Cross-Cultural Encounters Archives

Sleeping with “Bar Women” in Siem Reap, Cambodia as a Way to Meet Someone (A Conversation)

One morning while I was getting breakfast in Siem Reap, Cambodia I had a long conversation with a white US American living there. For anyone unfamiliar, Siem Reap is a small, tourist city in Central Cambodia withu a population of around 350,000 most known for the absolutely amazing Angkor Wat ruins, one of the marvels of the world.

This account is just one perspective on complex dynamics between Western men and Southeast Asian women. It exemplifies the types of inequalities and power dynamics in these kinds of relationships and how both he and the Cambodian women he have met navigate these relationships.

The guy had lived in Siem Reap for about 7 months. He is deciding whether to settle here long-term or go back home. He says he has everything he wants in life (such as a nice home, food to eat, etc.) except for a woman.

He has gotten frustrated, though, with the transactional interactions he’s had so far with Cambodian women here. He’ll meet different women at bars, take them home, sleep with them that night, intending for them to be a one-night stand. But then the next morning, they ask for money. He says the amount of money they ask for is not much, but he finds it insulting. It makes him think, “I thought the woman was simply interested in me, but then I realize, ‘Oh that’s what kind of relationship this is.’” He also said he usually meets “bar women” or women who specifically go to bars to meet guys there, which to him are “like this.”

He said he felt frustrated in the US with having to pretend to like people’s personalities or have someone play a wingman in order to get to sleep with them. In Cambodia, he can say, “I think you look pretty; do you also think I’m attractive? Okay,” and go have sex. He also likes that women are more upfront about complimenting his body, for example strangers telling him he looks attractive.

In contrast, he got frustrated with how in the US, women are selective and would seem to judge him on things like his job and salary (he worked a blue collar job often labeled as “lower status”). Here he is comparatively more desired. He admits that Cambodian men seem to have it harder than white men such as himself, though. They often have to go through several hoops like justifying their career path if their work is considered menial.

In his opinion, Cambodians require less in life here in Siem Reap: often just wanting a place to sleep, enough food to eat, and a motorbike to get around. For him, people do not seem to know what they are lacking materially: if they lived in a Western country, they would own so much more monetary wealth and material stuff. But to him, this ignorance prevents many in rural Cambodia from seeing what they lack, lowering the material standards of what a “successful life” looks like, almost like a coping mechanism. (Note: This is his opinion. I do not agree that rural Cambodians do not know what they are “lacking” but find the reasons for these differences in cultural expectations for material things to be a bit more complicated.)

Thus, when the women he sleeps with asks him for things, he can hardly fault them for their request. They are often asking for basic needs like food, and compared to the US, what they are asking for is not that expensive. At the same time, the requests make him feel uneasy

I found it interesting talking with him. I could relate to the frustrations and hurt about having people so frequently ask you for money, but it seemed like he was in some way using his status given to white men in that community to have one-sided, short-term sexual encounters. One-night stands are okay when both sides reasonably know and agree on what to expect, yet I sensed that the women he was having sex with had very different expectations and assumptions than him, seeing the sex as a beginning of a relationship, not just something they are doing that night.

Because of his privilege, he could enforce his expectations that this was a brief sexual encounter. He obviously controlled whether he helped others financially, and he could move on to another woman if this woman had what he considered too unreasonable an expectation. That allowed him to satisfy his own desires (both for sex and to be complemented for his attractiveness). To me, this seemed like a vain and ultimately self-defeating approach for finding satisfaction emotionally, relationally, and even sexually.

I found it sad. He seemed to have some kind of insecurity, which he sought to satisfy by continually having sex with different Cambodian women and seemed either oblivious or indifferent to how that subtly positioned the women as a type of object for him. Then he got frustrated by the ways those women tried to respond within that.

These kinds of cross-cultural relationships can be complicated to navigate, though, especially given differences in power. Everyone has expectations for how to interact, which are influenced by one’s cultural context, and when in another culture, it’s definitely okay to communicate your expectations and find people who respect and abide by your expectations. At the same time, it’s important to be aware of where others are coming from and to be aware of how your power and privilege may unfairly impact the situation. I think he simply felt frustrated with how the women did not abide by his expectations, moving swiftly to get what he wanted without thinking through what their encounter must have looked like from their perspective and how his power and privilege shaped the interaction itself.

This kind of obliviousness can be common among those who are in a position of power in society: particularly white men in other cultures. It can also make one think about how positions of power could lead to similar ignorance in our own lives.

Left for a Younger Wife – Story of a Middle-Aged Indonesian Woman Getting Divorced

Traveling through Indonesia, I have spoken with a surprisingly high number of middle-aged women somewhere in the process of getting divorced. Compared with the United States, many Indonesians marry younger, with significant cultural pressure placed on women to find a husband by their mid-twenties. At the same time, once married many women choose to stay home as housewives. This can lead to a dynamic where as they get older, they mature apart from their husbands and by their early forties end up in a position where the marriage falls apart.

Such a divorce often forces them to rebuild their lives from the ground up. In addition to starting from scratch materially, financially, and/or professionally, they also go through a kind of renaissance where they rediscover their passions in life that they had put on hold when they became stay-at-home wives. It feels partially similar to retired, empty-nesters in the US rediscovering their old hobbies and passions after their children become adults and start to move out.

This story is a specific example of a woman in her early forties I spoke with who was in the thick of this such a divorce. Her husband fell in-love with someone else and decided to divorce her. Different individuals have different journeys, but her story illustrates some of the tensions and opportunities Indonesian women in such a scenario might face and how they might navigate it. I will refer to her by the pseudonym Putri.

—

Putri had been married to a man for about twenty years, but her husband had been having an affair with another, younger woman for about five years. When Putri and I spoke, he recently decided he wanted to get a divorce so that he could marry this woman. This has left her in a precarious position. She is now in her early 40s and has spent most of her time living as a housewife.

