I Am Another You

I have had the great fortune of living in different countries, experience different cultures and learn some valuable lessons in between. Add to this the fact that I was born and raised  outside of my parents' homeland and that my parents are both from two distinctly different countries and cultures, and you will hopefully understand why today I have a Cultural Identity that I like to describe as a composite of the best of all the worlds I've had the privilege of being exposed to.

My mother is from Haiti. My father is from Suriname. But, if I could take you back to the childhood dinner table conversations in my home, you'd hear a group of siblings talking Dutch to one another and to their dad. Speak Haitian Créole to their mum and aunts. And English to their visiting cousins.

Effortlessly.

Seamlessly switching from one cultural context to the next, is second nature to me: I consider myself to be a fortunate Global Citizen. I know, it sounds cliché, but so does being 1.80m, blonde and blue eyed and stating that you are Swedish!

I am fortunate, not only because my nomadic life took me across Europe (The Netherlands, UK, France, Spain, Portugal), Caribbean, North and South America, Asia, Northern Africa and the Middle East, but because this and my own tri- cultural background resulted in a deep appreciation for diversity and an even deeper ability to connect with others regardless of race, culture or nationality. In fact, I deeply believe that it is precisely because I was precluded, -by the mere fact that I was already bi-cultural at birth and born into a third culture (hence the term tri-cultural)- from solely identifying with one monolithic culture (monolithic, as in: 'exhibiting or characterized by often rigidly fixed uniformity') that I am now able to navigate this often contentious world of cultural differences.

Subsequently, when I meet people from different parts of the world, I don't really look out for differences between myself and them. To the contrary, I immediately find those commonalities that connect us and build further upon that. Again, it's not something I think about, it just comes naturally.
  
Take for example the day I met Oliver*, a waiter from Indonesia working in an Indonesian restaurant outside of his home country. I might have never been to Indonesia, but I literally grew up eating Indonesian food. Really? Yes, really. The country my father is from (Suriname, in South America) has a population of which 15% is Javanese (Indonesia).


Indonesian Labourers arriving in Suriname.
They now make up 15% of the population.

They came to Suriname decades ago and they brought with them some really exciting and flavorsome culinary traditions which are now defacto Surinam's national dishes, typically sold in open air restaurants called Warungs: Nasi Goreng, Bami Goreng, Pitjil, Pisang Goreng , Saoto Soup (Soto Ayam), Tahu Lontong, Loempia, Sate and Peje. Just to name a few! With many Surinamese immigrating to The Netherlands in the late sixties, it is no coincidence that the Surinamese- Javanese kitchen is now also part of the Dutch palate across all Dutch territories.

Just imagine the shock on Oliver's* face when I told him I'd been looking for a place where I could have a Dawet (pink colored milk- based drink) for quite some time. Then I confidently ordered a Nasi Goreng (fried rice with vegetables and chicken) but asked him not to put any trassi (shrimp paste) in my food, since I am allergic to shrimps. He was amazed. No greater was his amazement when I inquired as to whether they served any soup as I wanted to order a Saoto Soup (Soto Ayam -Indonesian Soup) for my friend. Finally he laughed when I finally expressed disappointment that my favorite desert, Gulung Gulung (coconut filled sweet pancakes) was not on the menu. He was intrigued, as I had not asked him to explain the menu to us. Had I ever lived in Indonesia, he asked. Did I visit before? Was one of my parents Indonesian? Did I have loads of Indonesian friends? Did I have Indonesians in my family? Was one of my relatives married to an Indonesian? 

The answers to all his quetions was no.

To me there was nothing out of the ordinary in my order. As far as I was concerned, I ordered food I grew up eating. But for Oliver it was the reason he gave us the most impeccable service and came back again and again to chat with us and share with us his own story, his own life, his own dreams. It was as though he felt that because I was so comfortable with 'his' food and knew 'his' people, I couldn't possibly look at him as a stranger. We were somehow connected.

Now, allow me to set the record straight: This was not the first (nor the last) time in my life that I was bombarded with an infinite amount of questions about my knowledge of certain aspects of a culture I didn't necessarily look associated to.

Club Social: Crackers

One day, as I was seen eating an arepa (Venezuelan fried corn- bread filled with cheese or other options) in the corridors of my university, a Venezuelan co- student named Carlos* -whom I had never met before- approached me to ask me where I had bought it. He was a foreign student in The Netherlands and was dying to eat some Latin American food. I said I made it myself and he was shocked.

Really?

Yes, really.

And so we spent the next two hours missing a class and talking in Spanish about life in Caracas, me often eating arepas and empanadas for breakfast, dancing the joropo as a child, singing aguinaldos and eating ayaca for Christmas  and watching Venezuelan Soap Operas (and being madly in love with Franklin Virguez).

