A Conundrum

As I look back on it, I was not mentally prepared (or financially really, but that is another matter) for a field study. The wise thing to do, would have been to stay in Provo and just work. Not take classes, just work as much as I could to save money and prepare for the fall semester. I was not ready to just show up somewhere, establish my life, learn how to conduct research and then conduct it, as well as balancing an intense load of academic course work. Just going to India essentially randomly and trying to establish a life in and of itself was a titanic project. Because I was not ready, because I did not really know what I was doing, all in all, I would have to say that mostly I failed in the explicit goals of my project. That isn't to say that the summer was a failure, per se, or that I did not learn anything. It was incredibly difficult and a very stretching situation. But as to balancing course work and figuring out how to conduct research, success was elusive.

So really, it would have been better in many ways that I had not gone. I am not going to have some amazing paper to show off to future employers or grad schools. In fact trying to describe exactly what I did and why it was worth while itself is a difficult task. Trying to do this semester with the extra things I did not quite finish in the field and trying to pull together a summer that was so full and so empty emotionally, psychologically, and academically is something that is still beyond me (even as due dates sprint at me). Had I not gone I would not feel so unbalanced now. Had I not gone, I would not have been so distracted and so busy this semester. Had I not gone, I would not have near the stress I have had to deal with this past semester trying to work through and conceive of my coursework and my project.

But I promised a conundrum and here it is: had I not gone, I would not be ready to go again. Arguably there are better ways to receive this introduction. I could have waited for a program in which I would be someone's assistant. I could have looked for a program that was an already established project with established contacts and I just had to show up. I do not discount these things. Looking back, much of what I did was foolish and in many ways suffering as the result of being lazy in my preparation. However, the thing that I struggle with most in trying to communicate my failure is that I know now how to do my project. I know how to establish myself on my own in India. I know how to begin a project. I know how to structure it. I know the correct time of year to go. I even have a few contacts that could lead to other contacts. I do not suggest that I have created the foundation to just go next summer and create some field-changing study, but I know now how to start.

So what do I do in this case? How do I create a narrative that makes sense out of this experience? I have suffered much for this field study and most of what I suffered will not yield anything productive. I have no contacts in higher education. This is not my "in" to a prestigious program somewhere. In fact I honestly believe putting myself into a program I was not prepared for and thus being overwhelmed, taking on more than I should have will most likely result in lower marks which will probably hurt my chances of getting into a decent graduate program. But I would not be able to do what I know feel so much more capable of without this experience. Do I regret the problems I have created for myself or do I rejoice in my gained experience? Is it a case of x steps forward, y steps back? Is it better to say I am stable and dependable, send me on a stable and dependable program even though I am inexperienced? Or is it better to say I have no proof, but you can drop me off anywhere and I will try?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what the correct answer is. What is done is done. I cannot take back this crazy summer and get back the time I spent this semester worrying over it and working on it. I cannot squeeze back in a productive summer of quiet work and preparatory reading.

Because the thing is there really isn't a way to prepare for international experience. It is international. The point is it is a different culture. If you do it by careful installation, if you try to maintain as much of your previous life as before, you will never succeed. You will always be met with petty irritations and annoyances. There will always be days when the air conditioner/heater doesn't work like the one in America even though you paid extra for it and it would be so easy for the natives to make it work. There will always be days when the people are acting completely irrational in the face of your carefully explained, science-backed rational ideas, explanations, and implorings.

But I guess you just have to be aware that the cost of jumping in with both feet can be incredibly high.

On the Exotic

Note, I started working on this ages ago and never got around to posting it, so here it is finally. And by started working on it I mean I wrote the first paragraph and then stopped.

Oh my, it has been far too long since I updated. But I am back. I have been thinking about this idea of the "exotic" for a while now. Not intensely, per se, but it has frequently been brought to my mind as I have been doing my course reading and interacting with people. The idea first struck me when I sat down with the book Kim by Rudyard Kipling. My copy is a cheap, Bantam Classics paperback. The back descriptive text describes the adventure and the history and all that, but the thing that caught my eye was a line near the top that read "a farewell look brimming with all the color and sound, squalor and splendor of that exotic land."

Okay, now in the present, soon to be the past, it has been far too long since I last worked on this post. So I have been thinking about this idea of the exotic especially how it relates to India. There are countries who match it, but when you think of exotic as an American, India I think readily comes to the mind. I never really thought about it before, but that phrase "as an American" is incredibly critical. Forgive me a Mormon talk moment, but according to the dictionary, exotic means things like "origination in or characteristic of a distant foreign country" and "attractive or striking because colorful or out of the ordinary."