While they were in the process of finalizing their divorce, the husband tried to get married to his new wife. Having two wives at the same time is not allowed in Indonesian law, but he tried to specifically get a Muslim marriage, and the practice of the local religious community seemed to allow it. In Indonesian law, a man cannot marry multiple women, but in Muslim law in Indonesia, that is allowed. The process to submit a divorce for the Indonesian government typically takes about two months. Then a few days after the divorce was legal in Indonesian law, he and his new wife signed the paperwork to marry under Indonesian law. This was in itself very difficult for Putri, seeing her husband so quickly remarry and be with someone else.

They have three kids. In Indonesian law, the kids basically get to decide which parent they move in with after a divorce, and she strongly thinks that they will choose her because she’s the parent they have always been closest to. She said that her husband was an absent father. She is worried about them, though, about how they will process the divorce. Neither she nor her husband told them that they are getting divorced until right the weeks before it happened, and they probably haven’t told them about the affair with their new stepmother.

Putri has a remote gig job online and invested in a local shop her friend started. Both of which she said will give her enough money to get by. She has been a housewife for many years but started her work about 2-3 years ago (around the time she learned about the affair). She said if the divorce had happened back then, she wouldn’t be able to get by since she didn’t have any income independent apart from her husband, but now, she will be financially okay on her own.

Over the last several weeks, she has been a conflicting stew of emotions. She spent several weeks crying. Then, she will have times when she feels really angry and times when she feels compelled to move on and do something fun. Other times, she feels paralyzed and can’t motivate herself to do anything. Sometimes, she even feels like she wished she could sit down with him and see if there’s a way to make it work between them.

She plans to use this time of being divorced to rediscover her passions. She used to write Indonesian pop songs, which is something she wants to go back to. When she was around 19, she was in a band as the lead singer, but all that ended when she married this man. She is good at writing the chorus lines but bad at writing the verses. Her ex-husband (who works in the music industry) would help her make the verses and rest of the song based on her choruses.

She also wants to use this time to travel. She joined a hiking group that hikes once a week while her kids are at school. She also recently went on her first solo trip over the weekend as a way to test the waters for more travel and get her kids used to having her be away for a few days. At the same time, she feels incredibly anxious/scared about doing all this. Some moments, her eagerness to venture out wins, and other moments, her worry takes control. She said many Indonesian women want to go forward yet feel paralyzed by anxiety about doing so at the same time.

She also said that she had a pattern, rooted in her abusive father, of anxious attachment. When she was a kid, she would attach herself to her father, and then when she was around 19, she then attached herself to her boyfriend in the same way who eventually became her ex-husband. She isn’t used to being by herself or focusing on her needs.

At one point, I asked her what she wanted in her life, and she said she wanted her kids to grow into great, well-adjusted adults. I responded saying that wanting your kids to grow up well-adjusted made total sense as a parent. That’s important. But I asked what she wanted for her life, not what she wanted for their lives. She said she has struggled figuring out what she wants in life. Usually, she ends up focusing on how to provide the needs and desires for those around her instead of what she wants for her own life. She tends to lessen her needs in her family and other social environments as a way to ease the tension, not articulating any desires she has but going with what they want to keep the peace and maintain stability. This seems to be something she wants to work on during her time by herself after this divorce. She wants to figure out what she wants for herself. But like one might expect, she also feels incredibly anxious about it.

On top of this, she said Indonesian society stigmatizes divorced women. People tend to view divorce as emblematic of a failed marriage. Even worse, when a couple gets divorced, they usually by default blame the wife instead of the husband for that failure. She sometimes feels really anxious about what others will think of her and how they will treat her as a divorcee. Multiple Indonesians have said that divorced women can be highly stigmatized and outcasted in society, something that both hurts their standing in the community, job prospects, and other important things in life. She has no real choice but to go forward. She thinks getting divorced from him is still worth it to her even if others think ill of her since separating from him will enable her to find happiness in life.

—

Her story illustrates a few patterns among middle-aged women who get divorced. Like her, many marry in their early- or mid-twenties only to drift apart from their husbands into the point of divorce by their forties. When young, the women had many hopes and passions in life that they often put on hold to stay at home as a wife. Now that they are divorced, they must rebuild their lives both emotionally and materially. They also go through a period where they rediscover themselves in the process, reacquainting themselves with the personal passions and professional interests that they loved as their youth. They often say that the experience has taught them the importance of being true to themselves and not sacrificing themselves for anyone, reflecting on how naive it was for them to do so when they first got married when they were young.

Rejected by Others: Growing Up with Epilepsy in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This is a transcript of my conversation with Bella in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She describes her experiences growing up with epilepsy. Throughout her childhood, others have judged or alienated her because of her disease. This is her story of overcoming the stigma others have placed on her.

She spoke Indonesian, and our friend, Hanisa, translated our conversation into English. Because of the way we switched languages throughout the conversation, I decided to post a transcript for anyone interested in reading Bella’s original statements. For anyone who, like me, does not speak Indonesian, all you have to do is copy and paste her statements into a translation app.

Original Version Published Here: https://youtu.be/m8GGnTFydqM

Transcript of Our Conversation

[Stephen – Video’s Introduction]

Hello everyone. This is Stephen with the Curious Life and this video is the first video in a series I’m starting. My plan is to interview people in the different places I visit as I travel the world and talk about their struggles, talk about what life is like for them, and in some cases some of the biggest struggles that they face. The idea is to help people think about the different types of struggles people face in different parts of the world and maybe help people who might experience a similar type of issue in their own context and help them think through how to navigate it themselves.

In today’s video, I’m going to talk with my friend named Bella in Yogjakarta in Indonesia. So she’s going to talk about her experiences growing up with epilepsy and maybe most importantly how people treated her growing up. A lot of people alienated her and bullied her and did a lot of mean things or you know didn’t understand her or her condition. So hopefully this video will help for anyone thinking about people who might be different and what might be going on and help kind of understand the different ways that people with different conditions might behave differently and be more sympathetic. Or also people who maybe are growing up or who have to live with something like epilepsy. So I hope you enjoy, and you’ll get more videos like this in the coming weeks.

