Navigating Life at Grinnell After Living Abroad

Though I’ve traveled no further than Grinnell to Hampton and back this week, there have been a number of occasions that have served to remind me of my time abroad, often in the simplest of ways. Even when life is as routine as it can be, there is still an element of reminiscence upon this point. I suppose these little reminders are the lingering effects of having spent quite a large chunk of my independent life outside of the U.S. Whatever the case may be, these habits influence my daily interactions with both objects and others, and so I deem it fitting to describe them as a means of understanding the impacts such international experiences have had upon my life.

When it comes to these intercultural habits, there are the easy to notice, easy to understand, basics—though there is often much more to them than meets the eye. There are also the more complex, and in an inverse fashion, I find that these tend to arise as the direct result of simple occurrences plus time. All manners of habits fall in between, and so, below, I describe the three I deem most pertinent, most prominent, and most present in my life. These are the habits that have come to define me in ways I may not fully understand, though I hope that by sharing them, it brings a bit of an insight to all of you.

First, food. Put a plate of rice in front of me three years ago, and I’d have asked for a fork and spoon. In almost every occurrence since then, however, I have opted to, as the Malays say, “Makan tangan,” which is literally, “To eat the hand,” or rather, “To eat with one’s hand.” As a general rule, the left hand is considered unclean, and only the right can be eaten with. There is an art to bringing the rice from the plate to one’s face without spilling, and yet another masterclass is necessary to get the rice from fingers to mouth. During my year in Malaysia, I mastered these skills through daily practice, and it is a habit that brings me joy. In India this past summer, some of the Sehgal Foundation staff and I had a good chuckle about how I was the first white person they had ever seen eat with their hands, and how I chose to do so more often than most of my Indian coworkers. Such is the joy this practice gives me that I care not what others think, and so the anecdote applies to lunch in the Dining Hall just a few days ago, in which I took a serving of rice and no utensils. I mixed in the curry and my veggies I had picked out, and enjoyed my meal to the fullest.

Second, shoes and socks. Even now, I write this column barefoot. My shoes sit beside me, socks atop the soles, for my feet felt trapped, and the only course of action was to set them free. It was a matter of respect in Malaysia to remove one’s shoes before entering a home or certain businesses, while as for India, I spent my whole summer in sandals. That summer sun bore its harsh rays upon my feet, leaving a rather visible tan line where the straps of the slippers once sat. I mention this only to say that transitioning back to regular footwear once more has been a bit of a challenge, as my feet remember fondly the many nights of barefoot soccer played on the pitch near my house in Malaysia. As such, I continue to find any and every excuse to remove my shoes, even now, sitting on the floor to do my work. It is simply the way I find most comfortable now, and studying here at Grinnell has proved this point a thousandfold.

Third and finally, is a matter of outlook. This habit is less visible, less intuitive, and resides entirely within my mind. As a direct consequence of the time I have spent away, I find challenging my biases to be a sport of sorts, at which, someday I hope to achieve an Olympic gold. What I mean by this extended analogy is that the lens through which I see the world has since become focused on uprooting the weeds: ideologies and lines of thinking that are stuck from a single vantage point. In reading the news, in expressing my opinions, or in attempting to understand the world around me, it is key to note that there is, just as Grinnell has taught me, always more to learn.

While these habits may seem trivial, to me, they signify more. These are integral pieces of who I am that have come from abroad, having weathered the long voyage halfway around the world, as well as the storms of reassimilation. This is the power of experience overseas, to change an individual without their active awareness of a shift, and to help bring about a truly global sense of understanding.