Recently I went back to the States for an extended visit. Four weeks I was there. I really wish I hadn’t stayed so long.
It’s getting weird up there these days.
DIVISION AT THE GATHERING
First, I went to my favorite place on earth: Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina. This has been my tenth year going to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games (a gathering for people of Scottish descent), and I don’t go anywhere twice! I have friends from all over the country whom I only see for 1-2 weeks a year, but who have become incredibly important people to me. I always rave about the kind, giving, accepting micro-culture on what we all simply refer to as “the mountain.” In fact, I started a thread in the event’s public Facebook group to that effect and there are 54 heartwarming comments of the tribal camaraderie that the participants have experienced over the years. Stories of generosity, kindness, and true family spirit among strangers.
But this year, I saw so much cattiness and division. Exclusivity for exclusivity’s sake. Interpersonal drama. Bickering. It really did not reflect the mountain I knew.
Here’s the thing. Recently, the US has been having a talk about racism. Well, some people are talking about racism, and some people are saying there’s no need to talk about it because it’s over, and other people are saying that talking about racism just perpetuates racism so you shouldn’t talk about it.
Sigh.
Aside from some other reprehensible events that have led to a national discussion, right before my visit, there was a mass shooting in a black church by a very clear, very nasty white supremacist. This was in South Carolina. Very close to Tennessee and North Carolina, where I visited.
You see, white southerners perpetuate a myth about their ancestors because the Civil War is embarrassing as hell. They fought and killed for the right to slavery, one of the most universally disgusting things in the whole world. Not to mention they lost. So southerners believe it was about “states’ rights” or “freedom” or “overreach of the federal government” or what have you. But it was about slavery. Really about slavery. Click those links and have a nice read if you don’t believe me.
When I lived in the South, I occasionally got into arguments with well-meaning (?) white friends who loved to fly the flag of the Confederacy. In my opinion, no matter what the flag stood for (ahem—slavery/racism; please see links above) in the beginning, it now stands for racism because of how it came to be used. Not just during the Civil War but later, during Jim Crow, segregation, at lynchings and KKK terrorism events and white power rallies.
The swastika started out as a very different symbol, I’m told. A Buddhist symbol for peace or something. Would anyone with half a brain fly a swastika flag and argue that they did it for Buddhism these days? No. Because it means something else now.
All this has to do with my visit to the States, you ask? Bear with me.
On the mountain, every year there’s like three campsites with a rebel flag hanging. You see, people decorate their campsites with all kinds of flags. The 2 Scottish flags, American flags, military flags, state flags, jolly rogers, diver down flags (me), and more. Pretty much anything except the Union Jack. Because Scots and Brits… well, they’ve got a thing going on. A talk for another day.
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| I fly the Costa Rican flag too :) |
People have actually started flying a symbol of racism in the wake of a very turbulent season for racism and culture.
And the weird thing wasn’t the “it’s my heritage, not hate” arguments I kept encountering at campfires. While frustrating and ignorant, those talks aren’t new.
It was the unwillingness to compromise.
In my Facebook thread asking for stories of the “feel of the mountain,” you see people talking about strangers giving them raincoats on rainy days, or offering hot food when they were hungry, or patching each other up when they fell and got hurt. You see 54 different stories of kindness and brotherly love.
But when a girl asked three of the “nicest guys on the mountain” to please take down their Confederate flag because she found it offensive, what did they do?
They put up a second Confederate flag.
These guys. They would do anything to be nice to someone. If I said pink hurt my eyes and one of them was wearing a pink shirt, I absolutely guarantee you any one of them would change his shirt to make me feel better so my eyes no longer hurt.
But the culture of nasty division and the need to stand proud and uncompromising is so strong now, these guys had a yelling argument that ended up resurfacing for days later. It was so sad.
Witnessing this from the sidelines (and if I’m honest, running away anytime the drama got close to me) was when I first started to feel reverse culture shock.
REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK
Reverse culture shock, experiencing culture shock when reentering your own culture after a period spent in a different culture, is a well-documented psychological phenomenon.
But let me be clear. When Costa Ricans ask me if I miss home, my answer is honest. “No,” I say.
Of course, then they ask, “¿Por qué?” Why?
Well, it’s complicated, I say. But the first reason I give is racism. Living in the South, I never felt comfortable. Ever. The very first meal at a public restaurant I had after moving from the North to the South was the very first time I encountered racism. I didn’t like it then, and I never started liking it.
I saw this divisiveness in other ways on the mountain, too. A potluck that invited everyone but 10 poor souls. A guy who worked super hard to host the group gathering on the last night but was somehow, for reasons completely unknown to me, snubbed at the last moment.
I thought to myself, “This is reverse culture shock.” I was just used to the generosity and openness of Tico culture. I was being hyper-sensitive. “Wipe it off, Jess,” I told myself. No big. I watched all of this but did not participate, did not meddle, did not engage, and did not say a word about any of it.
That’s not usually me. I’m all for having the tough conversation. But I figured my judgment was off a little, so I stayed quiet.
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| It was more fiery than just campfires |
AGGRESSION
I got back to Tennessee and within 2 days I was done being there. Take what I saw on the mountain and multiply it a hundredfold.