[Our Conversation]

[Stephen]

Hello everyone, this is Stephen. I’m specifically here with Bella, my friend, and also with Hanisa. Hanisa is here for translation support and emotional support as well. Bella, how are you doing?

[Bela]

Fine.

[Stephen]

Good. That’s good. And [turning to Hanisa] how are you doing?

[Hanisa]

Good as well

[Stephen]

Yeah, I wanted to talk about maybe some of your journey. So for context, could you tell people a little bit about yourself?

[Hanisa]

Jadi perjalanan kamu gimana? Kamu minta tentang diri kamu?

[Bela]

Perjalanannya sungguh sulit, kadang ada yang mudah, sulit, terus liku-liku lah ya. seperti itu. Saya

mengalami epilepsi dari kelas 6 SD dan mengalami skizofrenia mulai dari lulus SMA tahun 2020.

[Hanisa]

Eh, jadi so she said that the journey is hard for her. Sometimes it’s easy, some is hard. She has been struggling since she was diagnosed with epilepsy as well. It started in elementary school

[Stephen]

Yeah wow. This makes sense.

(Oh and one other quick thing for anyone in case you’re wondering, I do have a cold so if my voice sounds deeper or if I randomly start coughing that’s why.)

But yeah, what was it like growing up with epilepsy?

[Hanisa]

Kamu ngasnya gimana in elementary school? Tumbuh tumbuh ya kamu kamu kamu kan tumbuh gede dari kecil udah epilepsi itu rasanya gimana kamu rasanya dari kelas 6 SD itu? Heeh. mulai ke trier ya. Heeh. tentang pembulian.

[Bela]

Terus dan SMP saya memilih individu waktu sekolahnya dan akhirnya SMA saya memilih pakai C. Oh. Saya memilih individu karena saya trauma karena dibully dari kecil.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first the most triggering experience for her was when she was in the sixth grade. When in the sixth grade she got bullied by her friends. When in junior high school, she used to be a lone wolf. She used to be a person who didn’t interact with anybody else.

So at the senior high, she chose to do Packet C in Indonesia. It’s like an exam but not the majority of people who do it. It’s not the original exam from senior high school. You can do Packet A for is for elementary school Packet B is for junior high and Packet C is for senior high [in other words, Packet A is an alternative competency exam on can take to graduate from elementary school, Packet B for junior high school, and Packet C for high school].

She did Packet C because she didn’t want to experience having to go around in school. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Stephen]

I mean, I’m glad that you had that option, but it honestly seems like there’s a bit of hardship there. How did the students bully you?

[Hanisa]

Jadi dia paham. Jadi kayak untung ada kayak opsi lain itu dia ada pakainya tadi kayak jadi bisa menghindari itu. Tapi kalau dia tanya lagi jadi kayak kamu gimana merasanya waktu ekspresi waktu pengalaman waktu kamu dibul merasanya seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya merasa sakit hati karena telah dibully tanpa merasa bersalah. Saya sebenarnya tidak pernah punya kesalahan dengan teman-teman SD, tetapi saya dibully dan dikata-katakan kotoran hewan, kuman dan tidak suka dengan teman-teman yang lain.

[Hanisa]

He said that she was so heart-broken when she was in elementary school at that time when she was in sixth grade. She felt that there’s friends who say bad things to her. Used to mock her saying that she wasn’t even a poop of the animal. She said, “You are bacteria.” And other bad words. They all said to her, but she felt like she didn’t do anything wrong at that time. But all of her friends, they mocked her.

[Stephen]

Why did they mock you? Was it just because you had epilepsy? That seems awful.

[Hanisa]

He kamu diol-ol tuh epilepsi aja atau kayak kenapa aku bis diol kayak

kira-kira? Teman-teman tuh kayak gitu kenapa kamu tahu enggak atau kamu enggak tahu benar?

[Bela]:

enggak tahu em kamu

[Hanisa]

So she said that her friends didn’t know that she had epilepsy at that time so it wasn’t about it.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes sense. It seems like the like in of itself having epilepsy is something that can be very difficult to process especially as a kid. And it seems like you kind of also had to deal with people treating you differently at the same time.

[Hanisa]

Jadi pasti dia bilang pasti berat buat bela kan. Jadi kayak sesuatu yang kalau

diketahui nanti kan pasti orang-orang bakal kayak gitu kayak gitu.

[Bela]

Heeh. Bagaimana caranya mengalami itu perjuangannya dan entah bagaimana rasanya yang mengalami seperti saya. Entah itu bisa pulih atau tidak. Belum tentu orang yang mengalami seperti saya akan sekuat ini.

[Hanisa]

Iya. She said that many people experience epilepsy, but she doesn’t think that every other person can survive as much as she survived. She grew. She learned as much. She didn’t stop believing in herself. She still has the courage to stand within herself.

[Stephen]

That’s good. That’s awesome. What do you think helped give you that courage?

[Hanisa]

Kamu kok bisa seberani itu se percaya diri itu dengan dirimu untuk apa yang membantumu kayak apa sih gitu?

[Bela]

Saya berjuang dengan diri sendiri karena saya menyemangati diri sendiri kalau orang itu tidak pernah ada yang memilih saya. Terus dan saya pernah dibully itu. Hm. Saya rasanya sakit hati ingin rasanya ingin balas dendam. Hmm. He. Dan saya akhirnya kelas 5 SD mengamuk di satu kelas dan mengguyur satu teman saya, teman dekat saya.

[Hanisa]

So she said that after she got bullied in elementary school, she wanted to take revenge on the people who bullied her. And that actually happened when she was in fifth grade, she took some water with her, and she splashed it on the person and burned her in class.

