Foreign at home?

    I've been home for awhile, but my pursuit to learn new things has not stopped. During my time at home I've gotten better at critically analyzing what I do. I've once again resumed trying to learn Hindi and in fact am studying some classical Indian dance forms (Bharatanatyam and Odissi).

   With the studying of these classical dance forms I've gotten closer to the Indian community that lives in my area. Which to my great pleasure has been all positive and I always get a warm welcome. It seems a little backwards to say I was expecting a little apprehension or being kept at an arms distance because I am not Indian myself, but as a mixed person I found that is what has happened trying to interact with people my own age from other cultures. Maybe it was the fact that it was during college so we are not the most sensitive to other people's feelings, but I always got rejected and felt like I was inferior because I was either American or did not posses dark skin. It has been the exact opposite when I've interacted with either my fellow classmates or the parents of the children from other classes. They have been happy to welcome me into their lives and help teach me the culture. If they are speaking in their native language, they will stop if it is not a private matter to include me in the conversation with a quick translation and I always appreciate it, this is why I want to increase my Hindi skills so at least I can have some words I can pick out even if they are not speaking Hindi (I do understand there are more languages in India than just Hindi and I'm hoping to also pick up Tamil).

    On the other hand I've also started teaching Bollywood choreography classes which gives me performance opportunities. This is a problem in the idea that during these performance opportunities I might be representing the Indian culture (which is way more than Bollywood) and it worries me that I might not be doing a good job. It isn't my culture and representing it to the general public worries me just like I am always worried when I see people representing to my culture to the world. So I only try and discuss the things I am educated in like the mudras and the translation of the songs I am dancing to.

I think through my education I will keep reflecting on this and perhaps come up with an answer.

Me Worried

So I put this off for awhile not sure whether or not to post this, but I think that now that I'm far enough away from the situation it will be okay.


 So as my scheduled time draws closer to an end and I debate whether to come back I go over my time here. It has been an interesting adventure and I have grown amazingly with it, but there have been some rude awakenings that I'm not sure where they came from.

•  Co-workers are your friends - now as any normal person who is moving to a foreign country to do anything I expected the people in my program to be my friends on some level or at least be people I could hang out with occasionally. I wasn't expecting us to braid each others hair while having girl talks into the wee hours of the morning or even walk to school together with, but I at least expected people I could talk to. Now don't get me wrong they seem like decent people....as long as you aren't me. I have apparently done something at some point that has offended all of them (except for the new people) and my presence is all together ignored or they will loudly plan their weekends excitement in front of me. Now I have relatively thick skin because after middle school I have never been a popular kid, but what worries me is this is now extending to the new people who like to ask me questions or are just in general nice people who want to know how things are going.

• New people are helped and shown the ins and outs - For me this was true on my first night and then after that I was lucky to get a hello from most of my foreign co-workers. The worst part is I've noticed a steady decline in the quality welcome, from when it was just well me and one other person going to welcome the new person, two co-workers said they had made plans to make crepes that couldn't be rescheduled, to the full blown dinner spectacle I got, but it wasn't a helpful one it was a "I want to see what you are made of" dinner. I was talking to a recent arrival and was appalled (and so were her friends in Korea and back home) to find out no one had given them subway cards or even shown them where the effing subway was. I was shocked and appalled at the welcome she got and now they proceed to give them a level of the cold shoulder because apparently she has done something wrong as well.

• There is a level of common decency - This sounds rude, but I feel like there really isn't a sense of privacy or you shouldn't do that. Honestly I wish that my coworkers would realize our students and children in general are much smarter than you think they are so please stop dropping curse words or speaking rudely about them right in front of them. Or at least please don't loudly tell others about your drunken escapades you had either that weekend or the night previously and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE THAT ALL THAT IS DECENT DO NOT loudly laugh about how another co-worker is hung over in front of the academic supervisor. For this part I don't care if I come off as a prude, there needs to be some level of professionalism at work when all that separates you from your students is a single unlocked door that sometimes isn't even closed.

• There are rules - I feel like it is actually "There are rules that some people have to follow" and the people who don't have to follow them are pretty and skinny while the rest of us get the backlash from everything else. I find that if I came to work and exclaimed how hung over I was or swore at a student I would be punished immediately. If I slept through one of my classes and someone had to come get me I would be punished. Apparently not for the pretty people or the people who are in the clique. I find few reasons that I come to work, besides the children and that saddens me that I don't enjoy my job more.