One of these mops is not like the others
About five years ago, a friend of mine in Istanbul sent me a questionnaire about privilege, which I dutifully filled out and posted on my Livejournal. I was, I discovered, fantastically privileged. This was something I had suspected for a long time but had never fully articulated or itemized before.
My particular brand of privilege was not one of summer houses or ballet lessons or holidays abroad (or hell, central heating, cable TV, or new clothes on a regular basis) but it was there and I still wear it like a cozy body suit that is so familiar that I sometimes forget I’m wearing it.
Before I continue with this post, I want you to do the questionnaire. Tick all that apply and then think about it for a while. I’ll wait here. Go on then!
I’ll just drink this coffee while you tally your privilege
1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home:
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home:
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (or equivalent for non Americans)
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA (or equivalent) in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family
In addition to these questions, I have a few more that I think might be pertinent.
35. Which country’s passport do you hold?
36. Do you have a passport ?
37. How many countries can you enter without going through a convoluted visa process that will probably end in rejection?
38. Are you white, or at most a bit latte’ish in skin tone?
39. Can you legally reside or work outside of your home country (ancestry visas, EU passport, working holiday visa, sufficient tertiary education to apply to emigrate or be hired from overseas)?
40. Does your country let you leave without going through a convoluted and expensive bureaucratic process?
41. Is your country’s currency (and your salary and savings, by extension) freely convertible internationally? Can you legally buy foreign currency with your currency?
42. Has your country been through genocide or civil war in the past few generations?
Like, for example, Cambodia.
I could go on for quite some time with this list but I’ll stop here.
No one is chasing me down the back streets of small town China
Allow me to introduce myself.
Hi! I’m an average looking Canadian woman of western European extraction (too far back for any ancestry visas, alas). I grew up neither rich nor poor. I had what I needed, including my parents’ unconditional support and love.
I have a university education which was partly paid by my parents’ wisely invested RESP and partly by jobs I worked while studying and living rent-free with my family. They made sure I was fed and sheltered and able to save most of what I earned. They earned enough in their jobs so I never had to give them any of my wages.
I graduated with no debt at all. In the middle of my degree, I took a few years off and traveled around Europe and Africa and lived in London on a slightly overstayed 2-year working holiday visa. No one checked.
I didn’t have any problems traveling around Western Europe, unlike my African friends and my South African boyfriend at that time. No visas, no hassles. Jobs were easy for me to get in London so I didn’t have that to worry about either. I was reassured a number of times by employers that although I was foreign, at least I ‘wasn’t one of those dark ones!‘ True quote. She was my nursing home supervisor in North Kensington in London, where I was one of only two white people on staff.
The Alzheimers wing there was staffed entirely by over qualified Eritrean doctors whose qualifications were yet be recognized by the NHS. I was in the stroke wing, working with a dozen over qualified Zimbabweans and Nigerians. I wasn’t even a fully trained registered nurse much less an over qualified doctor, but, hey- at least I wasn’t one of those dark ones!
Over the past two decades, my Canadian passport and university degree and mother tongue have allowed me to teach and travel all over the world with remarkable ease. Doors tend to open when I knock on them. It’s a good gig. Here in Shanghai, my life is very comfortable, albeit smoggy and hectic if I step outside our very nice flat.
Passport agencies all around the globe, the New York Passport Agency for instance, see to it that the people who apply for these passports are well tended to and get their passports on time. They are here to make our lives easier, which is why it would be nothing but foolishness to not reap those benefits.
When I do step outside the flat, I’m given more leeway than, say, your Average Zhou, especially those not blessed with a much-coveted Shanghai hùkǒu from birth- the millions of migrant workers, both educated and not so educated, professional and labourer, who keep this city running (a bit like Dubai or Doha, really, but with domestically sourced cheap labour) but who don’t get the perks that the native born Shanghainese are blessed with (advantages with schools, housing, health care, etc).
If I rock up to the front gate of a friend’s building complex, I’m let through without any questioning even though I’m a stranger. Restaurant reservations are never a problem. Job options feel almost infinite at times. Visa renewals aren’t too tricky thanks to my country of birth being on the list of favoured places for teachers.
This is not necessarily the case if you are one of the millions of bureaucratically non-connected Chinese (both Han and non Han) or a non-white foreigner from the wrong category of country.
At work, I’ve generally been paid about two or three times more than the equally (or better) qualified Chinese staff. Students have never scrawled racist epithets on the blackboard, something that has happened to a non-white British friend here. I’ve never been denied a job because of my colour, something which happened to a former colleague of mine who had been hired to teach in Korea, flown over from South Africa on a one way ticket, and unceremoniously fired the moment he arrived for being darker than his passport photo had led them to believe.
My comfortable, relatively simple expat life is not exactly the result of my own hard work and smart choices. Some of it was, (you don’t end up in China after 17 years abroad without any input of your own), but the path was certainly made very smooth before me. This may not be apparent when masked by my chronic depression and the stupid frustrations of daily life.
