2011 Status Report (part 2): Where am I now?

Coming back home has been great. As I said in my last post, my arrival was greeted by a greatly missed group of family and friends who provided me with hugs and a good hour or so of late-night catching-up at Steak and Shake.

At our house, the Christmas season is not to be missed. My Dad is the uncompromising, iron-clad director of Christmas in the Davis Household. He decorates with an authoritarian zeal that has epitomized the holiday season throughout my Childhood. The moment the thanksgiving turkey is taken from the table, lights, garland and other various golden knickknacks slowly begin appearing on every mantle, end-table, bench and ledge of our home--even the dog is adorned with festive scarfs. Our tree is a brilliant and burning ball of yuletide joy. It stands 7 feet tall and has nearly 4,000 lights. It literally radiates heat. I can easily read a book by its light from across the room. It is draped with thick gold-lined, ivory ribbon and is dripping with glass icicles and vintage-looking golden ornaments. The heat from thousands of incandescent lights coupled with all of those stunningly flammable adornments--it's a wonder that this Davis-family marvel hasn't gone up in flames. My sister and I used to joke of fears that helicopters bound for the hospital (which sits a few blocks away from our house) would mistake our house for a helipad and attempt a landing. Although my sister and I have made a tradition of harassing my Dad's seasonally-onset mania--we secretly love it, and both agree that the Davis home is really a wonderful place to be for Christmas. --Also, speaking of my sister, she is the eccentric one in the picture (above), sporting a Sari that I brought her from India.

Amid Christmas and New Year and all that those holidays bring with them, I have also been working--a lot, since I have gotten home. I hadn't been home a week and I had already gotten my old job back as a server at the Spaghetti Warehouse, in Columbus. It's a fun place to work, and probably the most diverse group of people that I have worked with... ever. For those of you who don't know, the Spaghetti Warehouse is literally just that--an old Warehouse that was built in the late 1800's. The place was one first cold-storage facilities of it's type. The mammoth building was converted into a gigantic restaurant with seating for over 800 people. The lobby still features the giant fly-wheel (it stands about 10 feet high) that used to pressurize pipes with ammonia gas, which was used to refrigerate the facility. Inside the main dining room is an old street car from the early 1900. The street car was formerly used for commuters in Columbus, now you can eat dinner in it. Regardless, it's a fun place to work, and it has kept me busy and connected with people since I have gotten back.

It has been exactly two months since I have landed in the United States. I have notice that my culture-hopping skills have been greatly honed over the past few years. The transition has not been nearly as hard as previous years. Coming back to my home culture is not as easy as it would seem. After a couple years of immersion in the cultures of South-east Asia, adjusting back to the US usually leaves me in a heavy sort of existential dilemma. Living at home, the people and places are all so familiar, and it is because of that familiarity you would expect the whole scenario to be comfortable. But, it's not.


Immersion in another culture has a way of changing you. It opens you up to alternate ways of thinking about people and society. In many South-east Asian nations, relational harmony is a key value. That means, its important to minimize one's own points of conflict with another, in order to maintain smooth interpersonal relationships. In America, we often value the "bottom line". The bottom line couldn't really care less about relational harmony. It more concerned about the end result, and ones own ability to produce that end result in a quick and efficient manner. This has made us into the people that we are. It is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this is more than likely one of the reasons of America's great success and productivity over the years. It's really a great value. However, if you are coming from a more euphemistic culture (ie. the Philippines) that would rather placate than deliver cold objective truths for the sake of a revered "bottom line"-- then, this American cultural reality will hit you like a glass of cold water to the face, and it always does.

I credit my ability to deal with all of this to what I have been learning in ethnography. I have learned how to observe and value something from the outside. It has taught me how to respect the great differences that I see in people and appreciate them for what they are. Rather than going into a deep existential dilemma and bemoaning the fact that I don't fit in, I have learned to simply observe, learn, and enjoy the people around me, including all of their cultural oddities and personal peculiarities. This has been revolutionary to me. It has allowed me to gain perspective on my own culture and upbringing, and rather than throwing me into a dilema, it's given me an understanding of who I am.

Who I am inevitably leads to "where am I going?" That is something that I would like to talk about in my next post.

2011 Status Report: Where have I been?

It has come to my attention that this blog is in serious need of an update. Looking back through my previous posts, I think I last left you somewhere in Bangalore, India. For the record, I made it back to the Philippines in one piece and with a host of stories to tell--some which I may have to tell in posts to come. The trip left my mind reeling with thoughts. I don't think I have ever experienced such a vast and diverse array of culture in my life. Sit down for 5 minutes in Tamil Nadu and take a good look. Peddlers wearing lungis, Sikhs wearing dotis, holy men, business men in western business attire, saris and Coach purses. There is not much that one won't see. It is a colorful and paradoxical world of both tradition and progress. For the outside observer, it's nothing short of a sensory overload. Needless to say, I look forward to getting back.

Coming back to the Philippines from India, I was swept into a world of deadlines, requirements, and expectations. The biggest obstacle that I found staring me in the face was my thesis. It was an all-consuming task. I nearly immediately dove into weeks of pouring over recorded interviews and their transcripts, as I did my best to tell the story of a squatter relocation community, which I have given the alias: "Looban". My research looked at the relationship of a particular mission "outreach church" and their "mother-church" in that community. It dealt with the perceptions and self-identities that were formed as the two VERY divergent groups interacted. My research had been on going for the better part of the previous year. Thus, this two month period was kind of a culmination of everything.

My experience with "Looban" has been unforgettable. They are perhaps one of the more easily misunderstood groups of people in the Metro-Manila Area. There is a certain stereotype or pre-conception that is applied to groups of people who make their lives on the "margins." It was my honor to sit for a while and share a bit of my life with this dynamic community, hear their stories and write of their great potential. The thesis ended up being a monstrous 130-some pages of narrative and analysis. There were several points at which I thought to myself, "Seriously? Are you STILL writing this thing?" But, in the end, I feel that every sentence had its place.

I finally defended and passed my thesis defense on November 23rd, 2010 (pending some revisions). I can't tell you the sense of relief and accomplishment it was to hear those final words from our Academic dean--putting an end to the work of more than a year. The defense came in just enough time, because just three days later I had a flight booked for the United States. My final days in Manila were like a marathon. They were intense and stressful. It seemed that everything was demanded from me at once. There was little sleep, many tasks, and no time. It was a piercing headache that lasted nearly a week. That is why it is so important that I plan my travel the way that I do.

In an effort to both save money and bask in my fetish for travel, I broke up my flights and planned an extended 18 hour layover in Hong Kong. I had never been to Hong Kong before and I was eager to explore it. I had 18 hours--all to myself--doing the very thing that I love the most: traveling, meeting new people, exploring new places and cultures... it was wonderful.

A day or so later my plane touched down in Columbus, Ohio where I was greeted by my family and a group of my closest friends. We have made a wonderful tradition of going out to Steak and Shake--directly from the airport-- to share stories and update one another on our lives. It happens nearly every time I come back. It makes me love that group of people even more.

This brings me up to December. More to come in a few days...