"Then he took and he ate up all of my corn..."

For no apparent reason, today was the first time that I really just wanted to go home, call it quits, and pretend this all never happened. There was no big incident, I just feel worn out and grumpy and impatient with all the little things that make this whole adventure a challenge. I hope you will take the following for what it is: my reflections at a low point, not my pronouncement on the experience or the place in general.

In my journeys through the internet today I learned the oh-so-useful term “gaslighting” which refers to a relationship dynamic wherein someone habitually discounts your reality, eventually causing you to question your own sanity and ability to perceive things in the world. One specific form gaslighting can take is something which the term "mansplain" (a word I do not really approve of, although it is funny) has been coined to describe: instances when someone (often a man) feels he is entitled to self-importantly educate those around him (often women) on things he really does not know much about, and in which his audience is really quite expert. I think most women and some men will recognize the phenomenon. Rebecca Solnit describes it masterfully for those who are unfamiliar.

I have experienced “mansplanation” here in Malaysia occasionally with regards to the U.S.—people trying to explain to me how things in the U.S. are. I want to say, “Actually, no, that’s not at all how it is. I should know; I’m from there.” But everyone is really very well meaning, so unfortunately for my sanity I am not enough of a petty jerk to try to correct every innocent misstatement about my country just for the sake of accuracy. Similarly, I have not been able to discover a productive way of dealing with the open male stares and cries of “hello!” and “I love you; I miss you!” that I endure whenever I try to do something reassuring for myself, like walk down to the corner and buy something that I want, or go for a run. I am not actually afraid of these guys, but it is still very uncomfortable. Where and how to draw the line? I do not feel like I have ceased to trust my own perceptions of the world, but every time I allow my reality (i.e. I know about my home; there is nothing freakish about my body or habits; I do not deserve to be harassed) to be openly denied without retort, it becomes easier to do the next time, which is pretty scary.

Back home I have often thought about how difficult it must be for immigrants who leave professional positions in their own countries to take up work in the U.S. for which they are wholly overqualified, but for language and cultural barriers. My experience is nowhere close to that, but I do feel I am getting a taste of the discouragement, demoralization, and silent shame of not being able to speak or function as the independent educated adult that one knows oneself to be. It is humbling at best.

Speaking of educated, I also ran across an interview with the host of a show called Dirty Jobs, which echoed something I have been saying for years: not everyone should go to college. Time was, there used to be a whole array of skills that were valued in a person: mechanical, physical, intellectual, creative. These days one could easily draw the conclusion, as Sir Ken Robinson has so delightfully pointed out, that the whole purpose of the U.S. education system is to produce university professors. Which is not a bad thing, it is just insufficient to perpetuate a functional society, because, as so many of us hypereducated 20-somethings are discovering, society really only needs a few university professors. Especially in this economic climate, most PhDs are going to have to find some other way to put local fair trade organic granola in their cereal bowls.

Living in Mangkok has opened my eyes to just how excessively educated I already am. And it is bizarre to realize that at times I am essentially an Agent of the West: introducing people to gmail and facebook and laptops and all that they imply. It is not that I have attempted (in my all-too-limited Malay) to talk about things like “self efficacy” and “personal freedoms” and “rights and responsibilities” and all the other jargony concepts that are (for better or worse) deeply embedded in my very-American person, but I am aware that the ways I behave differently from those around me are sometimes outgrowths of unstated cultural assumptions that I hold subconsciously. I think this confusion and heightened self-awareness and general discomfort is what the jargonists like to call “cultural exchange.” Goody.



P.S. Ten points to the first person who can ID the song lyric in the title from memory--no googling! Whee!