Ala's Dos
6 months ago
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fitting in, standing out

I work in a cafe in one of the most touristy areas of Sydney. Therefore the very counter I stand behind while taking people’s orders is an international hub, a meeting place of people from all over the world. I can’t count how many different faces and races I see everyday, how many foreign accents I have to decipher, and how many times I have to devise ways to communicate when a customer can’t speak a word of English. (I once had to explain to a Japanese girl what a marshmallow was, through mime). 

Being a foreigner myself, I am in my element. Though I’ve been here 5 years and call Sydney home, I still remember what it’s like to be self- conscious about my accent or, in the case of others, not being all that confident with my English. So when a foreign customer is obviously daunted by the prospect of having to order a latte, I try to be patient and encouraging. 

I still remember arriving here and feeling like the new kid in school. The one kid wearing a pink tutu in a playground full of kids in jeans and sneakers. At least that’s what it felt like. It wasn’t the fact that I looked different. Australia is so multicultural it hardly matters what you look like these days. But what made all the difference was when I opened my mouth. I had an accent. I still do. 

So while on the outside I can pass as an “Australian of foreign descent” (a redundant term if you ask me), I needed only to say one word to give myself away. Having an accent connotes a lot of things: 1) I didnt grow up here, so therefore 2) I didnt grow up watching the same tv shows as other kids or being exposed to the same pop-culture, and 3) I didn’t go to an Aussie school, and so, 4) I’m not part of that shared cultural experience of growing up here, and 5) therefore, there are a lot of things I don’t really “get”. I wasn’t “with it”. 

But the connotations were all true. I was fresh off the boat. A “freshie”. And there was something kinda uncool about that. 

It’s not that people here judged me for being different. It’s just that it didn’t always feel good being different. I guess it’s a basic human need to want to feel part of the bigger collective. And while I do know that most people were simply just curious about my background, I didn’t really like being an object of curiosity. 

I also got type-casted a few times. I once got asked, on the sole basis of being a foreigner, if I arrived on Australian shores on a boat full of refugees, and if there were roads and buildings where I come from, and if I went to “the equivalent of school”. (I still wonder what his rationale was behind that question. That absolutely all people from third- world countries are in horrible, dire situations and would give anything to have what he had in his first-world suburban paradise?)

I didn’t like being type-casted because people from all walks of life come here for thousands of different reasons.  

No, I didn’t like being type-casted at all. Which is why during my first couple of years here, I was desperate for people to hear my story, to know me. To not be a 2-dimensional character, or a “mysterious” figure that nobody could relate to. 

In those first few years, I certainly wasn’t “with it”. All of my stories, no matter what it was about, all somehow pointed back to me being a foreigner. I was exposed to a different facet of pop culture, and a different way of growing up. I couldn’t seem to find a whole lot of commonality, and I struggled with people not knowing how to relate to me. I was an oddly-shaped puzzle piece struggling to fit into the bigger pictue. 

And while I didn’t enjoy sticking out, I found that I hung on fiercely to my individuality, to my perceived identity, the thing that made me Filipino… whatever that was. Over time, even that got confusing… does one have to “try” and be Filipino? Aren’t I Filipino, no matter what I do? 

I suppose Australians go through the same dilemma with identity. What is to be “Australian” anyway? A lot of  Australian born-and-bred friends have confessed to me that they don’t really feel like they have roots. 

But I digress. 

Five years later, the freshie. in the pink tutu is still a freshie in a pink tutu. But she has learned to dance her way through the playground. I learned that if I was constantly uncomfortable with being different, then people would be uncomfortable with it, too. By being overly aware of how different I was, then I was just simply amplifying it. But if I was totally cool with it, then people would feel the same. When people are comfortable with you, they want to get to know you.  Simple as that. It was up to me to set the tone.

So I decided to just be whoever the heck I was, and to not think about too hard. To be comfortable with people looking at me and filling in the blanks in their head. People can think they want. Doesn’t everyone get type-casted in one way or another, anyway?

I will probably always be different. In my line of work, having to deal with dozens and dozens of strangers each day, I cannot deny that I will often elicit some sort of reaction or response simply by virtue of being obviously foreign. I’ll always get asked where I’m from. People like to guess. But I’ve learned to accept that people will always be curious. And curiosity is not a bad thing at all. 

But what I like about being foreign is knowing that I bring something different to the mix. And because I’m a little bit different, I find that the people I attract into my life tend to be a little bit different, too. And those are my favorite kinds of people.

I stand out but I fit in. I fit in but I stand out. That’s something this freshie can happily live with. 

Date: 08.13.11 Time: 01:37 AM
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