Gone Fishing
Anne Marie Frazier, 137 YinD
I always found the concept of “self” interesting. How do you and others around you view the very basic component of what makes up community – yourself as a person? I found it so interesting, in fact, I did an internship on it a couple years ago – just me, my little desk, and a diary of different cultures at my fingertips, peeking into little corners of the world from the pages of Google Scholar. Fun fact, in several cultures in Central Africa, the “self” is often imagined as a net, an ever-changing site of interactions between different forces, presences, and relationships permeating through you, constructing your “self” in that moment and in that moment alone. It is fleeting and fluid and the next second it will be gone and made anew. Meanwhile in other contexts, mostly East Asian, the concept of self is almost paradoxical or disappears entirely, as harmony of a collective society takes precedence over self-distinction.
The American concept of self, in short, can be quite rigid. It is concrete and brash and loud and unapologetic. Americans are no casting net, they are a brick wall. A flashing bill board sign. With no cracks, for external influence to seep through, just blinding neon lights. An internal essence that has always been there and will never change. But above everything else, it is singular. America, at its core, is the individual. The individual that belongs to themselves and themselves alone and has the freedom to do so. We are independent and self-contained, up to no other person’s discretion or definition.
And, for the first 22 years of my life, I was no different. I was sure of who I was. I was expressive, I was loud, I was certain. I wore it on my sleeve, my pant leg, my forehead – and God was I proud of her. I was proud of my unwavering certainty in her. A person I found, I built up, I admired, and I celebrated.
Then I moved to Thailand.
I thought bucket showers and laundry would be hard. Imagining weather more humid than South Carolina was difficult for me. But nothing, and I mean nothing, prepared me for the grand challenge of facing myself. Because I discovered what happens when you take someone, no matter how certain they are within themselves, no matter how loyally they cling to an old chapter with which they are so familiar, and remove them from an environment that supports everything they thought they knew. An environment that reinforces the values they were raised with, their lifestyle, their belief system… their grocery routine, weekly Target runs, every simple interaction now under the microscope.
I found myself explaining every aspect of myself, every choice that I made, every habit I followed without thinking. Everything that had been nurtured into me rose to the surface and I began to pick myself apart. I mean, my community and I have lived very different lives and come from very different places, so their questions and curiosity are completely valid. But I began asking myself, these things about me, these traits that had previously gone without explanation or even second thought – were they me or was I just a product of my environment? And when you take that environment away, the context that made me, what was left? When you don’t have a sounding board around you to reinforce all the things you used to so loudly proclaim, how loud are you shouting?
I found myself taking an interesting path, completely unintentionally. In an environment so new, completely alone, strapped with the first goal of integration, I found myself rewriting a new version of myself … a Thai version. While searching for a sense of a belonging in a place I thought had no place, I found myself trying to make myself more palatable. The differences were loud – whether that came from language barriers, skin color, religion, typical dress; the list, as many PCVs know, is quite long – and I tried to soften it as if no one would notice. As if I disguised myself as Thai, fooling no one of course, the resonance I was looking for, the solidarity with my community, would suddenly appear at my feet like a Lazada package.
Now none of the things I was doing was bad. My first few months were enthralling and engaging and a fun, new life I was so so grateful to be a part of. I was dancing with old ladies during Songkran. My host brother and I made an army of jumping origami frogs. Many car rides to moo gra ta blaring Maroon 5 with my counterparts. But it still didn’t feel quite right. I still felt like an outsider looking in.
And I sat like that for quite a long time. Thinking if I put enough pressure on this American piece of coal she would eventually turn into a sparkly kon Thai. Not understanding why it still didn’t feel like everything was falling into place.
Unfortunately – I couldn’t tell you what it was. I can’t give you just one moment where suddenly the flip switched and I understood all the secrets of the universe. That would have been really convenient though. But one day, I stopped in my tracks and realized that a Thai version of me, that puzzle piece, wasn’t falling into place because it didn’t have one. I remembered that misplaced piece, that missing link, that PCV application, that neon billboard – was always American. My community knew what it signed up for. They wanted me as I was - no need to dilute it.
So I started setting boundaries for myself, ones that were perplexing to Thai culture but significant in my own. I allowed myself time alone and stopped feeling self-conscious about doing things a little differently. I started wearing my jewelry again and talked about home more. I allowed myself to miss my life back in the US and honor her in small ways every day. I tell more stories now. I’m not hiding anything, I’m not denying who I am, and I stopped living as if I had to be all-in American or all-in Thailand PCV. Like I had to choose between two worlds. Life is more fluid than that. And life feels easier now – because it is more genuine.
As we established, I don’t have the answers to the universe (if I find them, I will let you know). Some things about myself come from America. I was raised that way and that will never change. Some things about myself now come from Thailand. I’m a little bit in between now. And some things about myself just come from me. I’m not the same I was 6 months ago. I won’t be the same in 6 months from now, not to mention 2 years. Ever-changing, ever-evolving, fluid. And what a gift it is to know that life will change you, even if you are yet to know how. What a gift it is to get to see multiple different versions of yourself, all within one lifetime behind the same set of eyes.
So go be whatever you want – be a billboard, be a brick wall, be a sign spinner.
As for me, me and my net will be out fishing. We’ll see what I catch and how it changes me.
