Playing the Game

I've never loved conflict. At least not outside the walls of my home. I tend to value keeping the peace over getting my own way when I'm out in public. Okay, let's be honest. It's not necessarily peace I'm after. It's my standing with others. I would rather know that others like me than assert my rights and get what I'm entitled to. At least, that's how I was until I lived in Chicago for a few years. I started getting a little more, shall we say, demanding. Come to think of it, maybe I changed after I became a mom. Or maybe it's because I married a lawyer. Whatever the reason, I learned to be quite assertive and use very gentle threats to accomplish what I needed if I found myself being given a runaround. You know, threats to get an employee's superiors involved or take legal action. Nothing criminal. I could do that because I knew my rights and I knew there were these publicly recognized standards for service that I could cite in any complaint I might have. And it worked for me in Chicago. I had many proud moments. As a foreigner in another country, I really have no ideas what my rights are. I don't know what the standards of service are. I have no idea what the rules are. All I know is that the language here reflects a culture of politeness and pandering. I've heard more instances of "sir" and "ma'am" in seven months in the Philippines than I did in thirty-three years living in the US. So in all the confusing public encounters I've been part of here, I've held my tongue. I don't want to assume a position of superiority and entitlement. But I do find myself getting a little comfortable here, comfortable enough to hint that my needs aren't being met. And it backfires. Case in point: last week I took my son to a playground inside a memorial garden, which is accessible through the campus of a private school near my house. My husband has been taking the kids on weekends, and the last time I had tried it was closed. So I was really happy when I approached the guardhouse of the private school and the guards told me the playground was open and waved me in. We played for about 45 minutes before I saw a guard come to the gate and close it. I almost called out to him, but it was pretty far from where we were playing, and I figured the guard would be there at the gate to let us out when it was time to go. I saw a car pull up to the gate, honk, and go through after the guard opened it. We played for another half hour or so, but we were absolutely melting in the intense, tropical summer heat. We got to the gate and it was locked. I knocked and called out, and no one answered. We were locked in. The only other way out was on the other side of the memorial garden, which would put us out so far down the road that we would no longer be within walking distance of our house. I had no money with me, because we had just popped over from right across the street. The memorial garden had a sign at the gate with phone numbers. The first one, of course, was not a working number. The second number put me in touch with an employee of the memorial garden who very politely informed me that they had no control of this particular gate. It was controlled by the school. And no, they didn't have a phone number for anyone at the school. So I looked online on my phone for ten minutes or so and finally found a phone number for the school. (My son is in the background, re-faced and thirsty, crying because we can't get out.) I told the man on the phone that we had come into the memorial garden to use the playground and now we were locked inside. Could he send someone to open the gate? "I'm sorry ma'am, we have a procedure for opening the gate." Okay...I understand that. But when I came in no one said there was a closing time. I was on foot with my son and I just needed someone to please let us out real quick. "I'm sorry ma'am, there is a procedure." Umm...what did he expect me to do? I got a little heated. Moms do when a problem involves their kids. I insisted that someone come and let me out. Sure enough, a guard came over on a scooter and let us out. It only took one minute. He was on a bike. It was really not a big deal. But I committed the ultimate social sin of interrupting the lunch break. I was very polite to the guard who came. I asked him politely about the garden's open hours, for future reference. Fine. We walked through the campus and got back to the main gate of the school, where we entered. The guard there stopped me and accused me of falsely identifying myself as an employee of the school, which I laughingly denied as ridiculous. He said this entrance that we have been using for weeks is only open to employees and I would no longer be permitted to pass. I gave him a snarky response and went on my way, disgusted with the whole experience. So because I got a little heated and insistent with the guy on the phone, I got banned from coming to this really nice park that we had been so elated to find so close to home. I called the memorial garden and they assured me I can come anytime if I use their main gate. I just can't use the school gate anymore. The point is, I guess I should have played the game. I should have been more apologetic that I was stupid enough to get myself locked inside the garden. I should have told the man on the phone that I would wait inside until after the lunch break. I should have been more profusely grateful for being let out. I've heard from locals and expats alike that this strategy is much more effective here, even when getting a traffic ticket. So now, after growing into a healthy assertiveness, I need to go back to my conflict-avoidance skills. Turn them on in the Philippines, put them aside in Chicago. Ah, the beauty of cross-cultural navigation.

