

To be a foreigner is to be perpetually detached, but also continually surprised - pepys
http://laphamsquarterly.org/foreigners/foreign-spell

======
leroy_masochist
Great point in here about "diplomatic immunity". One of the coolest parts of
traveling to out-of-the-way places. People open up to you because you're an
impartial observer.

That said, author is annoyingly in love with himself; if you don't read the
article, here's an indicative passage:

"My first night ever on the island of Bali, in 1984, I fell under what I later
came to see was a spell cast on me by a young local woman, who led me into the
unlit back alleyways and wound me around her almost as if I were helpless. I
had done what I could to domesticate the island on arrival: I bought a pirated
Dire Straits cassette and an owl mask as a good-luck souvenir; I mapped out a
routine, locating where I could get good cake, where to post my letters home.
In any case, a part of me was still in Manhattan, where I’d been closing a
long article on Iran in the twenty-fifth-floor offices of Time only a day
before."

Or maybe I just don't get his sense of humor, who knows.

~~~
pm90
No, you are correct. I tried to read through the article and it was very very
hard to read through the superlatives and other bullshit. I'm not a writer,
but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written much trying to
write something grand.

~~~
anindyabd
> I'm not a writer, but I feel that its the work of someone who hasn't written
> much trying to write something grand.

Actually, if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you'll find that the
article has been written by Pico Iyer, who "is the author of many books about
travel, including _Video Night in Kathmandu_ , _The Lady and the Monk_ , _The
Global Soul_ , and _Sun After Dark_. His latest book, _The Man Within My Head_
, circles around Graham Greene and hauntedness." Also, according to Wikipedia,
he regularly writes for the New York Times.

Though to be honest with you, while I enjoyed the content of the article, I
wasn't the biggest fan of the writing style either.

------
marquis
I feel similarly after almost 20 years of travelling where being a foreigner
becomes an identity in itself. This follows me even when I return 'home'. A
little sad not to be part of everyone's close knit communities however the
rewards of an expanded vocabulary make it quite worth it.

Lately I am keenly aware that every time I leave a place I have become fond of
- new friends and new foods and new vistas and places to walk - that the
little feeling of sadness upon parting reminds me that I managed to make some
kind of 'home' somewhere. After enough travelling it becomes second-nature and
I would quite miss it if I ever had to stay in one place again.

To refer back to the article: I am now a foreigner in my own country to a
degree, as I am less 'home' than not. It's not as drastic as being an gaijin
but it did take some time to adjust to (and now, to enjoy the objectivity that
comes with it).

------
JackMorgan
Having grown up between the US and Central America, marrying a woman who had a
similar upbringing has made an incalculable difference in our relationship.
Together we get to explore the surprising details of living as adults in the
US, which builds up even more shared experiences between us that other couples
to not share. I think that bond has made it much easier to remain friends as
well as partners, as every week we get to experience new things together.

It does make it hard to find others who share our detached sense of humor, but
usually we do with international college students, who definitely appreciate
the differences.

------
jtheory
It's hard to underestimate how much I have been changed by leaving my country
of birth (the US) and traveling/living elsewhere.

I married my polyglot Malaysian college girlfriend, after having grown up with
almost zero time on foreign soil, and a diet that was laughably non-diverse.
We then spent our money and any vacation time (plus some unpaid leave) on
travel to Malaysia of course, India, Australia, and Europe from the Isle of
Skye to Istanbul.

We left the US for good in 2006 and have mostly lived in France; now we have
kids and travel less, but we've gone to the writers festival in Ubud, Bali
(see article), and took our first daughter as a baby to Sri Lanka for another
one; recently we took both girls (1.5 and almost 5 years old, respectively) to
Rwanda for a few weeks, traveling with friends who had been living there.

One of these days I want to write some of my own essays about things I've
noticed; how I've changed... But for the moment here are a few thoughts.

I certainly do feel like an outsider, now, everywhere. This past summer we
took a trip to the US, after 3 years away. It was all familiar, but the minor
annoyances I remembered were now grating -- like TVs everywhere, including in
the airports, taxis, and many restaurants. On a previous visit (before kids) I
came alone, working on a contract and staying in a hotel in Western NY state
-- and I got a haircut at 8pm on a Sunday night, in a mall. The woman cutting
my hair asked which was better, the US or France, assuming the answer would be
the US, of course. I didn't/don't have a simple answer, but I did point out to
her that she was working, _cutting hair_ , at 8pm on a Sunday night. I don't
know about Paris, but where I live, no one's job makes them cut hair during
dinner time (let alone later), nor at any time on a Sunday, _or Monday_ , for
that matter.

