Just had to say...

So, this was a very interesting project and now I can't stop thinking about the questions I'm asked on a daily basis and also the questions I ask.

But I also think that I need to note that this is Alysa's final project as an undergrad! Congrats!

Don't you remember?

Although we haven't specifically addressed it yet, it's important to note that our methods involved utilizing the imperfect human memory—no one recorded all the questions they were asked each day. There were certainly some questions that people simply forgot they were asked, and some that people assumed they were asked. If we were to make this into a more formal method and to write a proper ethnography, we would have to focus it in one culture or society and record the questions we were asked each day. In this more formalized manner, we would be able to create a fuller picture of the way in which people construct identities for themselves and for strangers in their lands. However, as a small project, we can still see that the questions people ask and even the way these questions are answered are a valuable part of the identity-forming process.

"Are your eyes real?"

Laraine sent me what I thought were the greatest set of questions of all due to their uniqueness. She has been abroad twice, first to Sweden while she was in high school, and then to Senegal last year. Here are the questions she sent me:

• Are your eyes real? (Senegal only - This is my favorite.)
• Where are you from?
• How long have you been here?
• How do you like [Sweden/Senegal]?
• What are you doing here?
• Is your family here?
• How long have you been studying [Swedish/French/Wolof] ?
• Are you going home for Christmas? (Sweden only - they found it hard to believe that I wasn't)
• Do you have a husband? (Senegal only)
• Is he here/Senegalese? (In response to my affirmation that I did, indeed have a husband)

It's worth noting here that while Laraine does have very neat eyes, she's not actually married. So why did she respond that she was? It may have been a case like Gina's (see Allison's post, "Another Thought") where by responding in the affirmative it would stop people from inquiring further. But like with Cate (in my post, "'Cigar? You Want?'"), they just asked if her significant other was there and implying that the union wasn't all that important anyway.

It is also interesting to note that Laraine was asked about her family, and if they were there with her. No one else seems to have been asked that, and I myself don't recall having anyone ask about my family either. This question could have been the result of the way people had perceived Laraine or the way the particular culture values the family; I think the latter is particularly true of Sweden because, as she notes, they were surprised Laraine was not going to be returning home to her family for the Christmas holiday.

English

So this is a bit of a twist, but a few of my informants cited that English itself might be a reason in itself for a question, which Borneman also notes. Mike in Belgium wrote,

"im just guessing they were curious about other cultures, particularly about americans. while most people don't like our government, they do like americans, and were usually excited just to chat. maybe they wanted to practice their english as well."

Stefania in Italy adds a final twist by noting that English is a Lingua Franca and thus one of the most common questions she was asked was "Parla italiano, o englese?" While this is a more basic question she writes that it is not uncommon to see toursits from places like China speaking to Italians, both in English.

Personal Spin

I thought it was interesting that many of Alysa's informants/friends got similar questions as mine, and yet they offer different explanations. For example, my friend Stefania who is studying in Italy also often got the question "Hillary or Obama?", but she offers this as the explanation:

"The first question, because we need to get the fuck out of this war and everyone knows it, and much of what happens will probably be determined by whoever the next president is... and also because it is high time the US had either a black or female president. Basta"

Similarily, Kathy who was in Egypt was also often asked "Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want an Egyptian one too?" but she chalked it up to harmless teasing of American/Western women. Maybe there is less of a culture of 'western' girlfriends in Egypt or maybe some of the men are more serious than Kathy thought - most likely a combination of both.

"Where are you from?"

I'm just going to take a short detour from the standard post to recount a conversation Allison and I had the other day. We were talking about our own study abroad experiences, trying to recount some of the questions we ourselves had been asked by the citizens of our respective host countries, but we didn't get very far past "Where are you from?" We didn't get very far because we started considering the various ways we answered this question. For Allison and I, the context in which the conversation occurred largely determined how we actually answered the question. Allison recalled that when she first got to Scotland, she had an explanation as to how she went to school in DC but was actually raised in the midwest; but she later abandoned this explanation and simply told people she was from DC. (The exception being when she was on the continent where she told people she was from Edinburgh because EU students could get discounts at a lot of places.) I did a similar thing as Allison, where I started with a long explanation about where I was from, but eventually telling most people that I was from "near Boston", figuring some people in New Zealand had at least heard of Boston. Occasionally, when we were travelling about the country, I would also tell people I was from the town where my university was located (although I suspect my accent contradicted that statement a little bit).