Help! Help! I’m being oppressed by Shanghai’s crappy climate!
I have a baseball metaphor for you here, courtesy of my mother: If you were born on third base, you really oughtn’t go through life thinking you hit a home run.
If you don’t know baseball, I’ll try to rephrase it: You born with certain advantages. You didn’t earn them and you didn’t get to be ahead of those behind you through hard work only.
After publishing 16 expat interviews (if we count Hector Lakemonster, which I do) and reading a lot of travel blogs over the past year or two, I noticed a trend: We’re pretty much all (with a few notable exceptions) a combination of at least a few of the following: white, middle class, educated, western, with professional skills of some sort (teaching, engineering, graphic/web design, law, etc). We like to travel a lot, and our passports are, thankfully, ones from countries with few visa restrictions. Our education and professional backgrounds have given us the leverage to be able to save up to travel or to get work abroad. We’re a bit restless and don’t want to live a conventional life back home so we have chosen to live abroad as expats. We can always go home again if we want. We have choices. We make use of those choices as best we can. We are fortunate.
And that’s fine. It’s what many of us in backpacker/traveler/expat-land are. It’s what I am. It’s what a lot of people out there are– and what far, far more people aren’t. Before I post my next expat interview (as soon as Unbrave Girl completes the required 10,000+ words), I want everyone to stop for a moment and think about how you got to where you are. Think about it seriously. And don’t ever take what you’ve been given for granted. You got lucky.
Further reading and viewing
- Ai Weiwei on Beijing’s Migrant Labourers
- Genocidal Tourism in Cambodia
- Oh, and Privilege Denying Dude
- Perspective on job options from a Shanghai popcorn maker (video)
- On recognizing your own classism
- On hukou and migrant workers in China
- World of Class Warfare (Jon Stewart)
- Alain de Botton’s TED Talk on snobbery and success
Also: David Byrne knew what he was talking about
50 Responses
What a beautiful post Maryanne! Eloquently written! It’s easy to forget just how privileged most of us are, especially while we work our butt off scrimping and saving every penny to save for travel or other ‘desires’. And yet the fact that we have the luxury to save for such things proves how privileged we really are. China reinforced that for me, it horrifies me just how much more I get paid than the locals who tend to work a hell of a lot harder then me for fear they could be shoved out of their job by someone who is willing to do the same amount of work for less pay. When I want to whine and winge about things being crappy I try to remember “hey girl, you’re pretty darn privileged, count your blessings and suck up your petty whining!”
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Thank you. We do have it good and oughtn’t forget it. I think we do though, at times.
Huzzah, lady! I hope every travel/expat/lifestyle blogger who writes posts claiming “you can have this lifestyle too” reads this post and pauses before posting another “you can have this lifestyle too” post… including myself.
Admittedly, I have said a few times on my blog that what I’m doing is not special. But I should clarify what I mean by this. I don’t think traveling and living abroad takes a special amount of courage… but it does take a special amount of privilege.
I never felt particularly privileged growing up. (I had to wear my sister hand-me-downs! I never owned Jordache jeans! By the time I got jelly shoes they were woefully out of fashion… but I didn’t care and I wore them anyway because, gosh darnit, they were jelly shoes). But I realize now how exactly privileged I was and still am (especially after taking that quiz — sheez, I’m such a snobby brat!). I’m able to live and travel abroad because I teach English — a job I wouldn’t be able to get in most countries without my native English ability, education and, if the stories I hear are correct, my skin color.
I know people who have come from a lot less privileged backgrounds than myself and have managed to do the whole travel/expat thing. But they haven’t had it easy — definitely not as easy as me and definitely not as easy as all those blog posts make it seem.
Sally recently posted..By Any Other Name: Why I Call Myself A Writer
No Jordache jeans! Gasp!
I had jelly shoes, but at the tail end of the trend. They gave me blisters.
By the way, thank you for your very eloquent comment. Well said.
One of your best posts yet. I was able to tick off nearly half of the list, and know how privileged I truly (thankfully) am (though, yes, my skin color and features have definitely been an issue while traveling and living abroad).
Being expats, travelers, and having access to what I think are some of the best experiences one can have in a lifetime is truly the best privilege of all. We just have to learn to pause and smell the roses every now and then. 🙂
Thank you for the wonderful morning read.
Michi recently posted..How to Travel in Stride (and Not Kill Each Other).
Thank you. I have a feeling that privilege is about a combination of a number of things, with so many layers, so many variables…
Like white but poor and not from an educated back ground
or
Like non-white but from a very educated, very affluent back ground
or
Like white and lower middle class but from a very established educated background
and so on.
I’ve seen variations on privilege that I’d never encountered before, in Turkey (secular vs religious) or in Burma (it’s all about who you know) or Africa (a lot comes from who the colonizers favoured and rewarded a hundred years ago).