We reminisced about Radio Rochela, THE show to watch back then. We spoke nostalgically about moving our hips to El Pavo Real sung by El Puma (Jose Luis Rodriguez), but could not agree on the great voice of Ilan Chester. We quickly found out, however, that we were both addicted to Club Social. He recounted how he and his brothers were never able to resist eating the whole packet of Club Social and would be grounded by their mother for eating too many of these delectable crackers. We laughed. I fully understood his addiction, as mine wasn't any less! And so we laughed even more before there was a sudden silence and a long stare.

'I must apologize to you,' he finally said. 'I really must. You know.....I never would have approached you because I really never thought we would have anything in common.' I smiled and shrugged. 'We must get together, go for a drink. You will then meet some other Venezuelans like us,' he said with sincerity in his eyes. Other Venezuelans like us, he had said. But I felt no need to correct him. I simply appreciated his honesty and I could sense that he felt connected to me. For we could speak the same language and had simple childhood memories connected to the same country and culture in common.



Salted Dried Chinese Plums.

Then take the day when I asked my Taiwanese colleagues in Taipei if they sold dried, salted Chinese plums in this city, only to be questioned as to whether I was certain I knew what they were and whether I could take the taste. I insisted: "Guys, I have been eating these plums all my life. Get me some, please."

Really?

Yes, really.

All my life.

And when days later the Chinese Plums finally did make their way to my desk, I was surrounded by intrigued locals who couldn't believe I was actually going to eat them. So they stood around me and watched me eat one, only to gasp in surprise that I did not spit it out in disgust. From that day on, I was offered many opportunities to try different Taiwanese snacks and foods and immerse in different cultural activities. 'Come with us, try this'.  It was as though my effortless consumption of a food item not readily liked by non- Asians, proved my openness to the culture.  And when I left the country, I even left with a seal of my own Chinese Name.

Then there was that day when I was having a conversation in Dutch with a South African acquaintance I bumped into in the food court of my office building. Whenever we met he'd address me in Afrikaans and I would speak to him in Dutch. We understood each other perfectly. But on this day, as we conversed, I could feel the stares of people wondering perhaps what country this 'white man' and this 'black woman' could possibly be from to have such a Germanic sounding language in common.

It brought back memories of me taking the Staten Island Ferry from Manhattan with my sister, many moons ago, and engaging her during the entire trip in a conversation in Dutch, our mother tongue. When we reached Staten Island, and as we walked towards the bus stop, a man tapped her on the shoulder. It was the same man who had sat in front of us during the entire  ferry ride home. 'I'm so sorry,' he said. 'But what language do y'all speak. Is it Egyptian?'. He had clearly been intrigued-during the entire 20 minute ride- by the fact that he couldn't make out the language we were speaking and was determined to get an answer. 'It's Dutch,' I said. He looked shocked as if he couldn't quite get his head around why two black people would speak Dutch to each other. 'Oh. Dutch. Good Lord, I didn't know they spoke Dutch in Africa.' We both just left it at that and smiled. Ignorance is bliss, right?

It certainly is.

Until I met Dinesh*.

See, when I was told that I absolutely had to be introduced to this guy named Dinesh*- who was apparently a very affable guy- I automatically concluded it was based on the fact that we had a set of things, if not many things, in common. So, as my curiosity grew, I started inquiring more often as to when I'd meet 'this Dinesh guy' . I was more than curious to find out why our mutual friends felt we needed to be friends too. After all, I had been told umpteen times: 'Oh, you two will get along so well. You must meet!' And as luck would have it, we ended up meeting by chance in a club in Paris (where I was living at the time) whilst I  happened to be at with my French friend Sandrine*.

'Hey, there is Dinesh! Hey, Dinesh! Dinesh! Dinesh'. As he turned around to find the source of his name calling, Sandrine* gestured for him to come to where we were sitting.  'Oh, Suzee, you won't believe this guy! I'm so happy you two are finally meeting.'

Dinesh soon found his way to us.

'Hey, Dinesh. how are you? So happy to see you! I didn't know you'd be here too,' Sandrine said while she hugged him gently.

Kiss on the right cheek.
Kiss on the left cheek.
Kiss on the right cheek.
Kiss on the left cheek.

'Hey, this is Suzee. Suzee....this is Dinesh!'

'Hey, Suzee, nice to meet you. I heard so much about you.' We shooked hands and smiled at one another. So, this was Dinesh, the cool guy, I thought. He looked cool, indeed, in his baggy jeans and oversized baseball jersey.

'Nice to meet you, Dinesh. Sandrine has been insisting that we meet.'

'Yo, cool, sister. Always nice to connect, you know what I'm saying. Yo, where you from, sis. I grew up amongst yo' peeps, you know. Yo'peeps are my family, you know. We tight man. We tight. So, you know, call me D. Some call me Didi, but hey, whatever they holler, I represent. Yo, first time here?'

