Amanda Reid | Minor Adjustments

Reid About It! | The international experience from a conflicted perspective

By Amanda Reid 02/15/16 10:54pm

As an international student, I’ve grown progressively better at fitting in with cultural groups. Growing up at a British international school in Vietnam, I know what being a cultural outsider means. Every time I come back from wherever I was, my senses towards the relative “other” culture are heightened. I would become more aware of the standard direction of the grain, and I would mold myself to it.

Most international students are constantly adjusting themselves. Not only do they need to fit themselves into Penn’s culture, they’ll need to fit themselves into their home culture when they return. International and study abroad students know the hard work associated with learning to go with the flow.

Enforced upon me, like many others, is the pressure to assimilate while still retaining a sense of identity. Like sandpaper molding the edges of splintered wood, I try to mold myself to fit to the world around me: getting rid of the ugly edges or trying to find the parts of me that fit expectations.

The holidays, for instance, are a time for revisiting your family, your roots, your old life. Eventually you end up revisiting a part of yourself you thought you left behind. For me, going home to Vietnam takes 18 hours of flying, five hours of layover and three hours of driving. Once I’m home, every aspect of life needs some level of adjustment.

I try to navigate the roads from memory. I try to establish a substantial conversation with people in their own language. I try to recall restaurant etiquette, greeting etiquette, money conversion rates, what brands exist and don’t exist now. I’m always told that my accent changes depending on where I am. I self-consciously mimic people’s actions and words to make the situation less awkward. Slowly, I’ll get the hang of it. But just as I’ve become used to it, I swiftly abandon this life for the life overseas. And so goes the acclimatization process when I come back from wherever I’ve been.

When back in the States, international students need to readjust to American culture, which is an even greater task. Some of us have to speak English as a second, third or fourth language. We need to get used to the infrastructure, the architecture, the weather, faces, voices, mannerisms and what is expected of us. We need to be aware of the things we say, the beliefs we hold and the way in which we express these things. Although some of us realize that integration is only temporary, there is always some need to belong anyway.

Students might try to find their national home in a cultural group at Penn. Yet student groups, naturally microcosms, cannot represent the many rich and diverse experiences from across the globe.

These groups are also run and populated by Americans; an Asian American does not always share the same experience as a person who grew up in Asia. As much as we try to promote cultural fusion, there will always be a little bit more give than take when it comes to international students. There will always be a part of our cultural identity that won’t fit exactly how we want it to.

It turns out that I, like many others, do not need to abide by the standards set for me by a greater social system. In fact, no matter how hard I try, I can’t force a definition of myself.

Like the great Yoda says, “There is no try, there is only do.” You can try and build a community around you, you can try to speak with an American accent, you can try to pretend like American football makes sense — it doesn’t — and you can try to search out harmony between the external world and your internal world. But in the end, your growth as a human being unfolds without your control.

Life would be a lot easier if we recognize that our behaviors are molding and influencing the culture around us. Integrating with or confronting the dominant culture isn’t completely in my control. Individuals are not the only ones that need to adjust, because the surrounding culture does too. Culture is the combined makeup of individuals in a community, but we forget that the individual is a combination of separate parts as well.

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