Food for thought.
Most definitely food for thought! You’re completely right about privilege being a combination of things, an intense layer of variables, that do happen to change depending on the location. Privilege, of course, isn’t just based on a simple list where you can tick the boxes off…
I remember once, while traveling with my parents as a child to Central America, watching all of the other the small children, who happened to look just like me, and wondering, “Why me?” in a ‘how in the world did I get so lucky?’ sort of way. I still think about it, especially when I see others struggling so much, how it is that I was lucky enough to be born where I was born, and given an education that opened so many wonderful doors for me. It’s a reminder for those of us on 2nd or 3rd base, that every once in a while those on 1st just might need a bit of a helping hand and warm smile. Thanks again, MaryAnne!
Michi recently posted..How to Travel in Stride (and Not Kill Each Other).
Good-ness! No need for me to “stop for a moment and think about…” I think exactly those same thoughts every blessed day. Your every word has long been my novena – especially when it comes to travel.
I’ve lost count of the times I’ve thought/said out loud “But for some unimaginably lucky quirk, I was born to Bill and Arleen in a hospital in Oak Park, Illinois – as opposed to the 9th daughter of a single mom in a thatched hut in Mozambique”. Seriously. I am so blessed, and ever grateful for my many “privileges” – not the least of which is my navy blue and gold passport. Indeed, it keeps me ever humble as I so blithely roam.
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Amen.
Great post and something that’s often on my mind as a traveler and expat. I’m much more likely to say, “I’m lucky I was born where I was,” rather than, “I’m proud to be an American” as I didn’t do a damned thing to get there. (My family immigrated to America somewhere around 1620 and the late 1800s.) My husband’s 10+ year battle to obtain a US visa (after a previous visa overstay) opened my eyes a great deal – not only because he had to face that battle and deal with the consequences like thousands of others around the globe, but also because despite his inability to enter the US or find work in his own country, his privilege as an EU citizen allowed us to still make comfortable lives for ourselves in several third countries. Our privilege is something I will never take for granted.
My foreign exes (and the foreign partners of my friends) have been huge eye openers into the inequality of border regulations and visa requirements. The crap that my American friend’s Sudanese partner has to go through to do what she can casually do without a second thought (like, emigrate to Canada where HIS son lives, and get a job that isn’t menial and demeaning) really show how different experiences are.
Did your husband ever get the visa?
After nine years of paperwork, 4 refusals, and 11 years without stepping foot in the US, (9 married to me), yes! For 10 years he is authorized to enter at will for business/tourism. We’ve decided not to apply for green card yet as we enjoy living outside the US. (Thank you privilege.)
BTW, my privilege as an American registered nurse allowed me to easily live and work in Toronto for 3 years (with a work visa for my spouse, too.) Actually, I guess I can thank NAFTA for that one.
I went here expecting to find myself priviledged according to your list. Particularly after reading about how poorly native americans still have it in the US today. I’m white, I was raised white. I was unable to tick off anything but number 38 and have remained too poor to even figure out if I’ll have trouble with the numbers that follow.
I want to world travel, but getting a visa I can’t use would just be too depressing…plus there’s probably fees involved isn’t there?
These days I can check off a few of those, but as we speak I’m 20k in debt with student loans for a useless BA, no way to get the childcare needed to pursue an MA (and more debt). Well, I guess I have a right to get irritated when people look at my white face and my nice blog and assume my version of poverty is X and not really poverty.
Just as one example, not only were we aware of just how much our heating bill was as kids we were yelled at if we even -looked- at that dial. It stayed at 60 degrees no matter what in the winter, we could darn well put on more coats, slippers, and blankets. Milk was highly rationed (along with everything else).
One thing I’ve always been lucky in though is love, and I’ve climbed upward somewhat since I struck out “on my own” but only recently. I can now (barely and not at all once loans come due) afford to be a stay-at-home mom (not that I have a choice anyway) and we can afford the internet and cable (sorta).
My son gets to check off a few more things on that list at least. It’s funny coming from the only-one-thing-checked side of the list though…I don’t -feel- that underpriviledged. I feel rather blessed and things could certainly be worse, instead, I have a strong feeling that they’re going to get better soon.
I might be able to check the last about civil wars and genocide too, but it also depends on what you consider applying. Obvious, no, but people are fooling themselves to not realize there’s hidden attempts at genocide going on in the states. Still, much better than outright, too obvious to deny it mass genocide (I saw a news story awhile back about a doctor in the US prosecuted for pushing minorities to abort, or making sure they were unable to reproduce in the future). Regardless, since this is a tick-list for “you’re priviledged” I think the last item was meant to read “you haven’t experienced civil war or genocide…”
Then again, you mention travel bloggers as an audience. So I guess this is the result that comes of having one travel blogger wannabe in your audience. Maybe one day I can join you with a blog post or two about world travel, but for now, I’ll just have to live vicariously through others’ posts.