The Reluctant Expat

Tomorrow marks six months. I have been in the Philippines for half a year. In some ways, it feels longer. I feel so far away from everyone I know and love. I feel like I've been away from my Chicago home for a long, long time. Then in other ways, of course, I can't believe how fast this experience is going. I still feel so green. I still feel like the bumbling new student and every week is the first week of school.

All the expats I know tell me that the first six months are the uphill battle, and once you get past that marker you start coasting a little bit and your experience moves toward "I got this". But at six months I'm more homesick than ever. I feel like I've had this "adventure" and now it's time to go back home.

But recently I've had to reflect on the kind of expat I've been. Is one way of living overseas better than another? Would the six-month mark feel differently if I had been living in a different manner?

I always thought that if I moved overseas I would really try to live life as a local. I would dive into the experience and all the newness around me. But here, I've simply tried to export my life in Chicago to the Philippines. Instead of taking local transportation like Jeepneys and motorbikes and tricycles, I drive my own car. My windows are up, my a/c is on, and I'm protected from the life happening around me. Instead of eating street food, I eat at nice restaurants and coffee shops. Instead of learning the language, I rely on English-speakers to help me out.

Now, there are reasons for all of this. I drive a car because A) it's safer for my kids and for my belongings, B) it saves me from spending so much time out in the polluted air, and C) it allows my kids to feel at home while we're stuck in traffic. I don't eat street food often because A) there are no guarantees that what you're getting is fresh and fully cooked, and B) much of the street food here is not gluten-free. I have had minor stomach issues fairly consistently since moving here as it is; I'm not looking to turn them into major ones. And I haven't learned the language because I can't find a good teacher--and because English is the preferred language when shopping, dining, travelling, etc.

So I haven't exactly been living like the average Filipino here. But I haven't been living like the wealthy ones, either. I don't have a nice car with a personal driver, I don't have a nanny and live-in household help to do all the hard daily work or deal with car issues, and I don't live in the nicest neighborhood with the best plumbing. I'm living in this weird state of tension, right in between "things aren't so different here" and "Help!!!"

Then last week my car died. Since then, I've had a harder time buying groceries and doing school drop-offs and pick-ups. I've mostly been using taxis, for the above-mentioned reason that I don't relish the idea of riding in the back of a Jeepney, breathing in deathly black belch. And I will not put my squirmy kids and their fifty bags on the back of a motorcycle. But I did ride my first tricycle the other day! The equivalent of 36 cents got me to the nearest grocery store and back. Pretty anti-climactic, really, but I did feel like I finally experienced a little bit of reality. And when I was walking down to the main road to wait for a trike, I had my umbrella out. Here, women walk under umbrellas on sunny days. Again, I felt like a true resident of the area.

But these and other little "real life in the Philippines" experiences haven't made me feel like a better expat, or that I'm really diving in and making the most of my time here. I think I build things up in my head as being more romantic than they are, and then once I experience them I just think "Okay, check that off the list" and get back to life the way I want it: convenient, cool, and easy. If at all possible.

One other thing about expat life--there's this expectation to travel around and see as much of this part of the world as possible while we're here. People are always telling us which dive resorts to go to or which islands to boat to, which places let you hold pythons and swim with whale sharks and which places have the best food and massages. We've been to a couple of other places in the Philippines other than the city of Cebu, but I'm already weary of the travel. I never was one for traveling much. I'm a homebody at heart. And I'm definitely not a beach-lover. I have no interest in learning to scuba dive and I can barely snorkel without having a panic attack. I would rather climb a mountain and save my fish-watching for the city aquarium. But around here, you're crazy if you don't swim with sardines or go island-hopping. I'm just a bit tired of the scene. Or, more accurately, I'm tired of hearing of the scene.

And my kids are already getting spoiled with the idea that we should go spend money doing something fun every weekend. Both days. Every Friday evening they ask "What are we doing tomorrow? Can we go to a beach resort/water park/mall arcade/bounce house?" What?! When we lived in Chicago we didn't go do something big and fun every weekend. (Maybe that's because we had parks and friends.) But we certainly didn't travel all the time. (Maybe that's because the only place within driving distance was Iowa.)

