Comments on: On Being The Other

By: Fábio

Fábio — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:26:59 +0000

Yes, I know what you mean. Years ago, I watched a Chinese movie (I think it was an Ang Lee film in his Taiwan years) in which one of the first scenes was shot in a MacDonald´s – and, amidst all the Chinese people, there was an Anglo white boy who complained about his sandwich IN MANDARIN! Man, that was estrangement all right (but I felt strangely elated for this cross-cultural glimpse the movie offered).

Checking in IMDB: “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994).

By: Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:38:21 +0000

Sir Tessa just posted this amazing video related to this topic:

http://silence-without.blogspot.com/2008/07/im-not-foreign-im-exotic.html

By: Matt’s Bookosphere 7/22/08 « Enter the Octopus

Matt’s Bookosphere 7/22/08 « Enter the Octopus — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:00:28 +0000

[...] Fabio Fernands: “On Being ‘the Other’” [...]

By: Sir Tessa

Sir Tessa — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:08:15 +0000

It’s an interesting proess of denial in Australia. We’ve always had a large influx of immigrants from all over and our location makes us attractive to students from Asia and the Pacific. The previous Government wasn’t fond of the concept of multiculturalism, and pushed the image of Australia as being white, upper-middleclass and somewhat 50’s in attitude.

Just going outside into the street reveals that to be inaccurate at best. I figure it can’t be that long till people actually realise it. It’s amusing, as people here are quite welcome to foreign cuisine, just not the foreigners themselves, heh.

Japan was a strange counterpart, as there hasn’t been much of an influx of immigrants there. It might sound redundant, but Japan is incredibly Japanese, and full of Japanese at that. I take a diversity of backgrounds in those surrounding me for granted, not being able to see even that walking the streets compounded the sense of other.

By: Fábio

Fábio — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:28:44 +0000

Sir Tessa, I agree totally with you. The majorities are being worn down in Brazil as well. We still have racism (not a South African apartheid-era one, but a veiled racism that is still a thorn on our side), but Brazil is a very mixed country (Bahia is a predominantly black state, Rio and São Paulo are very mixed with Caucasian, African, and Japanese ethnic groups, Recife is full of Dutch descendents,and so on) and racism is being, let´s say, “dissipated” each generation. We are also in our way to be a nation of others.

But I never been in Japan – that has to be a truly alien experience.

By: Fábio

Fábio — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:24:08 +0000

Larry, the matter of religion also interests me. I was born a Catholic, and left it to follow the Theravada tradition of Buddhism when I was 16. Only now I´m making a comeback to the Catholic religion through the readings of Thomas Merton – but every time I mention it to a more religious person, he/she tends to look oddly at me.

And the matter of being “Un-American” is definitely a weird concept to me – here, there is not concept of being “Un-Brazilian” (maybe we should have it sometimes – now we´re watching here a spree of corrupt bankers being arrested and being released right after that through a series of holes in the net of our legal system. Truly, we live in Gotham City here – and there´s no Dark Knight, alas.)

By: Sir Tessa

Sir Tessa — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:21:46 +0000

I’ve always been a bit other, not because I felt particularly out of place, but because others found my fit odd – it’s a state of mind that is cemented when you grow up as a half-caste in a very white neighbourhood.

I found travelling alone in Japan, being quite distinctly not Japanese, childlike in my language and entirely illiterate, to be immensely liberating. To sense that you are other is to be nibbled at by doubts and small details, to know that you are, without a doubt, entirely Other with a Captial O is a relief.

The majorities are being worn down, at least in Melbourne. Soon we’ll have a city full of others.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:57:03 +0000

The Y/Millenials were those in the US born after 1978/1980, I believe, with the newest ones being of the late 1990s, I think. I never really bothered with those labels after a while, since they never could define our “X” generation that well :P

As for students not paying attention, I think that’s an intergenerational habit of teens, alas. If it’s not directly affecting them, they aren’t interested. And I do agree about being able to feel “otherness” at home. I’m a Catholic convert living in the Bible Belt. It’s quite odd at times, not to mention my bilingualism being looked upon as something odd and vaguely “Un-American,” whatever that means.

By: Fábio

Fábio — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:10:51 +0000

Come to think of it, I don´t think that we in Brazil have some specific figure to blame – It´s more a process, in fact, a process that took us so long that most of us don´t even know exactly what was that about. And the new generation (what is it called these days, the “Z” generation? I belong to the “X” and I know that there was an “Y”) is so unconnected with History that it has been a very harder ob for us, teachers, to even start talking about politics (any kind of politics, even eco-politics) without the students immediately stop paying attention – but I think this happens everywhere, even in US ou Europe. :-)

But what fascinates me the most in the concept of “otherness” is that we can feel it even at home sometimes – and then, sometimes we can be in a foreign country and don´t feel it at all. That´s the mechanics of weird for you.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:02:51 +0000

I suspected it was the unwillingness to be connected with the gringos that led to that separation of American/Americanos, but I wasn’t 100% for sure in regards to South America (in Central America, I understand that William Walker is still a cursed name, 160 years later). But the sense of “otherness” is something that’s so pervasive at times, no?