Foreign vs. novel!

Please "read" the picture book/graphic novel entitled "The Arrival" if you haven't already done so. It is an excellent book by Shaun Tan with beautiful pictures depicting the experience of transitioning from one place to another. It mirrors the experiences of early immigrants to America, but it is done in a way so as to make you experience the transition along with the main characters. It's fascinating.

A friend of mine left a comment on facebook that made me consider the difference between novel and foreign. I can relate to a lot of the ideas about transition and interacting with a new culture, but I never realized how much I had not yet experienced.

In the book "The Arrival" the main character leaves his home and travels across the ocean to a new world. When he arrives he can't speak, read, or understand the language. He has to communicate through gestures and pictures. He is introduced to new household appliances and new ways of doing things. And he is introduced to completely new foods. Coming to Okinawa has been much like the experiences depicted in that book.

Novelty

In Haiti we didn't get a lot of things that we have access to in the U.S. When we would come back to the U.S. to visit, it was always fun to splurge on the things we couldn't get in Haiti. Here are some of the things that were novelties for me as a child growing up in Haiti:

Food (I could go on about food forever =)

-beef jerky (I don't know why, but I loved this stuff as a kid, and still do!)

-strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, blackberries and any other kind of berry you can think of

-ice cream (we had ice cream in Haiti but it was expensive so we didn't have it often and we only made our own on special occasions)

-apples (the apples in Haiti were small and usually sour- they made great pies though)

-sweet peanut butter like Jiffy (now I prefer natural PB like we had in Haiti but it's still a nice treat every now and then)

-candy bars like Snickers (we could get these in Haiti, but again, imported items were expensive)

Around the house

-carpet (we didn't have wall-to-wall carpeting in Haiti, we just had a few rugs on our cement/tile floors)

-vacuum cleaner (I remember having to learn how to use a vacuum in the U.S. since we just used a mop and broom in Haiti)

-fireplaces/heaters (some houses up in the mountains of Haiti have fireplaces, but they are not something that I was accustomed to seeing or using regularly)

-garage door/door opener (we did not have a garage in Haiti and it was always so fun in the U.S. to push the automatic garage door opener and watch the door open before you even pull into the driveway)

-TV (we did not have a TV in Haiti until I was about ten and then we didn't get basic cable until I was in my teens, and even then the reception was usually poor)

Shopping

-malls (we didn't have malls in Haiti)

-size (huge stores, I remember getting so tired from walking around shopping with my mom)

-variety (so many different brands and options for the same item, and stores for every conceivable specialty item you could want)

-quantity (there is basically a store on every other corner)

Driving

-seat belts (we didn't wear seat belts in Haiti so we always had to retrain ourselves when we visited the U.S.)

-road/street signs (these are basically non-existent in Haiti-you give directions by landmarks and people just know the names of streets without signs)

-stop lights/stop signs (there have been a few of these put in since my childhood, but stoplights require electricity to run, and that's not always guaranteed in Haiti)

-nicely paved roads (we have these in Haiti, but they are usually the exception)

-freeways (nope)

Well, I am sure I could go on for quite a while. It's actually fun to remember the things that are so different. I would have thought these things were foreign to me since I didn't grow up with them. But now I realize they were just novelties. The reason for this is that I knew of their existence. Granted, at some point I had to learn of their existence, just as all children discover the world around them, but it was at a young enough age that I grew up knowing what they were. And since I grew up understanding and knowing what they were, they were familiar and normal to me, if not common.

Foreign

I have seldom experienced something completely foreign. Growing up in two worlds (Haiti and the U.S.), and two very different worlds at that, gave me a broader understanding and familiarity with the world in general. I believe one of the first times I experienced something foreign was when I went to Morocco. And really, the foreign experiences were few, probably due to the limited time I had there. One of the first things that pops into my head is a tagine. This is a round clay pot with a conical lid that you cook in. Here is a picture:

I had never heard of or seen anything like this before. The food they cooked in it was new to me too, but it was made with vegetables and meats and spices I've heard of and eaten before. So the food was merely a novelty, not entirely foreign. Seeing mosques and being in an Arab Muslim culture was also novel to me. I say novel rather than foreign because I was already aware of and mildly acquainted with the Muslim religion and Arab culture. If I had stayed longer I would have discovered more things that were entirely foreign to me, but a ten day trip was not long enough for me to discover them.

Coming to Okinawa, has been a foreign experience. I have been here for 51 days (or seven weeks). That has been plenty of time for me to discover many of the obvious surface level differences. Working at an elementary school and teaching primary English and preparing to teach basic French has highlighted some of these things. I realized that when we are kids we learn the names of different pictures. Even before we can read, we can identify pictures. Little kids learn to look at pictures and identify things like "apple" or "ball" or "cat."

All cultures have their normal pictures that all kids know. I took it for granted that I grew up in cultures that had these pictures in common. I remember learning the names of fruits and vegetables in English and French. They were different words, obviously, but the same pictures. Here in Okinawa they have fruits and vegetables that I have never even seen before. So it's not just a matter of learning a new word for a familiar picture or item, it is learning a whole new context.

This experience is what has taught me the difference between foreign and novel. I thought I had had a lot of foreign experiences before I came to Okinawa. Now I realize that most of them were just novel. Yes I have gone to many cultures and heard many foreign languages that I couldn't understand and eaten foods that I was unaccustomed to and experienced things that I had only ever heard about. But I have never been immersed in a context that has so many unfamiliar variables. It's fascinating!