[Stephen]

Oh wow. This is a different story but when I was that age I also did that to a boy

who was yelling at me and I happened to have some very hot water cuz I was boiling some water. And I realized that like it’s hot, and it was bad. It didn’t burn and which is good, but like I didn’t really think about it all the way.

Yeah. This makes sense. I mean maybe in general: What was it like learning about your epilepsy and processing that you had epilepsy and some of the other issues that you also developed like schizophrenia and stuff like that?

[Hanisa]

Eh, kamu gimana

[Bela]

Kayak memprosesnya di dalam diri kamu kalau tahu oh aku ternyata emang aku absus aku juga aku rasa kamu cara mengosesnya biar bisa kayak berdam kayak udah gitu kayak gitu. Heeh. Oke. Saya berdamai dengan diri sendiri karena telah diberi saran oleh kakak saya karena pemulihan itu penting dan harus minum obat rutin jika ingin sembuh.

[Hanisa]

So she made it herself. She said that what helps her the most is her sister. Her sister told her you can be good if you keep doing medicine and you keep on growing as a person and I will be there to support you. You said that ya?

[Bela]

I oke maamin sekarang boleh.

[Stephen]

Ok, that makes sense. And that’s important to have that support from your sister, from your family. How did you feel when she said that?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan yang bilang gimana pas kakak bilang kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Rasanya tidak terima jika dikejar-kejar atau di dipaksa untuk minum obat. Sebenarnya saya tidak suka waktu itu awal kena epilepsi dan saya menyembunyikan obat itu di bawah kasur dan saya mengaku kalau saya sudah minum obat dan obatnya habis.

[Hanisa]

So she said that at first it was hard for her to accept that she had epilepsy, and when her sister said that you have to routinely have your medicine she didn’t want the medicine. So she hid it below her bed, and she didn’t drink it, but she said she drank it to her sister or family.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean I’m glad the medicine can be complicated in of itself like what is the what is the medicine like I thought sometimes epilepsy medicine can be both complicated and have a lot of side effects too.

[Hanisa]

H jadi kamu kan medicin medicine perepsiaan jadi medicine perepsinya tuh apakah apa banyak atau kayak harus kayak ben harus teratur atau harus kayak berbari gitu?

[Bela]

Awal kena epilepsi, saya meminum obat dengan tiga kali sehari, pagi, siang, malam. Setelah bertahun 2 tahun kemudian, dosis diturunkan menjadi dua kali sehari. Lalu diturunkan kembali pada tahap selanjutnya jadi satu kali sehari dan tahun ini jadi 2 hari sekali.

[Hanisa]

Hmm. So she said when at first she got diagnosed with epilepsy, she had to drink medicine three times a day, and two years later she got the dosage reduced to two times a day. And then after that got reduced again to one time a day, and right now a day she only drinks it once every other day. So it’s getting less and less so. It’s getting easier.

[Stephen]

And what do you feel like? So, with what you’re saying with your sister, we were talking about focusing on personal growth. What do you think the growth has looked like for you over the last couple years?

[Hanisa]

Kan kamu tadi aa kayak fokus tentang pertumbuhan diri gitu. Nah, pertumbuhan dirimu yang beberapa tahun ke belakang ini seperti apa?

[Bela]

Saya sebenarnya perjalanan hidup ini sedang mengalami stres terus dan saya mengalami merasa kesendirian individu, tidak punya teman, merasa dijauhkan dengan teman dekat dan ingin bersosialisasi jadi tidak percaya. saya diri dan saya memikirkan memutuskan untuk mengedap di rumah sendiri menahan diri di rumah sendiri.

[Hanisa]

Hmm, so actually what she said right now was that she feels so lonely. She feels so stressed. She’d like to try to hold the life that she’s got going on lately. She felt like there are no friends who understand her, like, “I cannot say anything to anybody. My friend got away from me, and they want to get close to me.” And she said that she chose to go to her home and isolate herself there and don’t want to be with anybody else.

[Stephen]

I could definitely see that. If your friends are discounting you like that, I could understand wanting to go home and be safe there. When this happens and when you go home by yourself, how does it feel?

[Hanisa]

Perasaan bilang gimana pas sudah tahu perasaan karena kamu enggak gitu kamu mau pulang.

[Bela]

He enggak bukan e setuju juga.

[Hanisa]

Tapi kayak kamu kenapa enggak itu kamu mau pulang aja gitu enggak mau kayak gimana perasaan kamu kayak waktu pulang sendiri gitu?

[Bela]

Heeh. Banyak saya merasa tidak dianggap dengan teman, tidak berguna kepada tetangga. Dan saya merasa sakit hati, merasa rendah diri kepada diri sendiri, kecewa dengan diri sendiri. Kenapa saya selalu direndahkan, dijauhkan, dan diejek dengan teman sebaya?

[Hanisa]

She said that her mind is occupied with thinking that all of her friends, her peers, don’t want to get near her, and she cannot interact well with her peer group. All of the friends keep putting her outside of the circle.

[Stephen]

I could see that, and obviously I’m not like a medical expert, but I thought some of the medication for epilepsy could be very strong and that it can do a lot too. This makes sense. It’s unfortunate that this has been isolating you in this way. What helps you feel connected with others?

[Hanisa]

Jadi apa yang kamu merasa kamu merasa terhubung dengan orang lain tuh apa yang kamu apa yang bisa merasa terhubung kayak apa yang maksud saya merasa

[Bela]

terhubung dengan orang lain mulai dari berobat seizo ini dan saya mulai percaya diri setelah minum obat penyakit kizo ini dan saya jadi percaya diri untuk bersosialisasi kembali dengan teman sebaya saya dan saya ikut bergabung di komunitas KPSI. Saya merasa bangga dengan diri sendiri dan saya juga senang bisa berkumpul dengan teman-teman yang lain seperti Mbak Hanisa dan teman yang lain. Karena saya suka dengan teman yang pengertian, mendukung satu sama lain dan bisa apa? Mendukung belajar untuk mengenali penyakit mental.

