who cares if it's only your poor self you deceive...
Yesterday was an eventful day.
Firstly, I had lunch with an old acquaintance of mine that I have not seen or spoken to in the past six years or so. That is, save for a few phone calls and chat sessions during the last few months as we were taking up our contact again. She was the one who looked me up, and at first I was a little uncertain what to think of the whole thing, as we haven't been on very friendly terms like, ever. But I figured that we've both changed since then (I know I have, and I like to give people the benefit of a doubt) and so why not get to know her again?
The lunch went fine, and then we just strolled around on the town, in and out of shops and the like. So on the whole, I'm fine with being a friend of hers now (still, if we should have problems again, I'm not afraid of drawing a line, which feels good. I used to be a sissy, quite frankly, so that's one of the changes in me for the better.).
Then, after I went home with the train and was looking for my bike at the station where I left it, it was nowhere to be found. A security guard walking the streets (I'm not sure what to think about that - sure, it feels safe, but, I don't remember seeing security guards casually walking the streets in broad daylight when I was a child. Do we really have the need for this, now?) told me that perhaps it had been removed, since I (quite knowingly, I admit) parked in outside of the restricted area for bicycle parking. He said where to go, and that I would have to pay 250:- in SEK (look it up in your own currencies if you like. It's not a fortune, but still half of what the bike cost me. It was used, of course, and I got a bargain price. *smiles*) as a fee to take it with me. They could just have parked it somewhere in the crowd of the other bikes, in the restricted zone (but I couldn't find it there). The third alternative was that it was stolen. So off I went (it was just around the corner) to ask for my bike.
And then it happened. The first man I approached at the place I was directed to was a foreigner, by birth. An immigrant. Someone who was not born in this country. Someone who was not a Swede. Someone who was not like me.
For all I know, he could've moved here 10 years ago, or 30 years ago. He could very well have been a Swedish citizen, having held a perfectly legitimate Swedish passport, for a longer period than me, given that I'm only turning 25 this year.
But he had an accent. And I got nervous. He was versatile, and the way he spoke the language rather suggested that he had, in fact, likely been living here for closer to 20 or more, than 10 years. But he didn't answer my initial question about whether I had come to the right place, or not. Instead, he bypassed my question and plunged right into explaining to me that no fees were charged, and they always put the wrongly parked bikes inside the restricted area where they're supposed to be, so why don't I just go look there? I said that I had, but it wasn't there. I asked again for clearance about whether he was working for the firm who rearranges the bikes. And I also explained about what the security guard said about the fee, yet again, and had there perhaps been a fee before that had now been lifted? He repeated what he had said before: there is no fee and the bike should be with the others. Feeling more and more uneasy about not getting my questions answered, I repeated that I had looked for my bike, it wasn't there and I added that the security guard suggested that it could've been stolen.
At this point the friendly man, who earnestly was trying to help me, I could tell, called to another man close by. He was a Swede, one of min own, by birth. He also told me to go look again (and by now I started to think that maybe I had just missed the bike standing there, for some reason) and basically repeated what the first man had said; all the bikes are always just re-parked correctly and there is no fee. But he expressed concern at my thoughts of having been robbed, and so did the first man.
I thanked both of them and went outside to go another round, more careful this time, checking all the bikes. And even as I left, even as I turned to the Swedish man for the first time and told my concerns to him, I had the nagging feeling that all of this repeating of questions and reassurances could have been avoided - if only I had listen carefully enough to the first man, if only I hadn't gotten nervous by his bypassing my questions, if only I wasn't already in an anxious state of mind as I approach him and if only this hadn't increased my wariness of language barriers (I once switched shoemaker after it took several minutes to explain what I wanted done, with the mediating of another employee). Even as the first man approached the second, I knew this was because he felt I didn't understand him. And that was because he was a foreigner, and I was not.
I received no new information from the Swedish-born man, but I felt much more understood. And this has haunted me ever since. I hope my relief didn't show on my face or in my manners (the first man stood there still, right next to me), but I'm sure that it did. Eventually, I did find my bike (I had really just walked past it the first time), but didn't turn back to tell the men, since I wasn't sure if this would amount to my claiming too much attention to my "case" as if it was a certainty that they should care about whether the bike was ever recovered or not. Also, I toyed with the idea to tell the first man, Mr. Foreigner, that I was sorry about my behavior. But then again, what if he didn't see the conversation that way? Then I had just told him that I behaved in a not so good manner, and without this information perhaps he never would have figured that much out for himself. So I didn't go back for that, either.
But I still can not help wondering: How many times have this particular man met reactions like mine? He tried to help me, but I preferred to listen to the Swedish man. This man told me nothing new, but I still felt better. In all honesty, though, the reason for this was at first because I assumed that I would get my answers, finally, but when I didn't, I still knew that this was not because he had not understood my questions (just not the need for the answers).
And then we all sit down in our living-rooms and say: Isn't it terrible how immigrants are still discriminated against? That employers are looking more to what names the applicants happen to have, or, at the rare interviews, if their accent is good enough? Shouldn't this society be based on how well people are doing at their jobs, or educations, rather than if people have lived here since birth or not?
And isn't it true how we (me, my friends, my family, their friends and who not) are totally different from these horrible people, who discriminate others and don't even think twice about it..?