Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Fresh Cultural Perspectives After My Latest Visit Home

Each time I come back to my home country, it is an opportunity for reflection. I observe, with wonderment, the things and places that have changed since my last return. Of course, not only have the places changed, but so have I. My expectations are so different this time. On my first visit back home, it was kind of a shock coming back into the US airports. The service sucks, the facilities are dirty, and there is no proactive help. This is quite different from airports in Taipei and Tokyo, where neatly uniformed attendants greet you and smile and are far more available to ask questions. In many ways, I have an easier time navigating facilities and ticket problems while living in Asia than I do even in my own country. 
People at the airport here can just be straight up rude. They cop an attitude when you have the gaul to ask them to do their jobs. Now that’s not everyone of course. There are plenty of nice and helpful people too. But as I observed on my last visit home, it seems like customer service is conditional here. It may be given if you are polite and not inconveniencing the working person that much. And it’s not that I’m not polite in Asia. But it’s almost as if polite is not enough in America, but you have to be practically obsequious to get people to do their jobs.
Case and point: When at Christmas Eve dinner with the family, I overheard a customer pleading with the waitress to bring their check so they could finally leave. They were slammed and the service was rough that night. People were waiting way too long for their drinks, meals and checks. The customer entreated the server “I know it’s super busy and you’re working very hard, but we would really love if you could bring us the check because we’ve been sitting here a while and would really like to leave.” This type of thing is very unlikely to happen in Taiwan or China. Most likely not in Japan either. In Taiwan the interaction would go like this, “excuse me, I want the check. I’ve been waiting so long. Thanks.” ”不好意思,我要買單,我等很久. 謝謝。“ Let’s take a look at them side by side:

America: I know it’s super busy and you’re working very hard, but we would really love if you could bring us the check because we’ve been sitting here a while and would really like to leave.

Taiwan: 不好意思,我要買單,我等很久. 謝謝。

So at’s one of the things that has been difficult for me coming back. I find that I have really internalised Taiwanese service norms and I think Americans actually find it rude and sort of shocking. I really had forgotten how much small talk people make at the check out or to just any type of employee at all. It pains me to be rude, and after my second week, I am more adjusted, but I feel like it would take even longer than two weeks for me to really get back into it.
But it’s not only the length of the interactions. I had forgotten that the USA is a place of many cultures, and that I come from but one. White suburban culture. There’s city culture then too, and many different types of that as well. So America I think is actually quite difficult to navigate in general with regards to behavioural and cultural norms. Taiwan is actually largely homogenous. I mean, they will openly refer to me in the third person as “the foreigner” right in front of me. Can you imagine that happening in an American city? 
Now, I would like to state a kind of disclaimer and say that I experienced beyond kindness and warmth more than negative experiences. So, for the record, I would like to say that my experience in America was spent mostly dealing with very warm, kind, loving and generous people. And those people were all different colours and ethnicities.
But, I had an interesting conversation with my friend Sam, who said he had taken some courses on body language and communication with regards to race. To make a long story short, people internalise and carry with them racial anxieties and tensions and then express them in their body language. And in America, we have a dark racist past (and present). So for example, a white woman is in an elevator and she unknowingly clutches her purse a little tighter as a black man steps in. Now that’s just one example and I think it is worth noting that these type of racially heated moments can be expressed passive aggressively in all types of interactions…probably mostly subconsciously. Like, for example, I had a very rude experience with an African American woman at the checkin counter. 
They announced that if you were in the boarding group I was in, and had luggage that would not fit under the seat, they would tag it and send it to your final destination. Now I had a backpack with stuff for the plane and my trumpet. As such, neither of these things could be sent on the stowaway. So I approached and verified that there would be no overhead storage. She repeated the line that bags could be tagged. I told her I could not send my trumpet on stowaway. She repeated the line again that bags could be tagged. I repeated, I have a sensitive instrument that cannot go in stowaway. She repeated the line again, at which point I stopped her and said “I know that you can tag the bags, that’s not why I’m talking to you.” When I pressed the issue, she said, “well, do you wanna miss your flight?” Now I was heated. I won’t regale you of every last detail, but let’s break it down for a moment. 
I had an expectation that the customer service person would try and find a way to help me, because that’s what they are supposed to do. Her expectations were apparently very different from mine. She didn’t really give a shit if my problem got solved, she was just chucking out the stock line that she knew and that was it. But what made it much worse for me was that she really patronised me on top of it. Her tone was condescending, she laughed and looked at other people while I was talking to her, and wouldn’t even let me speak barely when it became apparent that I was irate. Now I didn’t use abusive language or threaten her in any way, but I felt as though I was the recipient of more than just bad customer service. 
Now what was the origin of this “more than”? Perhaps it was cultural, American vs. Asian service principles. Maybe I was too rude for her and she wanted to make me pay for it. Perhaps, and this is what I believe, she (a black woman) was in a service position to me (a white man) and couldn’t help herself to dish out an attitude in response to what surely must have been an observation of the smug surety of my white privilege. Or maybe she was just not a very helpful individual. Now, we will never no for certain what the cause was. Maybe you all could comment below and let me know what you think. AND, I am in no way saying that all, or even  many African Americans act this way towards white people, I am merely saying that it happens on occasion. Also, I accept that it could have nothing to do with race. She just may be an obnoxious individual with a poor (perhaps American) sense of what it means to do your job. I guess I just forgot how complicated life in American can be with trying to navigate different cultures and locations. Here I was in Asia, thinking of how hard it was to do this…but I actually genuinely think it might be harder to do in America, even though I speak the language.
That was one thing that was really surprising to me. I thought “oh great! I’m coming back and will be able to deal with things in my own language.” I thought things would be way easier. But there are so many factors at play here that I just didn’t expect. Even now, as I sit on the flight to Chicago, I have some moderately loud Chinese people sitting behind me. I want to turn around and  tell them to be quiet, but I can’t tell if it’s just my prejudice against loud Chinese people (and they are loud), or if they are actually too loud. Update: I turned around and politely asked them to be quiet. I think that was a good solution :). 
So I guess a lot of it comes down to how we approach situations. But I’ve got a lot to learn about how to react to situations as well and I’ll be honest, it’s really hard for me to not get upset when I feel like someone is being unfair on unjust. Do you swallow your pride or stick up for yourself and press the issue? I suppose these are questions that everyone deals with on a regular basis. 

On a broader spiritual path, this may just be another life lesson for me in patience and expectations. With regard to the former; have it, and the latter, do not have them. This will improve any situation no doubt. I am a bad horse, tough to train and stubborn. But there is hope for me, for as Zen master Suzuki says, “a bad horse is a good horse”. Demystified: it is our faults that we learn from. We learn more from having more faults. We also probably suffer more too… but that’s neither here nor there, is it? Happy 2016 everybody.

2 comments:

  1. I really like your last entry and enjoyed reading every single bit! Your words sound so mature and such an observer! <3

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  2. I am happy to see that you are blogging once again!

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