'Yes. First time. It's quite nice, ' I said as I slowly took a last sip of my martini and wondered if he was trying to sound like an American rapper or whether he actually spoke like that regularly.

'It's a'right, not really up there. You know, up there. If you want, I can hook you up and we can go to a real happening place where they run the kind of shit us peeps like, you know where I'm going, yeah?' He burst out laughing and gave me a high five. 'Let me get you a drink. Another Martini?'

I sighed and took a deep breath as it slowly dawned on me that it wouldn't take long to conclude that  Dinesh* was deeply into Hip Hop. Rap. Street. Urban Culture. Call it what you like. Bottom line is that there is no other music I dislike more than rap music. I guess I just don't have the need to listen to a man sing (rap) about all he can do to, for and with a woman. That is, if he calls her a woman at all. Nah, just not my cup of tea!

'Sandrine, is that the Dinesh you were talking about?', I asked as Dinesh walked off to get some drinks.

Sandrine looked really excited as she confirmed his identity and offered some additonal information. He was American of East-Indian descent and was crazy about hip hop and the whole scene around it, I was told. He had been studying to become an Entertainment Lawyer and was  in Paris doing 'you know, all that God forbids! My peeps ain't here so, I'm living it up.' He loved rap and had written some songs. He was a great dancer too and was addicted to basket ball. And he had a Tupac Shakur tattoo.

I smiled.

'He's so cool! He's a Black man in an Indian skin!', Sandrine offered, looking for excitement in my face. I could see the puzzled look on her face: Was I not happy to meet him?

'Martini for my ladies!'. Dinesh was back with two martinins and a beer.

'Thanks, Dinesh. That's very kind of you.'

'Daaaaaaamn, sis, no need to sound all proper, and all that. I'm a n*gga just like you. You know how we get down!' Dinesh burst out laughing. 'You know, I know you think I'm Indian and all that, but I've got soul. I get down with the n*ggas. those are my peeps. For real. I dig them black bitches too, you know what I'm saying. I do it all, queen, I do it all!'

I smiled. And could sense that Sandrine was still excited that we had met.

But I was just disappointed. Not that Dinesh was into rap, basketball and Tupac Shakur. No. Not that he was wearing baggy clothes and put on an 'urban accent' to address me. No.

I was disappointed because once again I realized that even among the most educated (Sandrine* had graduated from Sorbonne and was one of the top consultants at my firm and Dinesh* was in Paris on exchange from a top university in the USA!), there was still an inability to look at black people as anything else than a monolithic race: A singular race, that exhibits a set of predefined behaviors and thought patterns and hence is assigned a set of pre-defined possible attributes  and accomplishments. I was disappointed that the fact that different groups of people with the same skin color can have different cultures was once again not applied to those with a black skin.

The simple truth is, Dinesh was an Indian-American that identified with another subset of American Culture: Hip Hop. And that subset, was yet again a subset of African American Culture. And that culture is not mine, even though those that adhere to it are predominantly black. It's simply not mine, just as much as I cannot claim Nelson Mandela's culture simply because we are both black. Just as much as I cannot claim to have the he same culture as the Brazilian football phenommenon Pelé . Or that Kofi Annan and I have the same cultural background. It is simply not true. He probably would be as surprised as you that Nasi Goreng and Bami Goreng (Indonesian dishes) are an integral of my ethnic experience and identity and that of ALL the black people in Suriname!

And so, in the middle of Paris, I realized that there was only one appropriate response to Dinesh's attempt to connect with me purely on the basis of my race: I could give him a whole lecture on how 'black' is a skin color and not my culture. That being black doesn't define me nor confine me to a pre-defined set of behaviors, vocabulary or musical likes/ dislikes. But that'd have been a waste.

'Wow, that's cool Dinesh. Actually, we have a lot in common. I too love your people. I actually want to visit India sometime real soon.'

I paused and smiled. Then took a sip of my martini.

'I actually think Hindi will be, just like mandarin, one of the next languages I will try to master. Not that I can say more than 'Nie Hao', but I did try to learn Mandarin. So, yes, I might as well try to learn some Hindi. Predictions are India will be of global significance in the future.'

He was surprised that I had an interest in India, and his surprise soon became excitement as he told me all he knew about his own roots and culture.

We spent the night talking about India, Hinduism, ashrams, Bollywood. He learnt about my cultural background and asked really interesting questions.

We connected. Through what we truly had in common. And through that alone nothing else mattered.

See, all I needed was for him to go beyond knowing my name and skin color and actually connect with my own story.

Dinesh and I are still friends to date.

Suzee Dee

*The use of real names has been avoided voluntarily without affecting nor compromising the integrity of the story.