I have been calling myself the reluctant expat lately. I want to experience life in the Philippines while I'm here so that I leave with no regrets, but I desperately long for my old life with all its comforts and conveniences. I do the things my husband and kids want to do here, but I honestly feel like I'm just putting up with it all--and I feel like I might soon explode.

Luckily, I do have little outlets. I have been doing Zumba in my living room with a DVD. I get out and have coffee occasionally with women I met here. I am cataloguing all the things that I need in life to keep me sane and relatively happy. And once in awhile something forces me out of my bubble and into real life here. Maybe, at six months, that's exactly where I should be.

Brushstrokes

You have to take what you can get sometimes.

I love to recreate past moments. I was once told that I was refreshingly sentimental--but my sentimentality usually feels like a burden that costs me the gift of enjoying "today".

Moving to the Philippines has been hard, no joke. I no longer have seasons that I recognize. I don't have the crisp breezes and earthy smells of fall bringing back memories of school and cozy home days and holiday preparations. I don't have snow that blinds in the sunlight, forcing to mind memories of past storms and comforts.

I do have summer. I live in a forever summer. Most of my friends, stuck in snowdrifts in the Midwest, think I'm so lucky to be missing winter. But they don't really get how much I am missing it. Being a "homebody", fall and winter were always my favorite seasons. No pressure to be "outdoorsy", and it's always a good day to bake.

Still, I have a lot of good summer memories. I just hadn't expected to be reconnected to any of them here in the Philippines, because I figured I'd be too preoccupied with missing fall and winter. And summer in Cebu City is not like summer in the places I call home. Here, there are no parks. There are no decent beaches anywhere near my house. The sun goes down at 5:30 every evening, so there are no long summer evenings. I could go on and on about how the conditions and the sights, sounds, and smells around here fall short of really making me feel at home.

But then, there's this:

 

The sky. That glimpse of a summer sunset in the middle of city traffic was enough for me the other night. It carried me back to summers past in my hometown in Colorado, free from the stress of schoolwork and alarm clocks; the giddy freedom of being a new driver and cruising with the windows down; outdoor concerts and late frozen yogurt runs.

 

And then this:

 

Fall leaves! Totally out of season and without the accompaniment of the aforementioned breezes and wafts of cinnamon, but there they were--crunching under my feet. And I instantly traveled back a few years to a Chicago park with my kids, throwing leaves at each other for what seemed like hours. And then there's the "memory within a memory"--remembering that day in the park so well because it had brought back memories of my parents raking up piles of leaves for me and my sister in the backyard.

 

So there are little brushstrokes of familiarity here that I'm learning to spot. And now that I'm in my sixth month here, I think I'm ready to let them be enough for me. 

Let's Talk About Sweat, Baby!

Among the many aspects of tropical life that I find incredibly hard to adjust to is this issue of sweat. Living in Chicago, I can safely say there were only two situations in which an observer would say I was sweaty: on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan on a rare hot day, and in my Zumba class.

Here in the Philippines, I am sweaty 90% of the time. Sweaty when I sit in traffic in my big, black car; sweaty when I sleep; sweaty when I water the plants in the front yard; sweaty when I sit in an outdoor café. And for some reason, my sweat stinks here. Maybe I was in denial back when I only got sweaty for good reason. Here, it just feels gross--especially because I don't feel like I'm earning the amount of sweat pouring forth.

One of the natural outcomes is that my clothes are getting ruined. My scarves are turning yellow underneath, for one thing. (If only I were brave enough to go bald all the time...still not there yet.) And my clothes go in the hamper after only a half-day's use. Since my helper washes my clothes by hand in really hard water, they are literally coming apart at the seams.  Wearing out before my eyes.

The Filipinos have a way of preventing this. Actually, I think what I'm going to describe has more to do with the social inappropriateness of sweat than saving their clothes--but I've decided to adopt this particular custom purely for the financial benefit. See, they wear towels under their shirts to absorb the sweat! Ingenious idea. I first saw it among children--some boys selling food on the street had rags sticking out the back of their shirts up at the neckline. At first I thought it was to protect their skin from the sun. But then I saw people in the mall with the same thing. I once saw a guy fixing his wife's collar on the back of her shirt. "Aw, sweet", I thought. Then he stuck his hand further down her shirt, and I confess I started staring at that point. "What?" Turns out he was fixing the towel under her shirt.