This may not be eye opening to you, but I had never thought about it in these terms. It is probably a human thing, but I can attest that I personally pick up most my word definitions by context and repetition. So to me, the word exotic has always meant that, it also had the implied meaning of not Western, as if people from Africa or China never thought of something as foreign or exotic. It was not until I was looking at the back of my copy of Kim that I really started thinking about this concept of exotic.

Another event that really made me think was one morning when I was reading the back of my cereal box. There aren't really that many awesome flavors of cereal here. They are all Kellogg's and most of them are good, but for some reason I get tired of them much quicker than in the U.S. Anyhow, so I had played out all the cereal options until the only thing left was Muesli. I left it for last because I don't really like fruit (long story short, it is a problem with texture, not flavor), so I generally avoid Muesli whenever possible. I find that if I just close my eyes and tell myself it's just fruit leather I can get by okay. Why is eating fruit leather palatable to me while eating raisins and dried dates disgusting to me? I have no idea. So anyhow, while I was trying to distract myself from the frickmassive (it's totally a legit scientific measurement, science just hasn't discovered it yet) dates in my cereal, I was reading the back of my Kellogg's brand Nuts Delight Muesli (I have yet to discover why Indian English pluralizes stuff like that, e.g. we would say potato soup, here they would say potatoes soup (that is if they had potato soup)). So as I was reading the description of how luxurious and amazing the cereal I was eating I first encountered the obligatory reference to California almonds. This is par for the course. Almost all almonds I have seen here advertise themselves as from California, maybe to justify how expensive the dang things are.

The next part was the shocker to me. After describing the decadent and nutritious almonds, the box then claimed that it contained "succulent Canadian dates." It was there that I stopped. Canadian dates. Like that is a good thing. When I think of dates, I think of Bedouins riding camels with baskets of fruit through the deserts of Saudi Arabia to hawk at a bazaar. If pressed I can imagine Israel or maybe some of the Balkan states if I have to. But Canada? Why would you be excited to eat dates from Canada? That's like being excited to eat a made-to-long-ago and let-sit-too-long-in-a-wrapper-under-a-heating-lamp Chicago dog from the local grocery store deli.

This is what really got me thinking about what it means to be exotic. I realized that Canadian dates, in this context were incredibly exotic. What is more out of the ordinary and strange to someone sleeping in the crazy honeycomb of stores and apartments strewn with cables that is the neighborhoods in Old Delhi? The snickers bars I sometimes eat after eating a plate of rice and rajma and stir-fried vegetables is the exotic part of the meal. It isn't the random mystery vegetable balls that my pg sometimes serves (you would think that something like mystery meat would only exist in the U.S., but there are actually times when I am served some sort of ball or patty of who knows what vegetables in who knows what condition and you just take it and eat it without questions. It is probably better that way).

I am still working through this. So if you were expecting some profound, concise truth about the exotic or something, I am going to disappoint you. I don't know quite how to apply it or what it means yet. But I am realizing that this idea of foreign and native, near and far, exotic and banal, it is all much more complex than I had assumed it to be growing up. In my cultural exploration on this trip I have been really trying to see beneath the surface not at the differences, but how things are similar. There are so many things that seem "exotic", but really I am convinced more an more that everyone is basically the same, even across the East/West divide. All the different expressions of culture are serving the same basic needs. I can't think of a really cool, intelligent sounding, philosophical way to end this so I am just going to stop abruptly now.

I still haven't posted on any of the things I said I was going to post on

But I will! I promise so hardcore that I will.

Today I would like to post on some sort of failurish attempts at working on my project. This isn't like, one of those things that is going to talk about failure and me failing and my resistance to failing before accepting it and having an epiphany that really failure, while painful can be good and I learned a bunch of stuff and blah blah blah.

No, nothing so tired as that. I mean failurish because it didn't quite work, but it has potential. So I have been discussing how I am having difficulties in finding a good population to work with. I tried something new, and you are probably going to say I am kind of dumb for thinking this would work, but it still could. I have started attending Hard Rock Cafe's live music nights. I know, Hard Rock Cafe. With all the loud music and not being able to hear yourself think. The thing is, the live music format creates this stage/dance area that breaks down the impenetrable fortresses of tables that usually exist in restaurants and creates this space where it is possible to approach people. The problem of course is my own introvertedness and the loud music. But it has so much potential. The alcohol and the friendly atmosphere provide the best meeting place I have yet discovered to get in contact with the more likely to read upper echelons of Indian society. If I were actually anything remotely close to outgoing I could make it work. But alas, I am not.

I am not sure exactly how to work with this experience in the context of my postcolonial studies and all that. What I attended last night was clearly an essentially western experience. The idea of the rock concert, the consumption of beers, the conspicuously western food, even the band. They were all Indians, but they sang in English. It was composed of a drummer, three lead singers, a guitarist, and two bassists (I think). They sang a couple covers in addition to their own songs and also did a downtempo mashup of Lady Gaga's Poker Face and Paparazzi. I'm not sure if they know what lg is singing about in poker face, but oh well. We will let them enjoy their west aping innocence.