Thanks for the post!
It may have reinforced that I’m not priviledged when it comes to social status and means, but it’s reinforced that I am fortunate nonetheless.
–Saronai
Saronai recently posted..Family Ties
It’s like I commented elsewhere (with Michi, I think): privilege comes in many forms and at many places in the hierarchy. I grew up with 3rd hand cars- but we had a car. I grew up with just a cast iron wood stove for heat and a reallllly cold bedroom. But we did have wood and I had my own bedroom. My parents were both educated but until I was in my late teens, they never had jobs that rewarded them accordingly. Things were actually pretty tight. A lot of my clothes were from Salvation Army and Goodwill. Our place in the valley couldn’t get tv reception so… we didn’t (except briefly with a very blizzardy one that kind of got CBC) Was it perfect or easy? No. Was I privileged? Yes. Definitely. I was educated and expected to continue my education. I’m white. No one beat me. I come from a developed country. My parents supported me emotionally and materially when I needed it. My needs were certainly met and often exceeded.
I do hope things go better for you. You’ve got a lot stacked against you but not everything- even a useless BA is worth something (I have a BA in Literature and History… so I’m a teacher!), and your son seems to be having a better upbringing than you got so hopefully what he’s getting also applies to you. The love you have and give is valuable. The debt you have to shoulder is a frustrating burden, I know- but hopefully it can be paid off eventually. Your hope to travel can come. Maybe not now but I have no doubt that you can do it- you come from a country whose citizens can freely travel without visas in most of the world; your currency is still pretty valuable when exchanged with many others; your white skin would get you an EFL teaching job with that ‘worthless’ BA without much trouble. Globally, privilege is relative- at home, you’ve had a rough time. It may not be so rough elsewhere, if you can get there.
I wish you good luck in that journey.
Thank you for the thought out response to my comment. I realize it took me a bit to get to the main point behind my comment. I just want to make sure I didn’t hide that point too much under the lead up.
I only got to check one thing on the list, but I feel fortunate anyway. The last part was my main point 🙂 and something of a thank you for the post even though it seems counter-intuitive on the surface (since I only got to check one thing).
I try not to take anything for granted in life and while the finances could be way better for me, I am so fortunate in so many other ways. Thank you for writing a post to try and help people see where they are fortunate. Too many of us get caught up in what we don’t have and want that we lose sight of what we do have. I admire posts that try to help point that sort of thing out.
As to the degree, I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say I was young and dumb and it really is rather “worthless” right now. I technically don’t even have one despite having to pay for it and learning the book materials well. Though I treasure what I’ve learned from the books I read for class. Just in that alone I am fortunate in knowing how to read. There’s a lot of pain in my past as well, but I am fortunate in turning to writing to self-medicate, in being able to turn to writing for that even. Too many others with similar experiences turn to drugs and delinquency instead.
I suppose I just wanted to add to your post that, even if you don’t make any of the checks, even if your past and family traumas have been described as “a walking anomaly of statistics” by friends, there are still things to be thankful for. And that feeling of being lucky nonetheless doesn’t have to come attached to “someone out there is always worse off” in fact that just makes me more depressed.
I’m probably way over-explaining, I just wanted to try and make sure you knew I was agreeing with your post and trying to express that, even someone with a traumatic past, skin colour aside, can see the truth in your words about enjoying what we do have. When we keep our sights on that, things may not get better, but they’ll at least -feel- better.
Thanks again,
–Saronai
Saronai recently posted..Family Ties
“And don’t ever take what you’ve been given for granted.”
Part of that deal is never tolerating those who would deprive you of what you have simply because “you got lucky”. Anyone who gives a damn about their children’s future is going to have their work cut out preventing Beijing from impinging on the freedoms and priviliges that everyone should be able to take for granted. This is the challenge of the coming decades. And rather than put effort into reflecting on how “lucky” some of today’s people are – or are perceived to be – we should expend every vestige of energy to ensure that tomorrow’s child enters a world where basic human comforts and freedoms are a birthright for all.
stuart recently posted..Time to jog Beijing’s selective memory (again)
Very true.
I think about this all the time and couldn’t have expressed it better. I’d like to think that most North Americans, Brits, Australians, etc. are aware of their good fortune to have been born in a “good” country, but it takes some traveling to genuinely appreciate it.
Except for my Eastern European heritage, I’m pretty much you. I’m a white, middle-class Canadian gal who grew up in a single-family house with a big yard in a safe neighbourhood and was raised by supportive parents who read me books and signed me up for everything from figure skating lessons to science fairs. I graduated from university debt-free (part parents, part scholarships) and began traveling shortly after. In short, I am ridiculously privileged.