So last week the air conditioner went out in our car, and I found myself a sopping wet mess everywhere I went. Black leather seats, not good in heat. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and try it: stick a towel down my shirt and get over it. Here's what I came up with:

 

Before you laugh too hard....no, go ahead and laugh. It is hilarious. I was trying to use a bath towel. I had to choose between it sticking out the bottom of my shirt like a tail, or this. Not quite the Filipino way, but through trial and error I'm learning what size, color, thickness and position are just right.

Here's the good thing: once you've seen some of the tings people do around here to keep sun and sweat off their skin, you don't really feel all that foolish stepping out like this. Oh, and here's another good thing: my shirt is hanging up in the closet, still fragrant and ready for another day's use!

Now, I will take my towel, walk down to the corner to get some street food, and pat myself on the back for attempting in some small way the resourcefulness Filipinos are famous for.

In a Word

I live in a country where everyone speaks English, but no one understands me.

It's almost like a false sense of security. I think I will be able to communicate my needs, and I almost can, but then things don't turn out quite the way I want them to. For example: I go to the store and ask for mosquito repellent spray, and I show my arm and say "for the skin". I am shown to the aisle that contains household insecticides. And forget trying to obtain information about the ingredients in a dish on the menu at a restaurant. "Gluten intolerance" does not translate.

Don't get me wrong--I know I am the foreigner here. If I want to avoid misunderstandings, I need to learn the language. And I'm trying. It's actually a pretty difficult language to learn. And really, I'm learning two languages at once. I'm trying to learn Cebuano, but I also need to learn how to speak and interpret the English of the Philippines. It's a fun challenge for a linguist!

One thing that has been especially hard is explaining my hair loss to people here. There are words that just don't come across in an intelligible way, like "autoimmune" or "alopecia". To be fair, a large number of Americans in the US don't know these words, either. But I feel a strong need to explain that I'm healthy and explain what happened, and I can't always do that. So I'm faced with some stigmas that I don't want to carry around with me. It's humbling to come to a place of acceptance in that.

The other day I went to get a massage. My therapist didn't say anything about my head until halfway through the session, when it was time to actually rub it.

"No hair", she said.

I lightly joked, "Yeah, it's easier for you this way!"

After a minute of silence, I decided to go ahead and try to explain. "I lost my hair when I had a baby. My hair all fell out."

"Oh, you have a baby?"

"Yes, two."

She was silent for a minute. Then, "Ma'am, why did you cut all your hair?"

Ok. I tucked this away in my mental lexicon: "hair loss" and "fall out" don't seem to connote involuntary action here. I tried again: "No, I didn't cut it. It fell out. It's a disorder called alopecia."

"Oh." Another minute of silence. "Ma'am, you have a disease?"

I cringed. For some reason, the word disease makes me think of boils on the skin and muscles wasting away. I think of being untouchable, unclean. The word disorder sounds so much more...internal. Unseen. Less scary. Sigh. "Yes, I have a disease."

"What is your disease, ma'am?"

"It's called alopecia."

"Oh." Silence. "But it's okay, ma'am."

Yes, it's okay. That phrase is probably the one I hear most around here. That's the Filipino motto. It's okay. And it really is! I definitely get a lot of stares here, but I also get a lot of "Oh, guapa". Guapa means beautiful. My housekeeper, who doesn't speak much English, always tells me "Ma'am, guapa" when I'm taking my scarf off at home or drawing on my eyebrows.

A beautiful thing I'm noticing is that the stares I get are not stares of disbelief or judgment. People here just stare at each other as a matter of course. Maybe it's because this culture is more communal, so people are really more interested in each other. Maybe it's because there's nothing else to do when you are sitting on the back of a Jeepney. Whatever the reason, I'm learning that I don't need to feel uncomfortable with the stares. Stares of curiosity turn into stares of compassion, which turn into stares of friendship.

It's still frustrating when I can't communicate exactly what I want. But Filipino warmth and the ability to laugh at potentially embarrassing situations makes communication a fun challenge. That's how I want see it from this moment on.