[Hanisa]

She said that felt connected now especially with people in [the mental health support group she joined] like me [Hanisa] and the other friends here because she likes it when people around her are understanding. The people around her can support each other in their own way like that, and

said she likes it. That she can learn a lot from joining this community.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. What have been some of the biggest things you’ve learned in this community? And maybe for context for anyone watching, she’s referencing a community here in Yogjakarta that has people with different kinds of mental health issues whether it’s epilepsy or other things, and they come together and try to kind of talk things out like a small group community support.

[Hanisa]

What was the question?

[Stephen]

Oh, I’m sorry. The question was: How have you been growing in this group? Oh, what have you learned?

[Hanisa]

Apa yang kamu jadi paling paling kamu pelajar yang pelajaran apa yang kamu dapat PKWSI selama 2 minggu?

[Bela]

Oh, masih dapat. saya bisa mengenali penyakit mental, mendapat saran dari dokter saya bahwa harus melakukan aktivitas atau kegiatan sehari-hari itu penting karena agar membantu otak untuk berpikir kritis dan bisa membantu kesehatan mental jadi sehat lagi dan push.

[Hanisa]

She likes it that she can learn from her peers. As well, she can manage her own diseases, and she can talk to the psychiatrist there and KPS as well. She likes it that way. She can grow to be a better person here in KS.

[Stephen]

This makes sense. I’m glad that you have this opportunity. It seems like you’ve been disconnected from so many other people because of this condition. I guess one other question I wanted to ask: Given what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently if you could go back in terms of how you kind of processed and handled all this?

[Hanisa]

Kalau kamu bisa masa lalu, adakah hal yang kamu pengin ubah? Dari situ eh dari situ sekarang kamu gimana?

[Bela]

ingin mulai belajar dari awal lagi. Seperti belajar di waktu SMP, SMA itu saya rasanya ingin mengulangi lagi karena saya seperti merasa kurang ilmu saja dan saya besok tahun depan ingin kuliah di kampus impian dengan dari pihak Yakum. H dan semoga saya bisa diterima.

[Hanisa]

So she said what she wanted to repeat. She wants to redo the time when she was in junior high school and senior high school just because she feels like the knowledge she had wasn’t enough, and she is planning to apply for college in the near future, by the support of Yakum, from that organization. She is hopeful that she can be accepted with courage.

[Stephen]

I hope I hope you get that too. That would be awesome. And I also think like you for many of us myself – I was like this – college can be a time that we can kind of redo a lot of the aspects of either high school or middle school that we would have done. It’s an opportunity to, on some level.

[Hanisa]

Jadi, kamu bisa ngulang lagi yang kamu pengin pulang di SMA, SMA kamu ngulang pas kuliah. Jadi kamu bisa lakuin itu pas kuliah. Jadi itu jadi ada kesempatan buat kamu tidak bisa mengekerien yang kamu experience SMP SMA bisa experience kuliah.

[Stephen]

I have a final question, but it does have two parts. The first part is what would you recommend for anyone experiencing this having this starting at a young age like you. What would you recommend they do to help and help grow?

[Hanisa]

Saran dari buat teman-teman yang sama yang berak ituus apa biar mereka juga tetap bisa tumbuh tetap bisa berkembang gitu ya?

[Bela]

Sarannya saran saya untuk teman-teman yang mengalami seperti saya harus semangat dalam menjalani hidup ini untuk minum obat rutin biarpun itu perjalanannya berat anggap saja obat itu adalah vitamin dan itu bisa memulihkan penyakit biarpun perjalanannya dan waktunya lama semoga yang mengalami saya bisa sembuh pulih, dan tetap semangat untuk menjalani hidup walaupun mengalami penyakit epilepsi dan skill.

[Hanisa]

She said to all of you who experience the same as Bella. She said to keep on fighting. You can pass through that and don’t forget to drink your medicine regularly. Think of it as a vitamin so you don’t think much about it.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. I would agree with all that. It’s like I think in a case like this to take your medicine. It’s like investing in yourself. It’s like growing yourself, making sure you’re on track. So this was the second part of the final question: What would you recommend for anyone who has someone in their family encountering this or has a friend or somebody they know who is having to deal with epilepsy especially at a young age?

[Hanisa]

Kalau saran cara bu orangnya saran buat keluarganya itu apa?

[Bela]

Kalau punya seorang yang punya seperti yang insyaallah masih muda gitu kalau tidak saran saya sangat sulit dijelaskan karena ibu saya, kakak saya, adik saya tidak percaya kalau saya mempunyai penyakit mental itu mood-nya sedang naik turun karena saya dianggap seperti anak pemalas walaupun saya bisa melakukan lakukan aktivitas apapun saya kadang naik turun mood-nya dan orang tua saya tidak percaya dengan saya kalau saya itu sedang mood eh tidak mood biarpun saya bermalas-malasan, tapi saya masih tetap bisa melakukan aktivitas sehari-hari.

[Hanisa]

She said that her mother, her sister, her brother didn’t understand her and said that she was being labeled as lazy. But she didn’t think that she was lazy, just not having the mood to do the things their parents or siblings say at that time.

[Stephen]

Yeah this makes total sense. I bet I think for some people sometimes people can label something as lazy and not realize that it can just be a little harder for you to do it. Like in some people with this condition doing something for people that maybe is normally this level of difficulty for them is that higher level of difficulty for you. It just takes more work. So it doesn’t seem fair to consider you lazy for not being able to do it. It just might be that that thing is a little harder for you to do.

