Culture in the Blender

I apologize for not writing in an eternity or two - I am trying to conduct lots of experiments, write papers, and look for jobs at the same time. Needless to say, I have now broken my immune system and got sick.

Many interesting things have happened since I last blogged - like Russia’s imperialism rearing its head again and the global financial crisis.

Russia invading another country is something I didn’t think was going to happen again, simply because the cost of creating uncertainty by starting a war tends to be bad for business. Apparently, Russia is less integrated into the world economy than I thought. This, combined with surging nationalism, isn’t good for anyone - especially not Russia’s neighbors.

The nationalization of Fortis shows how we are all interconnected and how very little is “national” anymore. The Thai government’s problems became everyone’s problems. Now, the desire to have the “perfect” house and the willingness to lend money to lots of high-risk people is becoming everyone’s problem as well. These problems cannot be solved by any one government, although of course they can help. The view that you don’t have to worry about what happens in another country has evident flaws, especially when it comes to economics.

The IHT reports that WTO negotiators are suggesting that the WTO structure needs to change to accommodate the global south in order to simplify negotiations.

Is this the beginning of the re-balancing of economic power from the global north to the global south? Is this the moment?

In addition to getting my PhD in materials science and engineering and doing various academic-type things, I work part-time for the largest student-run consulting organization in the US.

Once a business brat, perhaps always a business brat - I feel very alive in business casual clothes giving presentations to clients or cracking a problem with my team. It feels real in a way even my own research doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my research - but perhaps because I have seen my parents and their friends crack business problems across time zones and borders since as far back as I can remember, when I get to dig my teeth into a business problem or need to make a recommendation, I get excited like I’m about to take a ride on my favorite roller coaster.

Even today when I consciously know better, somehow what adults do is travel a lot, call a lot of people, get called about problems, wear suits, ties and trenchcoats and Loden coats and carry briefcases. I feel different in my white ironed blouses and my pinstriped skirt than I think most people around me do - I feel ready to play and ready to win.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

This seems to be the time to have deep things to say about celebrating the 4th of July, whether it’s about American hypocracy in some way or other or tear-jerking statements about freedom and liberty. What I have to say is neither.

Conversations with non-Americans have made me think about this country for a while now. While I certainly have my TCK moments, out of the countries that I’m connected to, there is nowhere I’d rather be.  Compared to being ostracized in Sweden, too open and continental in Finland, or forever Other in China, I can very reasonably claim to belong here and others accept me as one of ‘theirs’. And by now, not only is my life here, I have a history here.

I have old college friends. I have a Social Security card that’s getting worn around the edges. I have memories of driving to Chicago, to Minneapolis-St. Paul, to Maryland, to Florida. Of the Atlantic City beaches as a child, Captiva Island beaches as a teen, and Wrightsville Beach as an adult. I have a lease, a car, furniture. All my files are on letter-size paper (as opposed to A4). I give times in AM and PM. Now that my parents re-expatriated to the States, even my family is here.

When I was in the midst of living in Sweden knowing that my pain, loneliness and depression were because of repatriation and seeking out non-Swedes obsessively on the Internet (back then it was all IRC), someone told me that I shouldn’t forget we’re all under the same sky. I looked out the window and cried, wishing fervently that I was under another spot of the same sky.

Now I can look up and I am. I pulled off The Great Escape. I have nothing left in Sweden that can pull me back there. The last time I saw the Atlantic, I saw it from Coney Island, walking in the sand, eating a corn dog, with an old friend I’ve known since freshman year in college. He moved to New York and I was visiting. And I buried my feet in the sand, smelled the sea, and looked out toward the horizon, knowing I was literally an ocean away from my personal vision of hell. Buried in my own history over here. Brought there by life already lived here, that keeps me here, safe, in the best place to be a TCK I’ve ever experienced.

I have never held anything but an American driver’s license. Happy 4th of July.

Someone posted a very illustrative story about cultural marginalization for third culture kids on TCKID.

In primary school, I was in a public school with a foreign population of 75%.