There were some variations though. For instance, the band had three lead singers, which is almost unheard of in the standard American band. Also, one of the lead singers was a flautist...which was kind of random. The girls were dressed in modern Indian woman casual, which is basically western except with an Indian flare. It is mostly visible in the different cuts of shirts and dresses. I think the most interesting thing about it is that it doesn't look funny or out of place or anything. I actually looks surprisingly fashionable. It could easily pass as a trend in the U.S. The men dress more overtly western. A few wore t-shirts or dark colored or striped button up shirts. However a lot of them wore white button up shirts tucked into belted jeans. They look like they had just come from office and taken off their ties. It looked a little humorously geeky to me actually. The way the men dressed, more than the girls actually, seemed to represent how this concert idea has either been appropriated or poorly imitated in India. I don't really know which it is at this point, to be honest.

The weirdest moment of the night and actually one of the most surreal moments I have ever had in India happened just before the band went on. If you have been to a Hard Rock, you know that they blast music the whole time. It's not my favorite part. You guys can read sarcastic understatements, right? Anyhow, so I was txting someone and I suddenly hear someone yell "YMCA!!!!" and suddenly everyone gets really excited. Two people sitting on the couch nearest me start sort of doing the YMCA dances and I am just sitting there thinking "wait, what?" And suddenly the YMCA song comes blasting over the stereo and all the waiters get on stage and I am surrounded by Indians singing along robustly to the YMCA song and doing the dance. There were even a couple of people standing on the bar. Everyone was so excited. It was so bizarre. And then it ended and everyone went back to what they were doing like nothing had happened. I wish I had had a camera with me. It kind of has to be seen to be believed. So now I am trying to find a context to place this experience in. This Indian concert thing was so quintessentially western. The idea of Hard Rock Cafe and the live music in English in a very western style and format could have easily occurred anywhere in the U.S. But there were so many things about it that were so very, very undeniably Indian about it.

Now I am left puzzling over it. Is it a sign of continued western colonization through ideology and business? Is it a sign of India's cultural robustness that it is absorbing the culture of other  countries and making them its own? One summer is not enough time for this. Even after a few years here.

Hygiene

Okay, I am posting about stuff I have been thinking about, namely bathing and toilet use in India and I see no reason to not be frank, but if you are a sissy lala and cannot handle conversation like normal adults, I have put everything after the jump. But if you skip this entry, stop for a minute and think about that.

This won't be long, just there are two things I have been meaning to talk about.

Postmodern Research in a Prepostmodern Country

Honestly, I think this has been one of the most draining aspects of my research project so far. Having done a lot of the upper level theory courses for my degree in addition to growing up in the to varying degrees obsessed with political correctness American society, I have been repeatedly grilled on being open minded and tolerant. In the prep course and in studying postmodernism, again and again I have worked with topics of understand difference and otherness and how that impacts everyday life. I find my thought process annoyingly reflexive. I can't encounter anything anymore without subconsciously beginning to take it apart and examining its context. I am in a perpetual search for the source of meaning and the purpose of everything that happens and its relation to everything else.

I'm not trying to blow my own horn here, this is just what I have observed about how I have operated here. I suppose I have been thinking like this for a while, I just never realized the degree to which I have been doing it until I came to India where honestly, no one else does it. I am sure it is the same in the same in the U.S., I have just been sheltered in college, so I have not had to face the daily reality of people who do not tend to think about the role of religion and personal mythology in the formulation of self identity and stupid stuff like that.

Anyhow, thinking like that is fine because it is just thought. You do not need anyone else to engage in it or agree with you. Just after about a month or two now, it just feels weird feeling like the only person who thinks this way. It has kind of begun to become mentally painful not being able to share these thoughts. It is just a complete failure of communication. It is not even a language gap. To everyone I have talked to so far, they just do not really care.

To a degree Indians are not capable of thinking in this mode. Now to clarify such a potentially controversial statement, I do not mean that genetically Indians cannot do this or that they are stupid or lazy or culturally inferior or anything, I just mean from what I have observed where they are culturally and developmentally, the role that religion plays in society is not really an important or meaningful question. With so many people just struggling to get by, it makes sense. There is no cultural impetus for them to approach things from a postmodern perspective.

It is just a bizarre experience to be so focused on being understanding and accommodating with people who have no training or education on cultural difference and so seem incapable of really understanding difference. This ranges from the humorous (like trying to explain what Americans eat to someone who cannot imagine anything other than rice and roti due to life experience) to the almost belligerent (such as people who cannot understand why Americans might have a problem with the local water).

I think it is so startling to me because I have never really experienced India consciously looking at cultural difference specifically.

