Fujiko Suda / Reflection

Living in a different country

I strive to live a real life.  Not in my head, experiencing things only in my head by reading books.  But here I am again, writing about how I felt reading some books.  Well, the books can give reminder of experiences in real life, insight into what we went through, what we are going through.

Recently, I read two books in a row about living in a different culture.  One of them was Driving Over Lemon, about a British couple moving to Sierra Nevada in Spain.  Another was Namesake, about Indian couple moving to US and their son's experiences.  It's something any of us living in a free country have choice of doing, moving to most of the country in any other parts of the world, making a life there.  We can do it, moving to another country, buying a piece of land at cheaper price than where we live now, or look for jobs.  Those of us in search of better life.

It seems that much of "better life" depends on people we meet at the new place we go to.  It goes both way.  We accept the local people, local life.  Then the local people will accept us, maybe not everyone local, but if we accept them, there will always be someone willing to accept us.  It's like where we are originally from, some like us, some don't.  Only the ratio differs.

Reading in books and looking back to what actually happened to me, it just seem so silly that we are so bound to the culture we are most familiar with.  The culture does not bind us.  It's what happens inside us.  We take things so seriously.  Books by Amy Tan, Pearl Buck, other books dealing with differences in culture seem to take things seriously.  Seeing in that light, Driving Over Lemon is such a relief, because despite of all the usual things that happens to Chris and his wife while they make a living at new culture, Chris constantly focuses on the lighter side of life.  Comical side.  Things to laugh joyously about. 

I now hear the kids watching Finding Nemo.  When we move to a new place, to a place that has very different culture than what we are used to, things happen, we do the best we can.  But when we tell the story of what happened, it sounds incredible, like Nemo hearing about what his father went through to find him.  Ability to find things to laugh about, keeping sense of humor seems the best thing one can have in dealing with different culture.

If there's one thing that I take very seriously about different culture is my ability to express myself in English or Japanese.  I beat myself up because I don't feel I am completely satisfied with neither English nor Japanese.  Keeping sense of humor.  Keeping sense of humor.  Well, I do amuse people by making occasional language mistake.....

Things I had all buried up inside

The books that have really big impact on me, I haven't been writing about.  The emotions are so strong, they are hard to convey properly in words.

Maybe about a month ago, I read Michael Lewis' Moneyball:  The Art of Winning An Unfair Game.  By mistake, I ordered the book in big print for people with sight problem.  Reading a book in such big print felt embarrassing, so it took me maybe half a year or more before begin reading it.  But once I got started, it had me.

What struck me is, talent, so much talent, can make a person miserable.  You think you ought to make something of yourself because you are so good at something.  But somehow, maybe from not meeting with the right coach at the right time, or not trying hard enough at some point, or getting an injury, or whatever, you don't make the most of your talent.  Not too many of us have obvious dazzling talent like Billy Beane, but a lot of us were really good at something, but somehow we didn't pursue, and it feels like we wasted our lives, our talents.  If only I tried harder, is the thought that haunts us.  I'm one of those people who was voted "most talented" in teenage years, because my drawings won ribbons at competitions, my singing got me into all state chorus for the state of Florida, good hand-eye coordination helped me get into girl's varsity team of volleyball and tennis.  So did any of these "talents" help me earn a living?  No.  Maybe because I wasn't disciplined enough to try hard at anything, because when I hit a wall after steady climb, I didn't persue any further.  Maybe that habit hauted me for the rest of my life.  Things came easy to me, up to some point.  Then when I hit the wall, I would just give up, pursue something else.  Funny only thing I didn't give up was something I wasn't good at to begin with, business.  Probably because I didn't have other choice at that point in life.  I certainly don't want to live an artist's life.  I can't do sports like I used to. 

The Moneyball talks about the personality matching the game of baseball.  Billy Beane was more like a football kind of guy.  The book makes tragedy out of Billy Beane's earlier life.  How his momentary temptation to money and glory ruined his life.  How he turned his back on the scholarship at the Stanford University playing both baseball and football for the wad of dollars and glamour of professional baseball players.  He ended up with no college education, no degree, no real lasting glamour and money. 

I really LOVE the story, but I don't feel sorry for Billy Beane.  So far, he's had a great life.  He was in constant struggle, but so what?  He did FEEL the entire time.  He lived fully.  Pain and sorrow are no fun.  But I'm of a school of thought, anything that doesn't kill you is good for you.  Especially when all these things happen the first half of a person's life.  After such first half, anything in the second half feels so easy, so nice. 

Billy Beane's life still goes on, pursuing the dream of winning the World Series.  Whatever happens, he paid his due.  His story gives me hope.  We become old, and we can't do the kind of physical things we used to be able to do.  But we make peace with our own personality, and do the things that come natural to us, and we could win.  Winning, as in being satisfied with one's life.