[Hanisa]

He itu ya hal-hal tadi gitu tuh kamuak enggak bisa kalau kamu ngesiap langsung kamu tuh malas kamu tuh gini ya karena itu itu sulit waktu itu untuk melakukan hal yang disuruh waktu itu karena memang belum kan belum pas itu kan sama waktu itu.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Stephen]

Yeah. And I did say the final question, but I do have a followup question on that real quick. If somebody knows someone, you know, in a family or friend who has this condition, what can they do to try to understand it better? You know, maybe unlike your family who didn’t always seem to understand.

[Hanisa]

Kalau dari eh kan tadi bilang kalau yang belum belum semuanya paham gitu kan.

[Bela]

Iya.

[Hanisa]

Nah, kalau misalnya sebagai berat pilihnya seperti apa? Kalau biar orang mengerti paham itu kayak seperti apa yang baik gitu kalau orang yang juga sarannya?

[Bela]

Heeh. Caranya saya sebenarnya ingin memberitahu keluarga saya kalau saya itu bisa melakukan aktivitas apapun. Tapi keluarga saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu anaknya kadang rajin, kadang suka membantu orang lain dan keluarga saya tidak pernah percaya dan saya dianggap anak pemalas kadang-kadang karena orang tua saya pulang waktu orang tua pulang pulang kerja saya masih tidur saya karena kalau tidak mood saya kerjaannya tidur dan saya mager kalau untuk melakukan aktivitas apapun jika eh walau mood-nya masih naik turun

[Hanisa]

She said that she still has an issue with trust in her family. So her parents when they got home she saw that Bella was sleeping at the time just in the bed and didn’t do anything. And that makes her parents think that it’s a thing that Bela shouldn’t do.

[Stephen]

Hm. This makes sense. How would you have liked your parents to have responded in that situation?

[Hanisa]

Penginnya kamu orang gimana kayak gitu?

[Bela]

Pengertian mengerti kondisi saya kalau saya itu orangnya tidak pemalas. Karena saya malas itu karena mood-nya saya naik turun. Dan saya sebenarnya pengin melakukan aktivitas karena ingin membantu. Tapi saya tuh terasa naik turun. Jadi orang tua saya tidak percaya kalau saya itu memiliki gejala yang lebih apa di bawah dari orang lain. Dan saya ingin menceritakan pada orang tua saya kalau teman-teman di komunitas ada yang lebih parah dari saya. Tapi saya tidak berani karena saya mungkin dianggap mereka hanya omong kosong atau bohong gitu ya. Jadi orang tua saya menganggap saya di keluarga saya paling malas ya.

[Hanisa]

She said that she doesn’t think that she’s the laziest person. That they must be really hard.

[Stephen]

Yeah, that’s really unfortunate. It probably adds insult to the difficulties you actually face on a regular basis to then have people say you’re lazy and just say that and to think about you that way.

[Hanisa]

Pasti susah pasti enggak enak Mas kalau orang yang bilang kayak gitu terus enggak gitu.

[Bela]

Sakit hati sekali rasanya. Rasanya saya ingin pengamuk tapi saya tidak berani. Saya mending diam saja menahan rasa marah, menahan amarah daripada membikin membuat keributan di rumah. Lebih baik saya diam daripada saya dimarahin, diomel-omel, dikatain yang tidak-tidak dan akhirnya menjadi masalah besar.

[Hanisa]

She said she wants to explode to her parents. She wants to say that that’s not true. She wanted to define herself but she chose to keep it by herself and didn’t say anything. But yeah that’s her from inside.

[Stephen]

That makes sense. That does sound very hard. I guess for now let’s say, “Thank you for doing this.” How would you like to sign us off? Would you like to do the peace sign or what would you like to do to sign us off?

[Hanisa]

Mau saya gimana buat kayak gantungnya untuknya gimana?

Terima kasih semuanya karena telah melihat saya di sini dan mendengar saya kisah dari remaja sampai dewasa sekarang ini. Saya ingin memberi saran kepada teman-teman semua jika mempunyai kisah seperti ini, harap diperjuangkan walaupun rasanya berat, sakit hati dan harus sabar mengalami menjalankan hidup ini walaupun memang itu memang berat bagi yang mengalami. Dan terima kasih sudah saya akhiri. Sampai jumpa.

[Stephen]

Thank you for listening and bye. Terima kasih. Thank you and peace.

What is It Like Teaching in Sao Paulo, Brazil? A Reflection on the Issues Facing Brazil Today

I recently spoke with Sao Paulo teachers. To protect their actual identities, I will refer to the first one as Gabriela and the second woman as Ana. They taught me a lot not only about life as a teacher in Brazil but also about societal forces affecting regular people in Brazil. Here are their perspectives on life as a teacher and Brazilian society overall:

Working as a Teacher

Ana teaches middle school reading, and Gabriela English for middle schools and high schoolers. Most schools in Sao Paulo and Brazil overall have two or three sessions throughout the day: one in the morning (say from 7:00 am to 12:00 pm), the second in the afternoon say from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm, and sometimes a third night session after 7:00 pm. Students attend one session each day.

To make ends meet, most teachers, however, teach both in sessions at two different schools: teaching the mornings at one school and then going to another school to teach evenings, which seems to amount to 11 hour days (plus lesson prep and grading). Ana knows a teacher who teaches three (night shift too).

Gabriela teaches a morning session at one school five days a week and then an afternoon session two days a week. Thus, she said she works about 35 hours a week, which is a bit more manageable.

As a teacher, Gabriela said she makes about $3000 Real (about 600 US dollars) a month. They both teach in a poorer neighborhood in a black suburban community. They said that sometimes the students and others in the community express concern on their behalf that they do not make a lot of money.

At the same time, their students will see that they can afford certain things like a car or the ability to travel to other countries, and think, “You are wealthy. I thought you didn’t make a lot of money.” To their students, that seems like a lot of money, but to them, they are not paid a lot relative to their level of education. They can still almost afford things like international travel and cars if they budget their money well, but that is significantly less than many other college-educated professions. From this depiction, I got the sense that they would fit into the lower middle class.