On the first day I transferred there, a teacher went:” Stand up. Okay… If you’re from Singapore/ Singaporean, sit down.”

I sat down as I had been in Singapore for 5 years. But the guy beside me went:”Stand up! Didn’t you say you were born in Indonesia?”

So I stood up. The teacher continued: ” If you’re from China, Taiwan or Hongkong, sit down”

I sat down as my mother was from Taiwan and because I’ve spent part of my childhood there. The guy beside me told me to stand again.

The teacher, who noticed me standing and sitting at invervals asked me why was I doing what I was doing. And continued to ask if I understood Chinese and where exactly am I from.

I repiled in Chinese:” My mother is from Taiwan so I’m sort of Taiwanese. I’ve lived in Singapore for almost half my life, so you can say I’m abit of a Singaporean. Lastly, I’m Indonesian because I was born in Indonesia.”

The teacher shook his head and went: ” Are you confused or something? If someone asked where you’re from, they ask for your passport nationality .”

wtck also recently posted a conversation with someone who insisted that they pick a country.

These are the kinds of experiences that tell you very directly that you should not exist. It may seem like a mere slight, but over time, when you get told time and time again, all over the world, that you cannot and should not exist, it really gets to you.

Although I’ve witnessed first-hand the kinds of campaigns that Europeans that fear more integration can put on, it surprises me every time how strongly people can feel about avoiding it. Today’s article in the International Herald Tribune about the Irish voting ‘no’ to further integration was no less of a surprise than why so many Norwegians voted ‘no’ to membership. To me, it seems clear that more integration means more collective power on the world stage. Perhaps it is because I am not very sentimental about nationalities, but why would you want to keep one just because it’s ‘traditional’? The concept of fradition itself is born out of modernity, travel and initial stages of globalization. Many Europeans also resent their relative lack of power today. Here’s the chance to fix that, and everyone gets all distracted by nationalism. Yeah, the EU has its problems. But do you really think that small countries will ever be completely independent of Germany, France and the UK? We won’t. Might as well get as big as say in something as decisive as possible, no?

While getting my iTunes library in order and exploring some new music suggested by a friend, I started looking up old Europop on YouTube. Following a trail of “Oh, it’s this song!”, I found Dr. Alban’s Look Who’s Talking. I do not feel that that listening to that song says anything about the race of the listener (the way American music can be racialized). I do not feel like I am making any statements about my identity at all, in fact, given how popular that song was. However, judging by my recent experiences with noticing or not noticing American rap/hip-hop/r&b and European techno influences, it may say much more about what continent the listener lives on.

Reel 2 Reel’s I Like To Move It (insert giggle of recognition here) similarly clearly has traditionally non-European influences and performes, and who cares? That doesn’t mean much to me, or most of the Europewide listeneers either, I imagine. It’s our song, simply because it was a hit.

More recently, there’s Boom Boom Boom. The video has people in Illinois basketball jerseys and various American pop culture, but I’m fairly sure that it’s safe to say it’s not an American song. They’re just using the American stuff as props to make it look more international and new, but given how you can identify your taste in music by saying ‘electronica’ and that makes sense to people here (as opposed to rock, country, r&b, rap, or hip-hop), I would assume that most of these songs were always meant for local consumption. Here, you can see fairly clearly how what Americans might consider black music speaks on behalf of the US as a whole. (For those who are thinking about Rednex, think about how we laugh at that song compared to most Europop.)

Look at the comments under all these songs on YouTube in various languages. We’re all feeling united by the music, rather than divided. That’s just what happens in an era of globalization. People move around. They bring music with them. They get influenced. That doesn’t mean we’re all the same. It just means new things are happening.

I feel a little alone again - very few of my friends might know what any of those songs are. Even the largest club or Europop anthems never made it here, and neither did the unifying and open music culture.