What am I even trying to say here? I guess I am just starved for intellectual engagement. I feel like I have so many observations and things I want to share and stuff, but there is no one around me capable of interacting with me on that level. I know I can post here and e-mail people and even phone call, but it is not quite the same as being able to talk to whoever I am with when the thought strikes me about the fascinating way Hinduism interacts with faith and miracles. I want to be able to discuss with people what it means that people just accept miracles like the idea that there is still a floating rock bridge to Sri Lanka because Lord Ram built it and the Ramayan is absolutely true or that there is a field that is red with dried blood from the battle fought in the Mahabharat. These are both definitely false, but even if I meet someone who also agrees that they are false, they still do not really see the value in discussing what the cultural implications of this is in the everyday life of Indians and reality as perceived by many Hindus.

This is such a surreal experience in essence. This is all very rough. I am not expressing myself properly. I do not know why I feel like I am at the very edge of my language trying to put these ideas into words. I will continue to work on this idea and hopefully come to a more firm/rational conclusion. I will work on coming to some sort of final encapsulation of these ideas towards the end to see if I can actually logically and clearly state what I mean/feel.

I feel like it has to be a language thing. I bet in Hindi there is a lot of this stuff that goes on. I just wish everything I have seen thus far did not confirm my feeling like no one thinks about these things.

Taxi No. 9211

So I am in the unique position this semester, actually I have been since last semester, I am just doing something about it now, where I have to have a Netflix account and watch movies. It isn't a class assignment per se, but my things will be better if I do it this way. I am struggling in my Hindi class because I can read and write passably, but I cannot speak for beans. So basically the only way I have available to me is to rent Bollywood movies and watch them to try to pick up the language. It actually really helps a lot. I cannot watch them without subtitles, but I can feel at least my listening abilities in Hindi improving. The problem is I have no time for these shenanigans. I get a new movie in and it is a total drag because it means I have to make time to watch the dag blasted thing. Like I said, it is a unique problem.

Tonight I watched Taxi No. 9211. I do not intend to write a movie review, in fact I don't really ever plan to do that here. It isn't really relevant. The reason I mention this one is because unlike so many Bollywood movies that feature the rich and famous and their awesome rich and famous lives, one of the two main characters was a poor taxi driver. They spent a lot of time on his life and his challenges. It was fascinating to get a view of how his sort of everyday life went. It felt so familiar to be in a home like his. It made me so homesick (obviously that isn't the right word, but I don't know the correct one) for India. I miss it so freaking much! I am so excited to go back I can't stand it. I want to go now! Anyhow, pardon my emotions getting the better of me. The marriage of the main character was also very interesting to me. They never said, but I assume it was an arranged marriage. The dynamics of how they interacted was what seemed to me would be an arranged marriage. Also, the other main characters relationship was a loved based one and she turned out to be a gold digger. Coincidence? I think not. The reason this is important to me is because of how good their marriage was portrayed. They really cared for each other. I know it is a movie, so obviously the relationships of the characters are whatever they want them to be, however I find the dynamics of arranged marriages so fascinating. They are not perfect. I have personally seen many awful examples of the problems of arranged marriage, but they can also work. I am excited to learn more about them and see how they work in practice under less constrained circumstances. I think in the West we automatically assume that they are these awful, loveless, abusive relationships where people are just miserable and only love their children. That happens, but I want to see the everyday situations. I know arranged marriages that have turned out quite well. Just because they are not initially love based, doesn't mean that they cannot grow to be love based. Because we as Westerners are so stuck on the concept of whether or not we are "in love" with the person we are marrying, I think we miss how mutual commitment to a relationship can turn it into something great. I mean, how can you really know that you love someone after a few weeks like apparently a couple in my ward does? Obviously in an arranged marriage you only know them for like five minutes, but the difference is, with an arranged marriage, they don't go into it expecting perfection. They don't have the delusion that they in any way really know their spouse. I think Americans fall into that trap so easily.

Anyhow, I am not trying to necessarily argue for the arranged marriage. There are many reason why going into a relationship blind, especially with the way gender roles often work in India, is a terrible idea. However, the more I learn about it, while I may not necessarily agree with it or envy it, more and more I find myself coming to admire and respect many of the aspects of the arranged marriage and all the effort and ideology that are involved in making them work. In many ways, rather than breaking India of their bad habits with our Westernizing influence, I think Americans have a lot they could learn from the Indian arranged marriage that would improve our American "love marriages." Wow, this was such  stereotypical ideal field study blog learning journal entry. How disappointing. I have been trying my darndest to avoid doing this. The question, the exploration, drawing the conclusion, and finishing off with an open ended growth moment or epiphany. I apologize. I will work harder to not do this in the future, lol. I can't stand it.