when in china...

This blog post finds me short on sleep, what with the discovery of a rat in my room last week and the return of the bed bugs. Despite this, I am very optimistic for the coming week, particularly for our site announcements this THURSDAY and mental health break this weekend. Most of us are going to spend the weekend in the beach town of Bilene; we have rented two houses and plan to have a great time during our much needed break :)
This weekend was pretty exciting: field trip to the witch doctor on saturday and hiking on sunday to the intersection of the three borders: swaziland, south africa, and mozambique. The weather was perfect for a 5 hour hike. (pictures to come soon!)
Something very interesting came up last week and I wanted to share. In a session about stigma and discrimination (particularly in an HIV/AIDS context) our two mozambican facilitators asked us to each think about a time in which we felt isolated or rejected (in our personal lives). As we came together as a group to share our experiences, one of the facilitators wanted to get us to do some quick exercises to boost our energy. 'when I say cadeira quente (hot chair) you all stand up!' 'when I say cadeira fria (cold chair) you all sit down!' 'when I say china, you do this!' and he proceeded to yell 'hai-ya!' and make karate chop movements. An uncomfortable feeling settled over the room even as my peers repeated (a little hesitantly) after him. And as I watched this happening, my heart began to pound and I became acutely aware of my status as the only asian in the room. I felt helpless, frozen, unsure of what my peers were thinking and if they felt the same knot in their stomachs as I did in mine. Was no one going to call him out on that culturally inappropriate remark? It took me a minute to find my voice. 'I am chinese, or almost chinese,' I said. 'I am taiwanese, I am asian, and I did not appreciate what just happened. I don't know karate or kung fu, neither does my family, neither do my friends from china ,and I did not find that appropriate.' The facilitator became very defensive and replied,'We're just playing around. Its nothing serious.'
And just like that,he passed over my concerns without really acknowledging them. A few people shared their personal accounts of experiences with isolation, and all the while I continued to feel (ironically) isolated in this session. So when I finally found the courage to speak up again, I surprised even myself to find the tears falling as I said, 'I'm still upset about earlier. I know none of you meant anything offensive but you all still DID it, you still perpetuated something you knew wasn't right. And so I think it's important for us to note that, while we're discussing isolation in different contexts, in a family or in a community, these things can and do occur even in groups such as this. Even Peace Corps, where we all pride ourselves on being open minded. And maybe it's because im in the only asian here, but i felt my identity tested and discarded into a degrading stereotype, and I still feel shitty about this.'
I think that's when it really hit. As people reacted (positively) to my words, we suddenly entered into an open discussion, an impromptu diversity session. We've had several in the past weeks, sessions meant to promote diversity and understanding, but this time it was real, not just for me but for the PCTs with me. The outpouring of support and agreement was immense. It made me strangely glad that this happened because of the thoughts and conversations it provoked, and because i know this is only the beginning of these kind of struggles.
As a Taiwanese-American in mozambique, I know I will face numerous challenges during my service, especially in regards to my race. Kids and adults alike will (and already do) chant,'Chinesa! Chinesa!' as I walk by, never taking into consideration that I may not consider myself chinese. I could be korean, or philippina, or any other sort of asian and it would make no difference to them. I may explain that I am american, but to them that doesn't make sense. Americans are white. 'you have the face of a japanese person' my host sister's boyfriend told me. 'I'm american,' I said. 'Yeah, but you have the face of a japanese.'
A lot of it comes from ignorance, especially of geography. My friend's host family owned a globe that they used as toy, ' the spinning ball,' never realizing that its actually meant to be a map.
Part of my mission here is to teach mozambican about americans and the diversity it entails. But it's hard, to be categorized into a racial group before they even know my name.