The New Standard

It's been so long since I've written anything here, I don't know where to begin catching up. So let's just jump right in to where I'm at now, shall we? Thanks for understanding. I've been busy...figuring out how to live in a foreign country on the other side of the world from everything and everyone I know and love. Forgive me.

Actually I had almost decided to call it quits on this blog. I don't have a wide readership, I don't often have large chunks of time when I can write, and, frankly, the subject matter is beginning to bore me. Maybe it's because I have moved out of my small, safe corner of the world and into a great big cultural enigma. Maybe it's because I see a lot of posts about true beauty and I think "Yeah, people get it. I don't have anything new to say."

But I recognize that writing is something that makes me happy, despite the effort it takes. I know this because I am constantly composing in my head. So I've decided to keep writing. After all, this overseas experience is turning out to be of immense importance to the very core of who I am. It might be nice to look back someday and remember how the process went. So the title remains "Beauty Redefined" for now, but be warned: the subject matter is shifting to reflect my experience adjusting to a new culture.

And this adjustment, by the way, actually has a lot to do with beauty, appearance, and self confidence. I have found that appearances matter even more in the Philippines than they do in the US. This really irked me at first, and often still does. Later, I'll get to why it doesn't constantly get to me anymore, but for now let me give some examples.

Cars. Cars here are always clean. Everyone's car is spotless. As I drive out of my neighborhood at 6 am every morning on the way to my kids' schools, I see professional drivers and household helpers out on the street, washing the cars. Here's what mine looks like:

 

Okay, I wrote that. No one would write "shame" on my car. But I have had people write "Princess" an make little drawings. The point is, my car is the only one on the road that is dirty enough to write on. As I drive behind the little buses with people sitting in the open back, I actually get laughed at...and even glared at. I once had a guy look me in the eye, look down at my hood, and look back at me, shaking his head slowly back and forth. I was shamed. This is a real thing. I get to my son's school and the teachers comment on the car. Washing the car is the first thing my helper asks to do when she comes to the house and sees it. (I have a helper who comes twice a week, so there is plenty of time in between for the car to get dirty.) And to make things worse, I scraped the front corner of the car against a wall one day (trying to turn this big beast into a teeny little driveway to get to a store, which I can't go back to because the guard still laughs at me when he sees me). I haven't had time to get the bumper fixed, so I boldly drive around in a dented, scraped, dirty car. And believe me, I feel the eyes on me. I feel the heat come to my cheeks as I drive around and see the looks people give my car.

 

 

The same goes for stains on clothing, trimmed trees in the yard, costumes for school programs, etc. Everything needs to be clean, shiny, spot-free, wrinkle-free...perfect.

 

Well. That is not how I roll. Especially in the kind of heat and humidity we deal with here. Who has the time and energy to maintain appearances? Filipinos do, somehow. They know how to look immaculate in any setting.

 

 

But I'm starting to understand why, I think. I mean, aside from the obvious historical fact that the Pinoy are a subjugated people with a self-esteem crisis. They were occupied by the Spanish for hundreds of years, and then came the Americans. When you've been occupied for so long, independence brings with it a need to prove yourself, I would imagine. One thing a clean, shiny car says is "I can afford to have a helper and/or driver take care of my car for me". I get that.

 

But there are also more practical reasons. If you have stains on your clothes, it means you let food drop at some point and didn't take care of it right away. I know from experience that if you have food on your clothes and they sit in a laundry basket because you don't have a helper to hand wash them, when you take them out they will be swarming with ants. You need to keep things much cleaner around here in the land of lightning-fast bugs.

 

Bugs actually contribute a lot to the lifestyle here. But that's another post for another time.

 

Anyway, I guess what I'm learning is that there are reasons to keep up appearances sometimes. I'm not used to feeling so inferior and sloppy so much of the time, but I can't let that turn my heart toward an attitude of judgment. I actually have a lot of respect for Filipinos--they are striving for beauty in a place where daily living is just not easy. I think their sense of pride is a thing to admire.

 

But...I also think it might be important for me to continue driving my dirty car and letting people confront their own stereotypes and judgments when they see it. What do you think? Should I be myself and be happy with what I'm capable of, or should I make more of an effort to assimilate and show respect for the community I'm in?