When my Canadian friends gush “Wow, you have such an amazing lifestyle!” I can write most of it off to different choices… I did not have a car (unthinkable in Manitoba), never bought anything I couldn’t afford, studied hard to get good grade and therefore scholarships, took temporary jobs while traveling, etc. Most of my childhood peers could have saved up, sold everything they owned, and become perma-travelers, too!
Now, living in Singapore, I have many foreign friends who say the same thing: I am so lucky to have this kind of lifestyle. However, the people telling me this are 20somethings from other Asian countries who’ve come to Singapore to study at its business schools and universities. They’re from relatively wealthy families and, despite never having worked a day in their lives, always have the newest gadgets and their parents pay tuition and living expenses without batting an eye. In some ways, they lead more privileged lives than I ever have.
Then I hear the flip side. Their stories of racial comments at job interviews, having to go to embassies for in-person interviews to get a student visa, etc. and realize how citizenship and race are even more limiting than money. How should I feel when I tell them I showed up at their country’s border, probably wearing a slightly dirty t-shirt and a backpack, and my Canadian passport got me right in – no questions asked!
Even worse is when you’re in a have-not country, say Cambodia, and you make the effort make local friends and tell them about all the wonderful experiences you’ve had in their country and what a beautiful place you think it is. Then, while describing the surreal experience of watching the sunrise at Angor Wat, you realize that, despite it being only a couple hundred kilometers away from their home, they have never been there and probably never will be. Sure, I’m a Canadian who has never been to Banff, but that wasn’t because I couldn’t afford the bus fare…
So, I guess the point of my treatise is: once you’ve realized your privilege, how do you deal with the guilt?
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Wow, we did have pretty parallel lives (though I grew up in the wilds of Vancouver Island on a 2 acre piece of land where my parents built a house after clearing out just enough forest to live in). Never owned a car and have no plan to do so, and my gadgets are a few generations behind even my students’….And you know what? A lot of my students are, on paper, waaaaay more privileged than me (their tuition is similar to my salary, for example) but they still have to master English and study abroad if they want a shot at financial success. They’re also limited by being Chinese- how many kids you can have, where you can live in your own country, etc. And if they go abroad, they’re seen as just part of the great big horde of Anonymous Random Asians that are taking over [insert paranoid western city name here].
I had a similar experience in Cambodia, with someone who hadn’t been to Angkor even though it wasn’t (by my standards) far away. Makes you think.
And as for the guilt? Guilt doesn’t help. I try to acknowledge my privilege with great regularity, try not to take advantage of it, and just try to be a decent, compassionate person to everyone. It’s probably not enough but it’s something.
Thank you for writing this. I’ve had a half written essay on “are traveler’s lucky” that has been sitting in my drafts folder for a year. I never could quite put into words what you have here.
I’m not the richest American out there and I’m still hacking away at college loans but I remember every damn day how lucky I am to be in the position I am. I also spent time living in China, and traveling through South East Asia, and nothing will remind you of your immense privilege more than seeing those struggling without those advantages. I don’t feel guilty about it- I didn’t create the system- but I am reminded how fortunate I am.
I think that is one of the real benefits of travel for all of us western white kids- it really does force you to examine your privilege and count your blessings.
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Enjoyed this. And I really love that baseball metaphor.
Cheri
Cheri Lucas recently posted..The End of an Era, the Beginning of the Future (and the Long Moment in Between)
Thank you. My mother’s been using that metaphor for as long as I can remember and it’s always made me stop and think.
Can’t remember if I mentioned this to you before, forgive me if it’s a repeat. While I was expatting in Austria, I took a Deutsch fur Auslanders class. In my class? Bosnian engineers and other educated folks who worked as chambermaids and on production lines because Austria doesn’t recognize their education.
Meanwhile, I would swan in late from Salzburg where I’d landed a gig at Sony. You know what my degree is in? FINE ART. I studied PAINTING. The moment the crazy realization hit me that the SOLE reason I got to work at Sony in their digital media division while the guy with the engineering degree had to stick labels on yogurt containers to feed his family was my nationlity is one I will not soon forget.
No, you didn’t tell me this story before though you did mention the Deutsch for Auslanders class before and something about a Bosnian woman in one of your expat posts on your blog. I enjoyed that too. So much to think about!
When I went home this past summer, the thing that got to me was when I caught up with my (American) best friend from Turkey, who had just emigrated to Vancouver with her Sudanese partner so he could be near his son– in Istanbul, he was famous: He was an established and respected DJ and ran wildly popular reggae bars and clubs. He had a bachelor’s degree in business from an esteemed Istanbul university. When he left Istanbul, the tribute parties seemed to be never ending. Twenty five odd years as a successful businessman and DJ and genuinely engaging human being had left the Istanbullus genuinely heartbroken when he left.
