My friend Erin writes me letters from South Africa and uses the phrase “Oh Africa” to pass off the ridiculousness of some of her encounters (like a neighbor asking if she rode her new bike to the village from America). So I’m going adopt the phrase to describe the encounters I have with white people on Zamami.
My friend Vaughn visited this weekend to go diving. During his first visit back in whale watching season I described an interesting phenomenon I experience with white people here: they snub me. It’s not the case with all, but easily the majority of whites I greet flat-out ignore me.
My theory is that they are being protective of what they think is their 'secret' discovery. But I wonder, would they also snub a Japanese person who was greeting them? Doubtful. So why are they rebuffing me? Are we really competing for this place? (And if we are, they don’t immediately know it, but I won.)
It happened to Vaughn this weekend with military and again to me tonight with two girls I passed while running. It used to really bother me, but now it just cracks me up – especially when those people get a chance to see me later as a member of the community. “Suckahs!” is my getting-back-at-them thought.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I'm personally torn on this issue. On one hand, if I was running on a beach alone and you pass a single person, I might give a nod of my head.
However, I personally receive a few hello's from people at Jasco, from military people no less. I will return the hello, but not without feeling weird about it. If you are in a mall or a shopping center, you don't randomly greet people you don't know, so why do it cause we're both white?
But like I said, as you are on your own little island, I think the situation is a bit different.
One of our fellow ALTs up north reported something similar, though he also mentioned that he avoids other white people where possible...
Perhaps they've spent too long living in a society where they can't greet anyone except those they know? Probably doesn't apply to everyone, but a teacher once told me that he didn't greet the white people he saw, because he felt that he should be using English but didn't have the confidence to do so.
Coming from the 'other' point of view as far as appearances go...I don't often greet white people I see - mostly because they don't usually greet me. There was one exception - he greeted me in Japanese, and I'm ashamed to admit that I was so stunned by it that I wasn't able to respond...
It's just stupid. Zamami (and everything else for that matter) was here before they were born, and will be here after they die. In the mean time, might as well meet interesting people, listen to their stories, and not be prejudge someone just because they have the same skin color...
What kind of prejudice is that?
I don't usually talk to people I don't know. Japanese, American, Kenyan, Martian... they're all equally strangers to me.
Post a Comment