Chewing on Kim Kardashian's pumped up derriere and Tom Brady's deflated balls, most Americans ignore all alarming signs of their nation's descent into madness, though some have already made the decision to jump ship. Recently, I posed some basic questions to a handful of Americans living overseas, and their candid answers have been eye opening.
Explaining his reason for leaving, Dave, a 38-year-old living in South Korea, confides, "Initially, it was a desire to be able to make a decent living, and an interest in experiencing life in other parts of the world. More recently, I have been thinking about collective guilt in the context of Washington's foreign policy atrocities. The U.S. government's support for Ukrainian Nazis and their genocidal campaign against ethnic Russians makes me think that at some point causing suffering will be the last remaining function of the U.S. government." What a succinct indictment, and the more desperate this government becomes, the more it will massacre, for it's no longer competent at anything else. With native grumbling exploding into active rebellion, blood baths will also splatter across the Homeland.
Writing from San Luis Potos, Mexico, Danielle Covarrubias states that she "always knew that the US was a sick society," and "I remember the day in 5th grade (Westlake School for Girls--bubble within a bubble) when I read in the history book about Manifest Destiny. I was outraged! What? Who said? With what right?" Born in California to a Mexican father and white mother, Covarrubias "never, ever felt like an American or said 'we' about the US." Covarrubias even felt more at home in Greece, where she lived and worked for many years, "I made wonderful, dear friends there. Actually, the time I felt most foreign was when I was invited to some middle-Americans' house for Thanksgiving in LA. They were nice people, but I felt sooooo foreign there. I actually feel really strange around groups of white people, although I'm half white, look white ["] I definitely feel that I don't belong in that society; they're just so...different."
You can be entirely white and feel more at home, or at least more human, in Mexico. Fifty-seven-year-old Brent writes, "People in Mexico are much friendlier than most people in the US." There, he's "able to form nice friendships with people I never could have met in the US, both Mexicans and people from the US." Also, "Families here are kind of like communes, good fortune is shared with less fortunate members. There are good and bad aspects of that, but outright destitution seems fairly rare."
Several other respondents also point out this easier access to other folks. Writing from Damak, Nepal, Son Ha Dinh observes, "I get to meet and talk to people daily and spontaneously wherever I travel whereas in the States you have to make plan, arrange meeting, confirm time and location etc...Just extra layers we add to our lives that are really unnecessary." Having moved from Cambridge to Istanbul, Mark and Jolee Zola share that "Turks (along with the country's minority residents) are very warm, welcoming people." Intending to stay for just a year, this retired couple have remained in Turkey for nearly seven, and it's their home now. They've learnt the language. Considering that Istanbul is not cheap, its human attraction must be considerable to retain the Zolas.
Having lived in Hanoi for 5 years, San Francisco transplant Jacob Evans relays, "Vietnam in particular is a very human place. People eat on the floor in rooms facing the street with their doors open. When a neighbor dies, black flags are hung outside and a tent is erected where funeral music is played all day and night. The grieving family are wrapped in white cloth and even later they wear black badges to let everyone know about this status. The Viets are constantly looking after one another. A regular greeting is, hi, did you eat yet? I go to the markets and see every part of an animal used. Sidewalks are transformed into eateries, places to drink and gossip. Time is marked by the consumption of rituals. I am constantly full of awe and wonder." Arriving, Jacob knew just two Vietnamese phrases, "I don't have any money" and "f*ck your mother." He has enough Vietnamese now for basic interactions.
Obviously, the longer one stays, the more complex or paradoxical any place becomes. Returning to Saigon as an adult, I had to relearn my birthplace, and this is what I said during a 2000 interview, "I think one of the misconceptions I had was that people related to each other better here. All superficial observations, I mean you can see how people live here: they live in close quarters and the neighbors know each other, they have time to talk, the conversation can drag on for three hours, so I thought people had more patience with each other, they liked each other better, sense of family, sense of community, all that sh*t. But I was also a little skeptical. I didn't believe it fully. In the States, I didn't know my neighbors. I hardly knew anyone. I had to go to the bar. I knew my friends at the bar but the people around me I didn't know. But here, you see people chatting and talking. But after living here a while, I can see that people aren't quite that social. They might talk, but there's a lot of animosity, there's a lot of mistrust, there's a lot of underhandedness, you know." Attempting to explain, I continued, "Maybe [it's] just human nature, maybe people are like that anyway, they just happen to be physically close to each other, but not psychologically close to each other. One thing I've noticed is that haggling is a very bad custom. You're always trying to get over the next person. You're always haggling. In the States, you're not worried about being cheated when you go to the supermarket, but here you're always worrying about being ripped off when you buy anything. So this mind game that's being played, haggling, haggling, corrupts people. But on the other hand, there's a conversation." Had I stayed longer than my 2 years, my observations would evolve further, no doubt, for even with a spouse or, hell, with yourself to your own consciousness, a mask can crack over decades or peel off suddenly, with another mask underneath. Further, just as Atlanta is not Boston, Saigon is not anything like Hanoi.
Moving from sojourner to permanent resident, the immigrant gains gravity and roots, and this is what 47-year-old Joe has done by marrying an English woman and having two kids. Ferdinand Celine wrote, "When you stay too long in the same place, things and people go to pot on you, they rot and start stinking for your special benefit." It has taken but four years in Great Yarmouth for Joe to sour on England, "i came here with the insane, very stupid idea that i could win over the whole damn town. wrong! and a waste of time and effort. the english will be the english. and they ain't impressed. and god they hate americans. am i a fanatic? yes! but many americans, bless them, loved me! the english love nothing." And, "i try to make the most of things, so i do make some effort with these gormless, mean little dullards." In Dickens' David Copperfield, Peggoty gushes that Great Yarmouth is the 'finest place in the universe,' and having visited it often during my 9-month-stay in East Anglia, I'm very fond of this tacky seaside resort with its 14th century, anti-pirate wall, but of course I've never had to live there, least of all permanently.
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