And in Vancouver, what could he do with all that? He was a dish washer. A 45 year old dishwasher. Now he’s trying to run a food cart that he’s renting (at Granville and Robson- the reggae themed one that sells gorgeous-smelling Jamaican jerk doner and Sudanese kofte). At least now he’s got some control over his work and business again. He didn’t like being a dishwasher but Vancouver didn’t deem him fit for any other jobs.
So infuriating!
Beautiful post!
I know I’m definitely lucky to be where I’m from. I’m now applying to be an Italian Citizen. I was born in the US. My grandmother was born in Italy so I’m lucky enough to be able to apply. Insanely lucky.
George Carlin (comedian) made a skit about being “proud”. That we abuse it on things that we had no control over in being. Being proud to be where I’m from makes no sense since it’s something I was born with. Proud should be used on skill gained. Instead, I say I’m happy to be an American. And lucky (most of the time anyway).
I laughed when I saw Average Zhou. That’s clever.
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When I went home to Canada this summer, I noticed a definite upswing in the use of the word ‘proud’ which frustrated me for the reasons you noted above. And a lot of those who were most proud were the most insular, the least likely to have seen any other options. They were proud to be Canadian even though they’d never been anywhere else but, say, Mazatlan or Cancun for a 1 week all inclusive, and really had no basis of comparison for this pride. And, like you said, how can you be proud of something you had no control over?
I’m lucky to be Canadian. I’m lucky that I can go home any time if I so desire. My government has no plans to imprison me or kill me if I choose to leave China (not that I know of, anyway- you never know with Harper!). I may go back in the near future- or not (my partner is American so we don’t exactly have a country in common to call home). But I have choice.
And yeah, Average Zhou. Heh. I toyed around with Zhou Guǎnzǐgōng but figured no one would get the joke.
Despite being a ‘have it all, appreciate nothing’ boy with a ‘I don’t care air’ around me (it’s just a pose, I know..), I find it hard to keep my mouth shut (some restrained puking is also involved) when I sense a feeling of superiority amongst some of my fellow countrymen, young 4 1/2 hour internet entrepreneurs, frantic lifestyle designers, the Brady bunch ‘Travel or die’ apostles…
I am just lucky, Dutch and moody, and pretty glad that’s all I have to conquer.
Conrad recently posted..Water Front Fun
Conrad, I’m totally with you on the restrained puking. I wrote this for all the ‘young 4 1/2 hour internet entrepreneurs, frantic lifestyle designers, the Brady bunch ‘Travel or die’ apostles’ out there who have driven me to the point of absolute hair-pulling annoyance. It was aggravated further by my trip to Cambodia last February where I had to listen to a whole bunch of back packers (in Phnom Penh, in Sihanoukville, in Siem Reap…) going on and on about how awesome they are. In particular, there was this one Swedish girl on a boat outside of Sihanoukville that I wanted to push overboard because she spent the whole freaking 2 hour trip to the island where we were all going snorkling, going on and on quite loudly about how freaking amazing and brave she was, how she KNEW Asia like to one else, etc, etc. Gah!!!!!
Wow! what a great post! Gave me pause to think about “privelege”.
myra recently posted..Weather and the Best Time to Enjoy China
Indeed, so much to think about!
Awesome post, MaryAnne. I ticked off most that list. I don’t know if you’ve ever read any Rawls but I was thinking of his work all the way through this post – he said that to design a just society, negotiations would have to take place between people who didn’t know what position, gender, class, race, role they would later fill in that society. He disconnects privilege from a lucky chance of birth; it’s an idea I find incredibly appealing.
Again, amazing. Thanks for reminding us all how lucky we really are.
Camden Luxford recently posted..Adjusting to Life as an Expat: Interviews and Resources
Thanks, Camden. Haven’t read Rawls but I think I ought to now.
Well said. You would think travel would open our eyes to this privilege with a bit more lasting effect. I too have to remind myself how damn lucky I am and not forget it even on days when sadness/homesickness, etc. sets in.
Re. the quote you posted above (on being ‘homeless’), which I assume refers to ‘global nomad’ types like me (I’ll admit, I did feel a twinge when I first posted that word as part of my Twitter bio, but it’s the only way I could describe my life in 160 chars or less) — uh, it’s a metaphor. I for one have never made it a habit to sleep in a yurt. Like ‘weekend warriors’ and north American plastic Paddies who say they’re Irish and English teachers who call themselves ‘expats’ though they have no qualifications besides pale skin and a passport from the right country and a degree, it’s simply a kind of shorthand.
Most travelers/english teachers I’ve met are well aware of how lucky they are. It’s simply easier to complain about a bad day at the office at the local bar than to say seraphically, “Oh how LUCKY I am!” Everywhere we go, we are confronted by inequalities of birth, by the accident of fate that got us to where we are. We don’t even need to leave our hometowns to discover this.
I don’t tend to hang out much with English teachers and gap-year travelers, but I assume that simply living in Asia or South America or Africa – the places where budget travelers and English teachers most often go – they, like me, are struck by this every time they walk out the door.
