tales of sojourners in foreign lands.
Strange experience yesterday. Neurotic and guilt-addicted as I am, it's been gnawing on me ever since.
Nothing earth-shaking, really. I was on an escalator going down to a supermarket and right in front of me was some Caucasian man with a frisky young daughter. Ok, ho hum, nothing to see here. I was supermarket-bound specifically just to look for tea (THERE IS APPARENTLY NOT A SINGLE REASONABLY COMMERCIALLY ACCESSIBLE, IF AT ALL AVAILABLE, PRODUCT OF WHOLE-LEAF, UNBAGGED BLACK TEA TO BE HAD IN THIS COUNTRY. THIS UPSETS ME RATHER A BIT). No reason to dawdle, right?
So escalator touches down, we all trot off it, large man encumbered with small daughter in sea of armpit-height Asians is moving rather slowly. So I slip into the conveniently me-sized space somewhat in front of him but off to his side. And then on to the next. Filipinos are very slow walkers and I am not. (A very slow walker, anyway.) I have always been an adherent of the principle of "Be All the Slow You Want, But Don't Block the Way for the Un-Slow."
So anyway I was dodging in and out of pointlessly slow-shuffling traffic, iPod in my ears, but I overhear Caucasian Man go, "Well there's no need to go right in front of us" or some such, very haughtily. I still don't know whether he actually meant me (nobody else appeared to be dodging around as I was), and frankly couldn't be bothered to find out. But the incident stuck with me, right through the fifteen-minute (I took pains to be very thorough) prowl of the supermarket that left me still tea-bereft and consternated.
Some thoughts, in no particular order:
1. "I'm pretty sure I caused no one inconvenience." Yes, they were moving that slowly, and I do move that quickly (precisely because I don't want to hold anybody up with my impatience). Also, I'm fairly skinny, so I do fit into spaces average-sized people don't (or don't care to).
2. "Entitled white-ass tourist crap. You think I don't know what your British Petroleum has done to the Gulf of Mexico?"
3. "What I did was just to make the flow of traffic more efficient. The fewer people clogging the way pointlessly, the better." ("You should thank me!")
4. "You're not in Kansas anymore. Deal with the local culture or don't come here at all."
5. "Hum, maybe I'm more Filipino than I thought (or, I'd like)." I should explain here (and in connection with #3) that Metro Manila traffic is notoriously lawless. Vehicles weave in and out of traffic the way I did. But I'd like to point out that there's a material difference between automobiles and people. (And no, I don't drive the way I walk. But plenty of other Filipinos do.) This is, by far, the thought that's given me the most pause.
Just something cluttering up the brain.
At the same time, recalling incidents, e.g. when I was in New York some years ago, when white folks were in a hurry and didn't think twice about calling out anybody not compliant (we were lining up for subway tickets). And recalling stories of other societies where "rudeness" is much more severe and much more routine (e.g. Parisians along sidewalks, at least according to David Lebovitz). Hey, if the French do it, how worthless can it be, as a practice?
I must remember that human nature is universal. Even if culture is not so. (And therein lies the salvation of mankind, even if not in this God-forsaking pocket of the planet.)
~
Ties in, though, with what I recently remarked on with the Spartan: I think a mere few weeks of routinely commuting via the packed morning commuter trains is starting to turn me a little more into one of the dreaded Them--all these mute and mulish animal-like Filipinos, pushing and shoving thoughtlessly into the trains even while people are still coming out (then standing stock-still in the doorways even when their stops are 5 million stops away, adding purposelessly to the inevitable squeeze), clinging with their entire bodies like limpets to the handrails (I am not about to sacrifice my personal safety to your idiocy, so I will grip that rail and delight in grinding my sharp little knuckles against your sweaty, overly fleshy body to do it--thank God for females-only cars), doggedly holding up their gigantic bags at face-level because it never occurs to their blank minds (duly reflected in their diligently blank faces) to hold the bags low because (1) there's more space around people's legs and (2) it's actually safer from most pickpockets that way. Then, because we're all so terribly passive-aggressive, the most people tend to do is aim dagger looks at offending others, which I take pleasure in returning full force (with less overt anger and much more bored arrogance--I know I'm in the right, you dolt) until, a few seconds later, they avert their gaze (but change nothing else--again, we excel at very few things, and passive-aggressiveness is one of them).
No, we are not a very intelligent people at all. And even the few of us that are, are religiously and devoutly uncaring about anybody else. Staying firmly mired in the Third World through about two generations takes a lot of hard work, you know.
I am starting to accept--I realized it a long time ago, but have been resisting resignation thereto--that people who debase themselves in this manner can only comprehend similarly prehistoric communication. So I am starting *fingers crossed* to be more assertive--not to say aggressive--in jamming elbows into opportunistic idiots and telling them out loud to Let me pass, you fucking moron, because I can fit into that space--a movement that will redound to collective benefit, which escapes your brain the effective size of a walnut--and you, with your generous ungainly doughy body mass and your corresponding lack of gray matter, cannot, although you have been striving mightily to keep me from accessing said space.
Twice now I have quite successfully physically barred people from cutting in line, by thrusting out an arm in a split second. Thrice I have said to such people, "Excuse me. There is a line. Do try even a little bit to stay in it." All times they have been effective, and necessary. All times the people have said absolutely nothing, made absolutely no response, just mutely stayed back (only to surge ahead of me yet again the moment it was physically possible). Animals. Animals.
(Which is an insult to animals, which are simply being themselves.)
God forbid, then, I should now be turning into one of Them. Reminds me of the story about that journalist who started to work as a cab driver for a story (I think) and later realized, with horror, that he actually was starting to think and act like a cab driver.
If you look too long into the abyss...