Despite this, they said that some days they love teaching and feel like a champion, and other days, they can’t wait to leave and go home. They see their students everyday for a year or sometimes multiple years, which gives them a long-term vantage point on their students’ learning.

The Worrying Creep of Authoritarianism in Brazil

They felt that democracy is fragile in Brazil. Gabriela’s father was born in 1966 and grew up under Getúlio Vargas’s dictatorial regime. Brazil eventually became democratic afterwards, but leaders like Jair Bolsonaro speak nostalgically of the regime. When the current president Lulu (or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva) beat him in the last election, Bolsonaro still tried to agitate his followers to reinstate him after he lost the election.

Even during the election, they felt Bolsonaro used his power to try to cheat and maintain power. For example, in the remote rural provinces in northeastern Brazil where Lulu’s base is, a special service busses people the far distance to the polls on election day. They said the federal police under Bolsonaro pulled over these busses and insisted on seeing everyone’s papers in order to waste time. That way, by the time the bus of people got to the polls, they were closed, preventing them from voting.

They said that as teachers, they see some of the parents of their students start to advocate for family values and other ideas that they worry about. These movements they see as connected to the above authoritarianism. This can come up when they discuss certain issues in the curriculum like sex education and racism in Brazil.

Sex education can make many parents skeptical, but it’s important for students to learn. They don’t just teach about sex but also about how teenagers should treat the changes in their bodies. They also teach how to be treated properly and respectfully in relationships, including how to identify abusive or violent sexual acts. In situations where a family member is sexually abusing a child, that behavior is often depicted within the family as normal and okay. The school is most often the place that teaches the kid that this behavior is wrong and unacceptable. The sex education curriculum is the best defense against such behavior, even though that can cause a pushback against families where such behavior is normalized.

Afro-Brazilian Experiences of Racism

Gabriela, herself a black woman, said that many people in Brazil act as if racism is not a thing, as if this place is a racially just society now, but there is a long history and structural racism until this day. Slavery was awful in Brazil, lasting for several centuries. Brazil was one of the last countries to end Transatlantic Slavery. Then once they were set free, it wasn’t like they had a place to go or got any resources.

Gabriela’s family came from the backlands, a word for a desert-like wilderness area without a lot of infrastructure or resources. Her grandparents moved to Sao Paulo. Many black people from there moved to Sao Paulo several decades ago in the second half of the twentieth century to build the railroads that connected Sao Paulo with more remote parts of the country.

These people usually lived in eastern Sao Paulo where their existence as poor black people from rural communities were considered a “problem” by many Sao Paulo residents. Yet, the city needed their labor to construct the railroads, so they tolerated their existence somewhat. After the railroad was completed, many remained in eastern Sao Paulo. This resulted in a huge boom in Sao Paulo’s population: both because these railroad workers chose to stay and because the trains made it easier for people to migrate from the countryside into the city. Most people in Sao Paulo have parents and/or grandparents in some rural part of Brazil who migrated in the second half of the twentieth century.

People in Brazil often talk about the US history of racism. For example, Gabriela said that people who want to argue that racism does not exist in Brazil will point to the fact that Brazil never had legalized segregation like in the US South.

She also said that she and other black people loved the shows “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “Everybody Hates Chris.” They, especially Fresh Prince, had a formative experience for her and other black millennials. The show was the first time she saw really successful black people navigating high society. It taught many Afro-Brazilians that black people could be successful. The controlling nature of Chris’s mother in “Everybody Hates Chris” also reminds her of how many Latina mothers are.

The group who dubbed Fresh Prince in Portuguese here in Brazil became famous here. They retranslated the language (or codes if you want to use more academic linguistics terminology) that the various characters spoke into parallels in Brazilian Portuguese.

They explained that central parts of the city tend to be wealthier and the outskirts or suburbs of the city tend to be poorer (where there is less infrastructure like subways or other public transit). Structural racism is very prevalent in how people from the poorer suburban areas are more likely to be black.

This is the opposite of the US where based on redlining and white flight, the suburbs are often wealthier and whiter, and communities in the city nonwhite with less wealth accumulation. Gabriela likened it to how when the black slaves were first freed, they had nowhere to go, so they went up into the hills around the community and built homes for themselves there. She surmised that was how favela’s first formed (poorer black neighborhoods in the hills surrounding a city).

Conclusion

In this conversation, I found it fascinating learning how societal dynamics are similar yet different between the United States and Brazil. There are many overlaps in the stories – such as structural racism, overworked yet underpaid teachers, and troublesome authoritarianism lingering under the current in politics – yet Brazil has some stark differences in how these manifest.

I find it particularly interesting learning about the history of Black peoples and racism in Brazil. The many parallels yet contrasts with the experiences of African Americans in the United States taught me a lot about how racist historical forces influenced both, giving me a case study to view what is unique to the United States or to Brazil or what experiences seem common for Black peoples across the Western Hemisphere.

You can learn a lot by visiting other parts of the world and then once you are there, talking to people and listening to their stories.

(If you find discussions of people’s experiences in other cultures around the world like this interesting, please let me know, and I will be sure to keep writing these.)

Why Is Life Not Working Out for Me: A Reflection on Andrea Hirata’s “Rainbow Troops”

I recently read Andrea Hirata’s “Rainbow Troops.” It is a fantastic coming-of-age novel about a poor boy growing up in Belitung, Indonesia and about the role individuals, society, and the world overall play in producing poverty. To wrap up the novel’s themes, the main character, In its final pages, reflects on how fate, effort, and destiny influence the direction of people’s lives:

Many of the poor from his island, in particular, give up and blame their poorness on fate. God or the divine must think they deserve to be poor like this. They may be tired, and giving up is the path of least resistance. Working hard can be like picking fruit while blindfolded: you don’t know what kind of fruit you will end up with, but at least you’ll have fruit.

