Everyday Stranger

The Expatriate

At what point is who we are based on where we are from?

Look around the blog world, see who's around. We always seem pretty aware of where people are from, and it more or less is grouped into two categories: "Americans", and "Others". For the Americans, it can become all very "flag-waving, Miller Lite and Bush-isms". For the non-Americans, it can become all very "those petty Americans, their awful beer, and their damn Bush".

And unfortunately, they are not referring to minge.

It's an ice-breaker, a commonality, a way to see if we all share something. Who are you? Where are you from? It's a starter. As an American who has moved away, I can tell you that I sit squarely on that fence between "American" and "Others". And sometimes, it really hurts my ass.

And my heart.

Let's break it down, shall we? Here are three cultures near and dear to my heart. I love the countries, and find great qualities about them. Plus, I have had sex with men (and a few women, actually) of those nationalities, so I am thus therefore qualified to comment (and yes, these are Helen generalizations).

Americans. Texans, to be specific.
Is a person from Texas an American? Or a Texan? As someone who lived in Texas for ten years, I can tell you that most would identify them as Texans first and foremost (in a trait which I find unbelievably cute in a slightly "Annie Get Your Gun" kind of way). Although I think in order to be a real Texan you need to fulfill one of the following criteria:

- a gun
- big hair
- a fondness for baked beans
- a big mother of an SUV that will never, ever go off-road
- an attitude of self-confidence that rivals Dr. Phil's.

The Land of Oz
Australians seem to be Australians the world round. Stick one in Sweden, Seattle, or the Szechuan Province, and they are still as Aussie as can fucking be (which I find endearing, if sometimes a bit overbearing). They swagger, grin, and are generally quite smug people with confounding personalities. They also can charm the pants off you, which you don't realize until your ass is hanging in the wind. I think in order to be a real Aussie you need to fulfill one of the following criteria:

- be able to hold your liquor
- know what the hell a billabong actually is, and why it is a swag man happened to be near one to begin with
- be able to hold your liquor
- live down the grief and horrible country representation that is the Crocodile Hunter
- be able to hold your liquor

England
Englishmen seem to morph into whatever environment they are put in, however offer them a bag of Walker's Crisps, and it's all very "Rule, Britannia" (by the way, the Proms make no sense at all to those who are not English. Just FYI.) The English have a self-deprecating wit like no other nation I know of, but make no mistake-while they are making fun of themselves, somehow they are also making fun of you. I still don't know how that's done, but suspect it's why the English find "Upstairs, Downstairs" so funny. I think in order to be a real Englishman/Englishwoman you need to fulfill one of the following criteria:

- be able to say the words "Her Majesty's Royal Postal Service" without sniggering.
- not only know what "Chancellor of the Exchequer" means, but never have at one time thought that it was a variety of super-size meal at McD's.
- think that the horror that is Cadbury's chocolate is good stuff.
- one word: Marmite. You can stomach that stuff, you can only be English. (It's the English comparison to American peanut butter. Aussie vegemite. Swedish Kalle's Caviar. Every nation has a weird paste-y type food that all other nations hate. It's some kind of rule)
- be able to go along with burning effigies of people and not feel the least bit voodoo-worshipping for it.

I wonder sometimes at what point you inexplicably become a child of where you are, as opposed to who was (or wasn’t) around when you were five years old. What exactly, is the relationship between environment and genetics? Isn’t that the great debate (well, that and if nuclear power is really efficient and how in the world we can come up with fat-free peanut butter)? Is there a point in our adult lives when we can incontrovertibly say that who we are today is on the basis of the things we have gone through in our lives, as opposed to the myriad of single cells strung together to form the scientific equivalent of who the hell we are supposed to be…

But I digress into too much Scientific Digest crap

Bottom line is, moving away from somewhere you have lived does not mean that you are moving away from who you are. You just absorb, like a sponge, and then drip little droplets of culture everywhere you go. That said, packing up your sponge and going away is far from easy. I wrote this almost 4 years ago, when I was headed for Sweden and a new life, and finds it still holds true today:

I am now on the plane bound for Stockholm. I have never felt this sense of absolute tumult before, never in my life. I am surrounding myself with one hundred thousand different feelings and images. There is no pattern to my life now, there is no echo of anything that I have ever known throughout any hallways inside. I have always been a master at reinventing myself, and this time will be no exception.

It may, in fact, be my greatest feat ever.

Today has gone by so quickly. I have been living in uneasy anticipation, feeling as though today would never get here, and when it did, that it would never end. My flight to Stockholm is half over now, and I reside in an uneasy state of restless hopefulness, all the while trying to memorize a million different memories to tuck into my head. Memories that besiege my every sense. When will I next get a warm cinnamon roll? How long before I see an up-to-date Time Magazine? And my favorite TV shoes, my American hobbies…

Is this the biggest mistake of my life, or my grandest adventure? And how soon will I find out the truth? How can I turn my back and walk away from everything that I have ever known?

I don’t know when I’ll be back to the U.S. to live as a citizen again. I don’t even know if I will ever be back. My life has never been easy, never had a focus, a place to feel as though it was where I really belonged. This is all I strive for now, but I live in terror that my country will go off and forget all about me. It will forget me, as once I crossed the gangplank back in Raleigh, I gained a new title…expatriate.

An expatriate isn’t necessarily someone who leaves their country because they’re angry and they hate it. I picture expatriates as being people who fell in love with someone from another country. I picture expatriates (known as “expats”) as people who have no real home, no real sense of belonging, no haven that makes sense to them. Well, I guess this would be me. But this is by far, the hardest thing that I have ever had to go through in my life.

The plane jerks gently. A vibration beneath my feet tells me that the wheels are emerging, and that we will soon be landing. I sigh deeply, and ignore the bustle of the overhead speaker and the flight attendants shuttling through the cabin. I pack all of my belongings, and clutch my backpack tightly to my chest. Before I know it, we’ve landed, and are taxiing up to the gate. At the soft resonance of the seat belt sign going off, I emerge from my seat, and head up the aisle of the empty plane.

Stepping out of the plane, I am startled by the cold air seeping through the gap between the plane and the gangplank. I wonder how I look. Can the others around me tell that I have just made the biggest decision of my life? Do I look different?

I head through the abandoned hallways of the Stockholm Arlanda airport. My feet pat silently through the halls, and my few fellow travelers pass me by in a rush of business suits and hang-up bags. I clutch my backpack tighter to me, and resist the urge to cry. The empty bar to my right…the silent tax-free shop…what do I look like to them?

I ride down the escalator, and present my passport to a clerk, who dutifully stamps it. Grabbing a luggage cart, I begin the traveler’s vigil of waiting for my suitcases to appear. It always seems that the luggage time is proportional to how much you’re in a hurry. In a rush? You’ve got a wait before the luggage appears. I wasn’t sure what state I was in. I felt a mixture of adventure, terror, anxiety, and hope. My luggage decided my state for me, as it was spit out almost immediately, forcing me to confront the beckoning world outside the airport. I loaded my things on my cart, and wheeled past the customs people, curving around the corner. My heart was pounding, and my mouth was dry. This was the biggest decision of my life, and this is the culminating moment. I turned another corner and tried to stop and just breathe and tell myself….

Everything is going to be OK. I can do this.

-H.

Posted by Everydaystranger at November 6, 2003 08:02 AM | TrackBack