[note] July 03, 2009

I’d like to be a little philosophical on this one.

Following entries have been assembled from my journals.

1. “Mzungu!” “Cheena!”

Every country or language has an offensive term or two for people from elsewhere. “Gaijin” in Japanese, for instance, literally means a person from outside or a foreigner. While the meaning itself isn’t particularly offensive it could be when used in certain contexts. English language has numerous terms for any group of people that are known to be derogatory.

Kiswahili is not an exception. “Mzungu” (a white person) is a long-standing word for a cancasian person, but could also be used for any foreigners who have lighter skin than the locals. More common way to address someone of Asian decent is to call out “China” (but it is pronounced as “Cheena” so I’m going to use this spelling instead of how it would be written in order to distinguish between the way it is used here and the country China.)

First of all, “Cheena”, as you can imagine, doesn’t imply the country China, a person from the country, or whose background is Chinese. Due probably to the fact that it is a short and easy word (only two syllables) to pronounce than names of the most of the other Asian countries, it is used to refer to an Asian-looking person whether he/she is from one of the Asian countries or elsewhere in the world. While I am fully aware of the fact that Asian people cannot be distinguished by appearance and that there is nothing wrong about assuming where a person is from, I find it utterly ignorant and offensive in some context for an Asian looking person to be called out as “Cheena” by strangers on the streets. (And yes, it’s always the strangers who do this.)

It could be quite aggravating especially when a bunch of grown ups yell out “Cheena!” (with a clear intention to make fun of you) followed by “hee hoo haa!” or “ching chong chang!”. (Mind you, the Chinese language, be it Mandarin or Cantonese never really sounds like these.) So I often get irritated when strangers on the streets address me as “Cheena” because doing so would merely expose one’s ignorance to the world.

But then again, where we come from, we are taught, to some extent, to be aware of cultural and ethnic diversity in the world since our childhood. We are much more informed and exposed to the outside world through traveling, books, newspapers, programs on Discovery channel and particularly in case of North America or Europe, interactions with people with many different backgrounds. It is simply not the case here. So when I feel anger towards the ignorance of people, it comes from the fact that I’m taking those forms of exposure in my life as granted. Those, I’ve realized, are a luxury which relatively a few people in the world can afford.

2. Connections

Recently I started feeling that I’m being let live by people around me.

I have never strongly felt this way or really thought about it back in Japan or North America: over there, I felt I had, to a large extent, a control of my life. How I lived my life was entirely up to what I do each day: how I talk to people, how I work or study, how I behave myself in front of strangers. But here I feel that how your day goes mostly depends on behaviors of people around you.

For example, I could start off my day bad (I could even hate this place for a moment) when someone yells “Cheena” at me on the way to school, but then I mingle with the teachers and the students at school, have prolonged greetings with crews at my favorite local diner during lunch and on the way home I see the usual faces of the neighbors saying what’s up and smiling at me. We talk, joke around a bit and by the time I start walking again toward my place, my day seems to be much better. At the end of the day, I’m happy to have yet another good day.

Whether it’s a good one or a bad one, I’d never felt the kind of connection with everyone around me before I came here. There were and still are, off course, irreplaceable connections between me and my family and my friends, but not with everyone I met in one day. People, including myself just seemed lonely at times back home. But here whether you like it or not, you will constantly be reminded of the unbreakable connections with everyone around you and that you will never be alone.