugged my sleeve and said, “Sophie, you guys are REALLY loud.”  My cousin and I stopped our performance and found the whole restaurant had gone quiet. Though the restaurant was silent, the patrons looked on in encouraging smiles in appreciation for our efforts. A waiter watching us from the bar picked up an empty coke bottle and tapped it with a spoon and smiled as if in agreement. Even though everyone was silent, I felt as if he and the whole restaurant were giving us a standing ovation.

Music needs no translation. Though Pokémon may not have been on the radar of our waiters and the other guests, they understood the need for music and revelry. In fact it’s not uncommon to walk into a Mexican restaurant and hear the sounds of a mariachi band serenading the guests with folk songs. I’ve even heard that in some Mexican restaurants patrons entertain other patrons through songs or limericks. Since that entertaining evening in Mexico, I’ve had time to reflect on that waiter’s smile and I’ve come to the conclusion that singing is considered an art in Mexico. From backyard cookouts to fancy restaurants, live, unrehearsed musical entertainment is an invaluable currency. Don’t be surprised when you visit a Mexican restaurant if they ask you to sing for your supper.

Of course at eight I had no idea how influential a Japanese TV-show like Pokémon would be. It wasn’t long before I was watching Sailor Moon and listening to Japanese Pop music like a regular otaku, nerd. One night, I was watching a Japanese anime, cartoon, and the main character was hosting a business meeting at a karaoke bar. These old and graying businessmen in designer suits were discussing matters of international trade as they sang—off key—popular Japanese music. That night I was reminded of my performance at Los Tres Hermanos. Though the food and customs of Japan and Mexico are vastly different, I realized that they shared one thing in common, a love of music. Here I was this Hispanic kid who was a third-generation American, singing the theme song to a show originally made in Japan in a Mexican restaurant. Here I am now, a Hispanic student in an American college, studying Japanese. When I ever I think about that waiter’s smile I don’t worry, I know it’s my destiny.

Beer-ful Apologies

Blog post on a cultural experience

My friends and I were flabbergasted when the hostess of our bed and breakfast, after asking us if we enjoyed drinking beer on occasion, proceeded to give us four large bottles of it. We had come to the north of Japan to see the Snow Festival in Sapporo, but being on a budget meant staying in this bed and breakfast on the western coast of Hokkaido, about an hour’s train ride away. I fell in love with it there since the coast was even snowier than inland Sapporo, with snow banks taller than my five foot eight self.

This night was the last night of our four day trip and staying up late drinking liters of beer hadn’t been part of the plan. Refusing the gift, however, would have offended our hostess, so we accepted the beer as graciously as possible. We waited on the tatami mats in our room for her to bring us four glasses, one for each of us. As soon as our hostess left us to drink, however, we started frantically trying to contact our Japanese friends back in Tokyo for some much needed advice.

The ins and outs of Japanese gift-giving weren’t intuitive for us Westerners in the first place, and our awkward arrival at the bed and breakfast only complicated matters further. Somehow, our reservation hadn’t gone through properly and our hostess hadn’t been expecting us. In a country that views customer service as an art form, her unpreparedness was a black mark against her, despite her immediately preparing a room for us and letting us into her own home to wait. Had we been Japanese, we would have been quietly annoyed at her and sure in our belief that it was her duty to rectify the situation. Instead, we were internally panicking about possibly having to find another place to stay, in the middle winter, during the country’s most famous snow festival. Our hostess needed to do something special for us to make amends and we needed to know how to properly accept her gift.

Fortunately for us, being foreigners gave us some slack in the manners department. But just because we weren’t expected to have perfect manners didn’t mean we couldn’t offend our hostess with the wrong response. The four of us just sat and stared at the beer for a little while. A hobbyist could have fit an entire fleet inside these bottles. There was no way we could drink it all. Did she really expect us to drink that much beer? Would she be offended if we left some of it behind? Or would we have to be sneaky and pour it down the sink? The last suggestion, made by me, seemed even worse than leaving some behind, especially if she ever found out about it. Secrets always seem to come out in the worst way possible, especially in Japanese comics.

Since sitting there and marveling at the beer wasn’t going to make it disappear, we started drinking it instead. We each took a glass from the tray and poured each other’s drinks. It was only halfway through our year abroad and we had already adopted Japanese drinking traditions. You drink from an individual glass, which someone else always fills for you so you do not have to fill it yourself. It’s another layer of hospitality, one which says that your friends, acquaintances or colleagues will take care of you and you will do the same for them. We started off our evening of drinking with the traditional Japanese cheer, “Kanpai!” It might not have been part of the plan, but there is certainly something to be said for relaxing with friends on a snowy winter’s night far from home.

As Rosie, the one among us who was most familiar with Japanese culture, got tipsier and tipsier, she had an epiphany. “Of course we don’t have to drink everything! Our hostess made sure to give us too much so that we wouldn’t have to!” Our hostess had given us an excess of beer on purpose: she didn’t expect us to drink it all because it was too much to drink. She simply needed to give us enough for there to be some left, so that she knew we didn’t want for more. It reminded me of Thanksgiving dinner back in the States. My family always prepares way too much food to make sure that’s there’s more than enough to go around. Having food left at the end tells us that no one went home hungry. It might not have been Thanksgiving, but our hostess was certainly thinking the same way.

The following morning when we checked out, we made sure to thank our hostess again for her hospitality and her generous gift. Thanks to Rosie, we could leave worry-free, the undrunk half of that gift still sitting in our room.