This weekend, I was putting in some grad student time (which one might call overtime if one had a job) with a colleague and friend who is trying to have their thesis done in two weeks. Afterwards, we ended up going to fly a fish kite in an empty lot on a little hill surrounded by mostly trees. It was windy, of course, and with the wind came a flowery sweet smell that my friend recognized as honeysuckle. I had never seen one, but my friend not only pointed the bush out, he showed me how to drink the little drop of nectar in each flower. I know many nature tricks and small pleasures in the Nordic countries, but this is now one of the few I know here.It’s always a grounding experience to learn things “everyone” knows in your homes.  For me, not knowing plants and flowers around me makes me feel a little distant from the place. Knowing more about them is therefore a relief. Locals like my friend, who are willing to teach without judging the lack of knowledge or getting patronizing are wonderful stepping-stones further into a home. Without them, none of us would get into our homes very far.

Latoya Peterson at Racialicious has written a post about American hip-hop politics. The post and the comments revolve around weighing the poor quality of music on American radio channels in general (there are few non-commercial channels that focus on bringing quality or novelty to American radio, meaning that radio channels mostly cater to mass markets whose tastes are neither sophisticated nor change quickly), racial implications of criticising hip-hop, and the lack of awareness among white Americans that more sophisticated hip-hop rarely gets radio play.

My perspective, as a white third culture kid living in the US, is that there is a clear split in identity politics implications between saying anything at all about hip-hop depending on whether it is American or not. Perhaps because I am an outsider, I do not particularly feel like country music, which is apparently music that white people listen to, has anything to do with my identity. I am neither a connoisseur of American hip-hop nor country music, but I feel included in neither.

I know I don’t know anything from personal experience of what the more sophisticated hip-hop talks about. I’m a business brat who grew up on three continents because of my parents’ socioeconomic status. I’ve encountered cultural marginalization and repatriation difficulties, not racism or economic disadvantage. For me to pretend that I can personally relate to what hip-hop artists sing about would be ridiculous. (Also, my behavior and mannerisms attest to that.) That doesn’t mean that I don’t like it and don’t want to hear it. I like learning about others’ experiences, and hip-hop voices such experiences through one of my favorite mediums - music. Hearing about other people’s pain and oppression isn’t threatening, it’s an opportunity for connecting to others. On the other hand, the racial climate here makes me a little nervous about expressing that opinion, because I don’t know how Americans might interpret it in terms of identity politics. I have no idea if the message will be understood as meant.

Country music, however, makes me slightly uncomfortable. I’m certainly not included - although I’ve hiked, canoed, and spent a lot of time in the outdoors, far away from big cities, it has little relationship to what the American countryside is portrayed as. Also, it doesn’t help that people from small places make me a little nervous, simply because people from small places were mainly responsible for my reptriation problems. The image of country music is all about American nationalism, localism, and parochialism. Obviously, they explicitly exclude me.

However, like I’ve written about before, hip-hop from other countries than the US makes the message less enveloped in identity politics of the sort that I’m not confident I understand. I can listen to French hip-hop or Chilean hip-hop without any concern over what kind of an racial identity or politics statement I’m making to Americans. I don’t necessarily understand any better what growing up in the banlieue is like either, but listening to French-Algerian rappers doesn’t make identity statements on my own behalf like listening to American rap or hiphop seems to.

Moreover, these identity statements stay put in the US. Listening to hiphop or rap only seems to have something to do with race inside the US. As I’ve also mentioned before, those music types are stripped of racial overtones almost completely outside the US, in my experience. It seems like a good example of Arjun Appadurai’s indigenization to me. The music style means one thing in a US American context, but when others use it, it ends up meaning something else. Something else I can enjoy without having to wade through the implications of US history on race relations here.

I played 你快樂我隨意, the S.H.E. song that an American didn’t think sounded American at all, to another guinea pig American. This time, the results were different: my friend could hear the American influence, but pointed out that there was a ‘foreign’ element in the synthesizer. I had to listen to it again, thinking about the synthesizer. I realized I never thought about it, I took it for granted. So perhaps it is really indigenized music that makes me comfortable after all. No need to understand any one country’s identity politics. I’ve got enough going on in that department on my own already. It’s nice to get a break.