The aggressive, no-compromise, angry culture was alive and well here. I was chatting with family and somehow we got on the metric system. I said something to the effect of, “It’s dumb how we still use the imperial system when even the ones who invented it, the Brits, switched to the metric system.” My brother piped in with, “Yeah, well, the Brits don’t get to carry their guns either.” His tone was downright hostile. Yes, this is my brother who does not know how to interact with me without being rude. But it was also his culture, informing him to take any and every opportunity, no matter how tenuous, to bring up a hot-button issue and initiate nasty fights about it.
Going out in town, more people proudly displayed the Confederate flag than didn’t. When they noticed you looking they often gunned their loud engines and did what can only be described as hollering.
“Wipe it off, Jess,” I told myself. “It’s reverse culture shock. You’re hyper-sensitive.”
TREATMENT OF CHILDREN
I witnessed two different occasions of child abuse within those two days. Not blatant beatings or anything, but a nasty man being a nasty man to a trembling child.
I remembered when I arrived in Costa Rica, I noticed how Ticos treat their children. As a rule, they’re bundled up, holding hands of mom or dad, clean, and paid attention to. In Tennessee, you often see kids whose noses haven’t been wiped for hours. Kids who aren’t wearing enough to stay warm. Kids who are ignored, and kids who are yelled at for small infractions.
Before you say it, yes, I know child abuse exists in Costa Rica. Boy, do I know. I worked at a daycare in the most dangerous barrio in all of San José. This facility deals with kids who are horrifically abused. One little boy is required to bring two pairs of pants because he was raped so brutally he doesn’t know when he has to go to the bathroom and frequently has accidents.
What I’m talking about is the normal accepted culture, not the outliers. In general, the kids on the street you see in Costa Rica, the ones who have parents with them, look better cared for than the same types of kids in Tennessee.
“Wipe it off, Jess,” I told myself. “It’s reverse culture shock. You’re hyper-sensitive.”
INTERPERSONAL DRAMA
And the friend politics. Oh my goodness, the friend politics. I’m not going to be very public with the details here, but let me just say it was weird. I mean, friend politics were a clear reason that helped me decide to move in the first place; I wasn't happy.
Of course it was gratifying to have people finally telling me stories of my ex being a total jerk to them all year. Vindicated much?
But there was so much weirdness about who hung out with whom, and who went to what social event, and who was dating whom, and… I felt cross-eyed. It raised my blood pressure to think about it. I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. So I stopped trying to hang out with all of them. I hung out with my mom.
“Wipe it off, Jess,” I told myself. “It’s reverse culture shock. If they want to see you, they will reach out and make it happen.”
CULTURE OF FEAR AND ANXIETY
And lastly, the culture of fear. I had forgotten how pervasive fear is in the culture up there. Not just fear of Isis and fear of ebola and fear of terrorists. The political, news media fear. That I had not forgotten.
No, I’m talking about the fear and anxiety that runs as an undercurrent in almost every conversation you have up there. The worry about what others think. The worry about the doctor’s appointment next Tuesday. The worry that so-and-so was rude to you on Sunday and what that means and whether you should say something about it or not.
As an example, I used to be pretty road ragey. Now I’m not. I don’t drive, and giving up that illusion of control helped me let go of the need to control the people on the road around me. They’re way worse here, trust me, but I care less.
My mom was driving and I noticed this constant anxious stream of words as she drove. “Oh dear, now that truck’s gotten in front of me and I have to slow down.” Or, “Of course he speeds up when I’m able to pass.” Or, “Please don’t turn yellow.” I responded to each one of these with aggressively peaceful comments like, “Well maybe he didn’t know how slow he was going until he saw you.” Or “Ah, it doesn’t matter if we’re one minute late.” She looked at me in amazement.
“It’s like you’re a different person,” she said. And she was 100% right.
But what’s really crazy is by the end of four weeks, I was driving her car and caught myself vomiting the exact same kinds of anxious, angry things at the drivers around me. “Oh, NOW you decide to get off the damn phone and drive?”
I clapped my hand to my mouth. Holy crap, I had to get out of there. It was getting on me!
TO CONCLUDE MY RAMBLINGS...
Some well-meaning (?) patriotic friends of mine will read this and conclude that I’m an America-hating terrorist sympathizer.
I’m not, but thanks for playing.
No culture is perfect. I’ve already blogged about the machismo culture in Costa Rica that drives me batty. (It still drives me crazy and may one day be the reason I leave.) And I’ll get to others soon as well, including the gross misuse of natural resources, water mismanagement, litter, and pesticide use.
The point is... well, there is no point, really. You're reading my thoughts because I process how I feel by writing it down.
I guess the point is that no culture is perfect. If you sit around and beat your chest insisting yours is the pinnacle of evolution, guess what?
You’ll stop evolving.
The States, and the South in particular, and Tennessee/Nashville even more specifically, has some issues. Things that rubbed me the wrong way. Things I hope they become aware of and try to improve. Things that CAN improve. It’s a collection of human beings who are, by definition, not perfect. So this blog may offend you. You may click the “unfollow” button or if we’re friends on Facebook, the “unfriend” button. It’s okay. No hard feelings.
I’m trained as a sociologist, so I can’t help but notice these things, and the psychology of reverse culture shock fascinates me. But here’s the thing.
I asked a few people, “Am I just noticing how bad some of this stuff is for the first time, because I’ve been away for so long?”
Everyone I asked said no. They’ve noticed the devolution, too. Some of this stuff has gotten worse.
I probably won’t be visiting again for a while. I’ll stay in my chosen, flawed little corner of the world and heck yeah, try to make it better too. Hopefully my old home is doing the same thing. I’ll be rooting for you.
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