I landed in the Boston Logan International Airport on a cool Monday evening in August after 23 hours of flying. It was 23 degrees celsius, and the sun was bleeding into the sky in hues of orange and red. Yes, that’s in degrees celsius. Yes, 23 degrees celsius (equivalent to 73 degrees Fahrenheit) is cool for me, and yes, I survived 23 hours in a pressurized tin can. After all, home to me is a very sunny island called Singapore.
For those of you who don’t know, Singapore is located between Malaysia and Indonesia, near the equator in Southeast Asia. This is the primary reason my roommate needs to deal with our room constantly being a sauna.
Singapore is also an independent nation that was once colonized by Britain. Hence, the metric system and the driving on the other side of the road.
I arrived here as an exchange student from Nanyang Technological University, and for one semester I get to be an American student. This is a prospect that is very exciting to me, considering the stereotypes and stories floating about in the media about an “American college experience.”
Honestly, the American higher education system itself does not differ all that much from Singapore’s. However, I have found myself rather shocked, amused and surprised by many things I have encountered in America. So let me tell you about the America I have seen so far, from a relatively well-travelled, native English-speaking Southeast Asian’s point of view.
No one understands me the first time I speak, unless I add American slang to my phrasing. I am rather proud of my grasp of the English language. After all, I am a communication and political science double major at my home university, with hopes for a career in journalism. I was a little taken aback that apparently my enunciation was not good enough to be understood by my American friends. Upon some self-reflection, though, I understand that we’re all just used to hearing different speech patterns and it is of course difficult to understand someone with a different way of speaking. It was a blow to my ego, but I put on my big girl pants and dealt with it.
In Boston, people have a tendency to ask you how you’re doing and then walk away from you. The first time this happened to me, I was thoroughly confused. I also thought it was kind of rude because the person did not even wait for me to answer them. All I could think as she walked away from me was, “OK, wait, what just happened? Am I not supposed to answer you? Oh, OK, alright, you’re not turning around. I guess that’s goodbye then.” It was such a weird way to greet a person. But I have grown accustomed to it and now just utter a simple “fine,” regardless of whether anyone is listening to me or not.
A lot of people do not actually know where Singapore is, or anything else about it for that matter. I guess I do have a lot of pride for my little home because I personally feel that for such a small country — our whole country is smaller than New York City alone — we have come very far. Also, about two months ago, Singapore was invited to the White House for a diplomatic meeting. Despite this, I have been asked multiple times where Singapore is, or what state in Singapore I am from. I had to explain to people multiple times that there are no states in Singapore. It is just Singapore. Last week I shocked a man I met at the Red Sox game when I told him I was from Singapore because he said he would have never had guessed I was from Singapore. My English was apparently too good for me to be from Singapore. I looked at him bemused, and asked him why he would be shocked or think that my English would be bad. After all, English is the first language for anyone in the Singapore education system. It made me realize that even Americans were trying to battle stereotypes and that even Americans were victims of toxic generalizations.
I expected to have to deal with the stereotypes that would come with the fact that I am Indian by race and Singaporean by nationality. I figured I would have to explain that concept to people who may not be as well-informed. But I was arrogant enough to think that I would not need to be educated on American culture. After all, I speak English. I travel a lot, like most Singaporeans. I am well-educated. I pride myself on being cultured and worldly. But I did let myself buy into the stereotypes about Americans. I was in the wrong to do that. I realized that by letting myself buy into the stereotypes in the American media, I had done to America what I thought Americans would do to me: judge me without knowing me.
I am sure that a lot of things in this country will continue to boggle me and ruffle my feathers, but I guess I should give America a chance, too. You deserve better, I deserve better and maybe next week I will tell you about how I almost died crossing Commonwealth Avenue because traffic travels in the opposite direction here.