But about feeling like an outsider... It's worth mentioning that I'm a tall
white well-educated man. I'm often treated with respect even when I've done
absolutely nothing to earn it; I win most stereotype lotteries, even the "who
should I mug" one, because I'm athletic-looking enough (plus not flashy
enough) that it doesn't look worth it. It's been eye-opening sometimes,
traveling with my wife, who's ethnic Indian, or groups of friends who aren't
white. No, this woman opening my backpack is not a pickpocket; she's my wife
(Spain). Or no, this woman playing with my children is not the nanny; she's my
wife (white lady in Malaysia). Oh, you don't even rent this property to non-
family members, until you do when I appear? In this case our friends actually
waved me to the front to correct the "confusion" (Malaysia, British woman).
Oh, this shirt cannot be returned by my wife, but when I come in it's okay?

In Bali I felt far more comfortable on the street -- not so different from
many parts of Malaysia, which has gradually become far less alien to me --
than in the heavily-guarded resorts full of rich Western tourists. The
festival provided lodging for us, and thus we stayed in a resort that looked
something like the starship enterprise hovering over a valley on massive
concrete pillars; our room had its own private swimming pool, and there were
(Indonesian) staff everywhere, ready at a moment's notice to usher you into a
golf cart and convey you to your destination. The gates into the property were
guarded with multiple uniformed men with what looked to me like military-grade
weaponry. I remember a 30-something American man lying by one of the central
pools, not bothering to hide the erection under his shorts while idly talking
about ad campaigns to his blonde wife/gf. It was incredibly uncomfortable; I'd
never been more conscious of what colonialism has morphed into than I was
there. We walked and got sweaty, rather than ask to be driven, and just tried
to be kind to everyone we met working there.

"Paradise" is very obviously defined when someone decides to build one. In
Ubud, we saw a few -- some private residences, some resorts for tourists; it
generally involves a small number of wealthy white people commanding a humble
army of "natives", who tend their gardens, procure and prepare their exotic
(but not too exotic!) food, sanitize their water, build and maintain their
impractical dwellings, and still more natives to wear uniforms and carry guns
to guard them from the not-so-nice natives. And _most importantly_ know their
place, and melt instantly into the woodwork when not needed. It's profoundly
creepy in small doses, but I'm bleakly sure that one could be inured to it.

Part of the outsider feeling is that when you take the time to adapt yourself
to living in a different environment -- even just a switch from rural to city
in your own country -- you gain context that some people around you don't
have. Undergoing a serious disease has the same effect. The farther you go,
the more likely it is that you're building a block of experience that you
won't share with the people you talk with. Sometimes that's useful; do enough
things that scare you, and you'll find fewer things scary in life. But even
when it's not useful, it's just _there_. You sense the difference when you're
talking to people; if you have a major part of your _self_ that's alien to
your conversation partner, you can either pretend it's not there (and feel a
bit like a fake), or try to play tour guide, but either way you're cutting
away the basic closeness of shared experiences.

~~~
aragot
After working in 4 different international places, I came back to my hometown,
the third biggest city of France. Most people I meet were born here. Not only,
but they've never moved, never been unrooted. When you live in a left-driving
country, you almost have to switch your brain hemispheres, and I can't
enphasize that enough. Everything that sounded like a given to you, will be
switched around, when you learn a third of the world drives on the left.

When you work on the top floor of a building with a view on the skyline, you
know that having power and being a cog are the same thing.

When you've shaken hands with refugees who _did succeed to land on Christmas
Island_ (find Christmas Island on a map and you'll get it), you can't help
wondering how many have fallen for your own life. People ask me why I came
back home, I don't have an answer, apart from maybe having seen enough to be a
little creative about life, career or politics.

On finding a partner. The problem is connecting with a soulmate here back
home, people who have always been surrounded by a social fabric.

On politicians. How do you govern a country when you've never experienced
other systems yourself?

~~~
jtheory
I like your point about politicians; of course, in the US, if you've spent too
much time abroad (or good god, if anyone even things you _might_ have been
born abroad), much of the populace will mistrust you because of it.

About driving: as of the Rwanda trip, I've now finally driven in all 4
possible combinations of right/left-hand steering wheel and right/left-hand
traffic.