Elizabeth recently posted..Art Stalkers #2: Bangkok
Thanks for commenting- and sorry it took me a few days to reply. Work got in the way.
I do get that a lot of the language is metaphorical shorthand and I’ve used it myself at times (for most of my 20s I was ‘homeless’ and ‘nomadic’). However, I’ve also noticed, increasingly, a lot of travel blogs saying ‘anyone can do this!’ which isn’t accurate or realistic.
When I travel (mostly in Asia these days), I come across a lot of travellers who seem to be incredibly proud of how much they’ve travelled without acknowledging the help they had behind the scenes that allowed them to travel. I’ve also noticed a lot of expats here in China with a seriously over inflated sense of self importance/entitlement, both teachers and others. I can only speak for my own experience and that experience prompted this post.
Also, ‘Like ‘weekend warriors’ and north American plastic Paddies who say they’re Irish and English teachers who call themselves ‘expats’ though they have no qualifications besides pale skin and a passport from the right country and a degree, it’s simply a kind of shorthand.’ is a bit insulting to English teachers (like myself and all of my colleagues) who are actually trained, experience and dedicated teachers who aren’t just coasting on skin colour, degree and passport. If I’m not an expat after 17 years of living abroad, just because I happen to be an English teacher, then what am I?
Apologies for the insult, my statement sounded worse than intended, and I don’t know your background. I would call most English teachers I’ve met in Asia ‘foreigners’ rather than expats. Like me, they were not transferred here on expat packages by companies in their home countries, they came here of their own volition, took a chance, and were hired locally. They don’t tend to hang out at country clubs and other expat-ty places.
Here in Thailand, I’m currently a foreigner-my purpose here is not primarily to pursue a professional career path, but to experiment with art approaches and enjoy life while preparing for Beijing. I have taught English in the past, and may do so again, but the job didn’t bring me to my destination, my desire to live in that country did.
Many ‘expat’ english teachers I’ve met in Asia – particularly here in Thailand – have no qualifications besides a TEFL cert and degree and native language fluency. They have no intention of getting a Master’s in TOEFL or pursuing the career at (what is considered in the industry as) a professional level.
But this is splitting hairs. Foreigner vs. Expat, we are all strangers from somewhere else. Most of us stick out in Asia, visually and culturally. Some have more cash to insulate from the host culture. Others don’t. How authentic the experience is, is subjective anyway.
Elizabeth recently posted..Dear Thailand
You’re very right about the expat/foreigner quibble/hair splitting. I’m both, I guess. I’ve been a teacher for a decade in non-cowboy situations and take it pretty seriously (and in return, I tend to be taken seriously as a professional). Am I an expat because I came here of my own volition? I certainly don’t have an expat salary like those who are sent here do. Those ones always amaze me. I came because I like living, well, anywhere and everywhere. I go where I am curious. The work I do is flexible enough to grant me this. My big passions are writing and exploring and I can do those here too.
I guess the main point is…um… we’re lucky? We’re blessed with the ability to follow what moves us? I’ve been a foreigner/stranger my entire adult life. I’ve been able to work my way into the local cultures with varying degrees of success (South Africa: excellent; Turkey: very very well; Shanghai: so-so). It’s all just a life path anyway.
[…] Privilege *o/* “Itinerant educatrix” Maryanne Oxendale wrote this great piece on the privilege that we expats too often take for granted, which reminded me of this post about privilege and classism by my friend Akhila Kolisetty. I am […]
“Fantastically privileged” — without a doubt, that’s what most 21st-c expats and world travelers are! Thanks for putting this in such bold terms, MaryAnne. I applaud you for your courage: yes, courage. I think it takes a certain chutzpah to acknowledge this so openly as the whole facade of the adventuresome international life is built on never really doing so…or doing so only glancingly. After all, we wouldn’t want to ruin anyone’s fantasy that they’re having an adventure to end all adventures!
It’s also an issue we’ve struggled with quite a lot over at The Displaced Nation, a relatively new (six-month-old) site for those of us who venture across borders. Just yesterday, two of us founding writers were having a meeting with a couple of our backers (in person — can you believe?), and one of them asked us: doesn’t “displaced” refer to people who’ve been driven out of their countries because of war, famine, natural disaster, etc.
Touché! I in fact hadn’t favored the name originally because of those connotations… But then we decided that “displaced” could refer to a wide range of situations, not just the political one.
But still, it bothers me, or I wouldn’t be submitting this comment…
ML Awanohara recently posted..Family visits – 3 universally acknowledged truths by Jane Austen
Thanks for your comment. I’ve been impressed by the amount of self reflection and thoughtfulness so far in most of the comments– but also surprised by the defensiveness in some reactions (mostly on Twitter). Some of the silence from the bloggers that prompted me to write it also surprised me– either they never read this post or they didn’t see themselves in it.
