Who Are Your People?
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re in Chengdu, Sichuan today, visiting the pandas and eating spicy food.
Who Are Your People?
Yesterday Lee said there was an American couple in our hotel, so I scurried off to find them, but sadly, they’d vanished by the time I got there. Sigh.
We haven’t really run into anyone from our home country since we left on Labor Day. Two months without any American conversation is actually kind of unusual for us. We generally run into Americans wherever we go, even if it’s just a fleeting moment of recognition on a street corner.
And recognition is really what I love about meeting other Americans. It’s kind of magical. We’ll be in a coffee shop, or a restaurant, or a hotel lobby, or on a plane, and out of the incomprehensible murmur around me I pick out a word, or three, and there’s a spark, a flash of joy—I know those words! I recognize that accent!
I do my best to make eye contact, and suddenly I feel seen. I exist again—this is a person with whom I have a tremendous depth of commonality. We can relate to each other. We can be friends! We can exchange email addresses and follow each other on Facebook!
When we’re really lucky, we get a stretch of talking to the same people multiple days in a row. That’s a treat—I love getting to know people from all corners of my country, all walks of life. I’ve learned SO much about the US from people we’ve met out in the world—people who do fascinating work, people who travel for reasons I’ve never thought of, people who come from states I’ve never visited and towns I’ve never heard of.
And in spite of the fact that we come from different lives and states and towns, I find that I can yammer on for hours with other Americans. Weather, television, music, movies, food, sidewalks, cars, national parks, school busses, health insurance, Target, lettuce recalls, July 4th fireworks—I understand. They understand. If I casually mention April 15th to any American, anywhere, I don’t have to explain myself. I can mention dialing 911, or making a PB&J, or Monday-morning quarterbacking, and I will be understood.
Because that is really the language we have in common: our Americanness.
Being outside of the US for nearly a decade has given me a thirty-thousand foot perspective: yes, all humans are my people, but Americans are even more my people.
Take care,
Lisa
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