There's definitely a mental strain, at first; and when I first tried driving
on the "wrong" side, it took intense concentration. But by now I've driven
vans and moving trucks on the "wrong" side, and it's gotten easy -- which of
course alienates me from "regular" people who are often deathly scared of even
trying.

I'm _not_ someone with driving abilities worth bragging about (and just
yesterday almost killed my car because I forgot basic maintenance for too
long), or unusually courageous; I've just had experiences that have changed me
in this way.

------
dvt
This essay reminds me of the work of Bharati Mukherjee[1], an American-Indian
author (now at UC Berkeley) that often tackles the vastly complicated issue of
being a foreigner or an immigrant.

Great read. If you enjoyed it, I suggest Mukherjee's _The Tiger 's Daughter_
and _Jasmine_.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharati_Mukherjee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharati_Mukherjee)

------
deerpig
I understand the he used the term foreign as a literary device. But it's a
very broad brush to use to paint a very complex concept.

I permanently left the states in my mid-20's. I've now lived in east asia for
30 years. I am an expat, this my home, my friends and family are here, my
company is here. I was a gaijin in Japan, a gwailo in Hong Kong, a farlang in
Thailand and Laos and now I'm a Barang in Cambodia.

I feel like a foreigner when I occasionally visit the states. Part of that is
due to how much the country has changed in the last 30 years. I feel more free
when I visit Singapore, which is certainly no bastion of freedom, than I do in
the States now.

Foreigners who make their home countries that have a language and culture
different from where they grow up are expats. Many expats are immigrants, who
to varying degrees adopt the local culture and language and carve out a home
for themselves. You can never really completely go native, and that is a good
thing, nor should you try. But you can eventually create a life which
straddles the two worlds.

There are lots of foreigners who have lived even decades in foreign countries
who are not expats. They tend to live in live in foreign ghettos (they are
often luxurious ghettos but ghettos none-the-less) where they largely only
deal with people from their own country, they don't learn the language or
culture, the vast majority of their diet is from their home country, they
observe all of the holidays, follow the same fashion trends, hang out in the
same coffee shops, fast food restaurants. The American Army takes this to the
extreme of providing 110V power outlets on foreign embassies and military
bases.

Another type of foreigner is the tourist, tourists are, by definition,
spectators of cultures and countries and there is nothing wrong with that. Any
exposure to foreign cultures is a healthy thing.

The final type of foreigner is the backpacker, which is a sub-species of the
tourist who believes that because they aren't spending much money, they are
seeing the "real" country. In fact they are far more insulated than regular
tourists. They only stay in backpacker hostels and guest houses, they dress in
absurd clothing that no one wears except backpackers. They often dress
inappropriately. It's common to see backpackers (and some tourists) wearing
vests (tank tops) or bikini tops in conservative countries like thailand, laos
and cambodia. I've never understood why they feel that it's appropriate to
dress like they are at the beach when visiting inland national capital cities
like Vientiane, Bangkok or Phnom Penh. Thankfully it's easy to avoid these
creatures because they only visit places listed in the lonely planet
guidebooks. It's even better in SE Asia because most backpackers only bring
the multi-country regional lonely planet book :) If you see a place that says
it sells vegatarian food, it is only catering to foriegners. The whole concept
of vegatarian and vegan diets is so alien in much of east asia that if a local
restaurant provides no-meat dishes, chances are they will still flavor it with
pork or chicken powder:) After all, if Buddha ate meat what could be so bad?

I do not agree that being foreign makes you detached, because you are still
bringing all the baggage from your home country with you. You aren't seeing
the culture with fresh eyes, just foreign blinders. It takes a long time and a
lot effort before you can see what is around you. I believe that you really
only BEGIN to see a culture after you've lived for a full calendar year in a
place. And in cultures that are boxes within boxes, like Japan and Laos, a
year is not even enough to begin to see. Understanding may well take a
lifetime, but that's okay, because it's the journey that's important, there
are no destinations.

But I do agree about constantly being surprised. After 30 years I still see
something at least once a week that completely blows me away. But then, now
when I visit the States, the same thing happens -- but the surprise is, more
often than not, far less pleasant.

------
westiseast
wow, so creative writing doesn't go down well with the HN crowd then. Take out
all the adjectives and metaphors! Add some graphs! Maybe, just maybe, you
might have a good article on your hands :D

As an expat this was great to read, a big change from the negative tone I
usually associate with being a foreigner (in China).