When I think about the fact that I have Sudanese friends back in Istanbul who can’t travel freely even though they can afford it, simply because their passport isn’t welcomed, I get annoyed. When i think about all the crap that non-rich Chinese people have to go through (financially and bureaucratically) just to go abroad, I feel very frustrated. When I meet very, very overqualified English teachers (like, with PhDs) from the Philippines here in China who struggle to get hired and even then are given lower salaries than their Western colleagues with just a CELTA, I get seriously annoyed. Same with my Chinese colleagues: at my last job, I made 14k a month and the writing teacher who had a PhD in English Education made 4k.
The word ‘displaced’ is, as you noted, a very loaded word. I get the metaphor and I do think there should be room in our lives for metaphor– but I really, really think we need to think long and hard before we casually appropriate something that represents trauma and turmoil for others and use it whimsically to describe our adventures.
Not quiet sure of the serendipity which lead me to your post, and I’m a bit taken aback by the questionnaire. I began thinking how privileged I am, and checked a mere 8 items.
I have yet to gather the courage to travel as broadly as you and so many commentators…or Julie, the nurse from Britain who I knew so long ago: her training allowed her to follow her curiosity around the world.
A new liver is bringing new health, and more courage to leap rather than tip toe. My husband and I planned to cast off our home’s dock lines, and one we can!
Thanks for commenting! I’m so glad to hear you’ve had a new lease on life. I’ve been very lucky with my health (so far) but consider myself totally blessed as I’ve seen the nightmares that friends and family have been through (and also through my 3 years as an auxiliary nurse in the UK a decade ago). Where will you go, once you’ve taken that leap away from home?
…and one leap is into blogging, so I had to correct my website!
Baby steps, life to live instead of quickly dying.
(Have you considered making the gift of life?)
Lucie Mewes recently posted..Big Day
Love this post, and thank you for linking to my blog on this topic as well. I completely agree that so often, we get caught up in complaining about the hardships we have to suffer or in our “first world problems” — but we forget to keep in mind how incredibly lucky we are just to have this opportunity to traverse the world. The sense of “entitledness” that many people have simply flabbergasts me. I hope we can all be a bit more mindful of who we are and how we’ve got to where we are.
Thanks for the reality check–we’re privileged to have read it!
Karen & Eric
Trans-Americas Journey 200,000 mile working road trip through North, Central and South America
Trans-Americas Journey recently posted..Belize Briefs: Tips, Quirks & Foibles After 2.5 Months of Travel
I loved this post. So many people don’t realize what a privilege traveling itself is – despite your accommodations, that they take for granted their ability to even cross borders.
L.M. Fleming recently posted..The Break-up Coda
After all, we wouldn’t want to ruin anyone’s fantasy that they’re having an adventure to end all adventures! Globally, privilege is relative- at home, you’ve had a rough time. And rather than put effort into reflecting on how “lucky” some of today’s people are – or are perceived to be – we should expend every vestige of energy to ensure that tomorrow’s child enters a world where basic human comforts and freedoms are a birthright for all. However, I’ve also noticed, increasingly, a lot of travel blogs saying ‘anyone can do this!’ which isn’t accurate or realistic.
This is a great post. I answered “no” or a lot of the first half of the questionnaire (I was the first one in my family to go to university – my parents left school at 14 and 18, respectively), but “yes” to a lot more than 50%!
I think people forget how privileged they are in comparison with a lot of people in the world. I mean, for starters we’re all either reading and commenting on this using a computer, mobile phone (most likely a smart phone), or an iPad/tablet of some sort. That in itself is a privilege.
My partner is from South Korean, and he’d LOVE to travel more, but he can’t – he’d have to save ten times as much money as me, because his working options are so limited because of his nationality. As a British passport holder with a TESOL certificate and more than 2 years of teaching experience, I can pretty much roll into any country I like and start work. As someone who wasn’t born as a native English speaker, my partner simply doesn’t have that option.
I think we often forget that by simply being citizens of English speaking countries, probably white or at the worst (shock! horror!) a little bit “latte’ish” (as described in your post), a university education, and the means to even get online and search for jobs in other countries, we’re already so privileged even if we don’t always pause to think about it and, in many cases, simply look around and open our eyes in the countries that we’re living in.
Totally! My exes from my distant past taught me a lot about my own privileges, especially when we tried to travel. I come from a fairly low income family– but one that values education so I was always supported in my path to learn and to travel. Just that has helped me as I’ve met others from a similar financial background who were given no support in their education, dropped out at 16 and had a much tougher start to adulthood. I feel incredibly lucky to have been born into the life I have. I can especially feel this privilege when I’m in China and can see what a billion others don’t have…
[…] And You May Ask Yourself, ‘How Did I Get Here?’ (Let’s Talk About Privilege Shall We? Mary Anne confronts the advantages afforded to white, middle class travellers from rich stable countries. […]