I found this to be an interesting and honest reflection about resilience in the face of difficulties in life. Everyone struggles with succeeding and failing in life, but those without as many resources often lack the ability to safeguard themselves from their mistakes and the mistakes of others (see this more detailed discussion how that happens). This can make it significantly harder to continue to persevere in life choices like education that may prove useful for one’s long-term development. They often cannot handle the risk that they may fail.

Instead, they frequently must choose the safest option professionally: whatever will give them enough money to eat and have a place to live right now, even if that job pegs them into a lower income track. Thus, they narrow themselves to what has worked, even if it may not be the best option for them. Because of this, giving up or blaming yourself can seem like very practical options.

But blaming fate or blaming yourself both ignore the potential role society might have played to put them in this more marginal position in the first place. Societies often act to exclude certain people, relegating them to the status of poor or supposedly undeserving. But it takes time, energy, and emotional intensity to realize that and to determine how to best take action to address it, and those who need such action the most unfortunately often do not have it in them to work through that.

(For a more full discussion about the travails of the socially fortunate, you can read that here.)

Awoken from Her Afternoon Nap (A Short Story)

The knocking jolts the Thai nurse from her nap. She pushed aside the Thai comic book she had been reading on her couch before she drifted into her afternoon siesta. This was her day off, and all she wanted to do was relax at home. Who would come knocking at her door?

“Hello, I need your help!” The voice called from the other side.

At first, she tried ignoring it, but the man wouldn’t go away. She was off the clock: this was her day to not help anyone. Eventually, though, she walked over to the door to figure out how to politely send him away.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Please help me!”

“Help you with what?”

“My foot! My foot hurts,” the man cried.

She looked through the peephole and saw it was her neighbor. She barely knew him, but he lived across the hallway in their apartment complex.

“I need someone to check it out,” he implored.

She is hesitant, but she decides the easiest way to send him away would be to look at it real quickly.

“Ok,” she replied, opening the door. “Let me see.”

He limped her over to his apartment, where he reclined on his couch, his right foot sticking up towards her.

“It’s the sole. The sole really hurts!” is all he could say.

She conducted a brief examination. She started poking the soul along key pressure points to see whether anything was the matter and then moved up along the ankle.

“You should be fine,” she explained. “You just have some swelling along the ankle that is pinching your nerves and causing pain in your sole. Rest for today, but tomorrow, go see the doctor. There’s a small chance it might constrict your blood flow and cause a blood clot. Those can be life threatening.”

“Ok,” he replied, relieved.

“You are going to be okay. I’m going to go back home, but if you have any more pain or soreness take some aspirin.”

With that, she left. She didn’t want to say anything because she didn’t want to stay long, but something was off. His foot was cold, and she couldn’t feel a pulse. He also didn’t respond to the normal nerve pinches or tickling that would usually cause any foot to flinch. If it was not attached to her moving, screaming neighbor, she’d have assumed it was a dead foot.

She walked back to her apartment. Had she done the right thing ignoring the anomaly? Or should she have investigated it further? She couldn’t help but feel like she had seen a case like this before, but she couldn’t remember any details. As a matter of fact, all of this felt vaguely familiar.

She entered her apartment. Her cat was staring at the screen door of her balcony, gazing outside. She walked over to her balcony too. It was a sunny afternoon, and its warm glow beckoned her. She couldn’t help but see a part of herself in her cat, the part of her that longed to head out and have an adventure.

She opened the screen door to take in the sun, but her cat immediately took this as an opportunity to try to bolt outside. She caught him just in time.

“No, no, no,” she cooed. “You can’t climb out there. You might fall off the ledge and get hurt.”

She carried him back to her couch, but when she sat down, he immediately jumped out of her lap and perched right back up on the windowsill to plan another opportunity to escape.

She checked the status of her nursing certification application for New York. Everyday, she was waiting, waiting, waiting. She felt like her life had been stuck in limbo.

She put that aside and picked up her Thai comic book. It satirized the latest developments in Thai politics, how the current military-backed government had bamboozled democracy to maintain their iron grip like always. She also felt like this was the same old song and dance. Like she had been reading about this same story happening again and again.

This all struck her as odd. Like her world was on repeat. All this intense thought made her sleepy, though, and she slowly drifted off to sleep.

She jolted awake suddenly to someone pounding on her door crying that he needed help. This was her day off, and all she wanted to do was relax at home. Who would come knocking at her door now of all times?

(If you would like to read more short stories, you can browse them here.)

How Do You Come Across in Other Cultures?

As I was walking through the Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul, South Korea, I overheard a very interesting conversation.

A Chinese tourist and a Dutch tourist were walking in front of me talking (in English). The Chinese tourist was explaining the different types of tourists he sees from around the world:

“Koreans, they are often silent. They may not say much the whole conversation, unless they have something very important to say. For example, they may say one thing in the conversation: something you should do. They’ll phrase it like a suggestion, ‘You might want to consider doing this.’ Absolutely do it. Don’t let that confuse you. It’s a complete necessity. That’s why they are bringing it up.

“Americans, on the other hand, never shut up. They will constantly ask you questions, like they are interrogating you. It’s their way to connect with you as a person and get to know you. They’re trying to be friendly, but it can take some time to get used to. They love long conversations where they ask you tons of questions about their life.”

When I heard this, I was trying not to laugh out loud because as an American it is so true for me: I love asking lots of questions as a way to get to know someone.

At the end of the day, this is only one person’s take on American vs Korean styles of interactions, but as an American, I found it helpful to hear the perspectives of US culture from others around the world. They shed new light on my styles of communicating that I often take for granted. We can become so used to our way of doing things that we can easily forget to see it for what it is: one way among many.

Thus, when you talk with others around the world, feel free to think about how they might see you, and if you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can even ask how you come across. It makes a fantastic edition to add to your long list of questions.

(If you find discussions of people’s experiences in other cultures around the world like this interesting, please let me know, and I will be sure to keep writing these.)