I found it most interesting that while I said I was from the place where I had grown up, Allison chose to tell people she was from the place where she went to school. Part of this had to do with the fact that most people in Scotland did not seem to be familiar with much of U.S. geography beyond the coasts, so it was difficult for her to explain exactly where her home was. Both of us, however, were prone to altering exactly where "we were from" when the situation called for it.

While people may ask questions to learn about and understand the person they are questioning, the way in which we choose to answer those questions allows us to construct our own identities. Thus our identity may change ever so slightly in the eyes of others in the ways we answer such seemingly basic questions as "Where are you from?"

"What do you want to drink?"

I mentioned in my last post that Cate was offered cigars while in Cuba. Katie studied in Italy, and she was offered drinks (presumably wine, as it is Italy). It seems that they are being enticed with the national commodities!

"Cigar? You want?"

Cate is studying in Havana, Cuba, this semester. The questions she has been asked are similar to the questions others have been asked, although sometimes with a unique Cuban twist:

"Where you from? Cigar? You want?"

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Hillary or Obama?" [The particular irony of this particular question is that Cate is a Republican.]

Here's what Cate has to say about the kinds of questions she's been getting asked:

"No lie, Alysa, these are funny, but they're actually the most common questions that I get. And they actually say quite a bit about the society here. The first one [is] from the "jinteros" that try to take advantage of any Caucasian person that they see here, because the racist concept is that anyone who has light skin automatically has money - it's a bad consequence of the rampant tourism that has hit the island. And its even worse in the eastern part of the country, in Santiago de Cuba. The second one illustrated how women are treated here - aka, like disposable playthings. Plus, when I say, 'yes, I have a boyfriend in the States,' they say, 'Ah, yes, but he is not here, and I am.' Fidelity is an unknown concept. The last question? Cubans are very aware of US politics/culture. Very much into it, actually. And no one thinks a woman or an African-American man can win."

In Cate's analysis of both the first and the second questions I am reminded of Stephen Gregory's The Devil Behind the Mirror  in which he looks at life in the Dominican Republic, especially as it intersects with Western tourism. Cate mentions that with the first question, Cubans are trying to wean money from her (assuming that because she is a white Westerner, she has money to spare), and I can't help wonder if the same is an underlying intention in the second question. Gregory talked about the way Dominican men would try to establish sexual or romantic relationships with Western female tourists as an economic benefit or a way to get out of the Dominican Republic; perhaps this form of sex industry has also spread to Cuba.

The question of whether or not one has a boyfriend seems to be quite common among most of our friends who told us about the questions they had been asked—at least, among the women. Men never seem to be asked if they have girlfriends, wherever they go. Why might that be? (We could also go into the heteronormativity of such questions, but for now we'll just stick with gender imbalance.)

"Do you guys actually use those cups in America?"

Taylor is studying in England this semester; she's been there since February. Taylor actually has a bit of an edge on many of us who study abroad in that she spend a significant part of her childhood living in England and she maintains frequent contact with a good friend from that time who still lives in England; as a result, Taylor already had a taste of British culture before she arrived for classes. Also, because the university she attends in England is also where her British friend studies, she was able to interact immediately with British peers with whom she shared a social link.

The questions Taylor's been asked are generally pretty standard: "Where are you from?" "What university do you go to?" "Why did you come to England?"

She's also had people ask her about politics: "Who did you vote for in the primary?"

But my personal favorite is: "Do you guys actually use those cups [Solo cups] in America?" referring to the plastic cups college students have been known to use to hold their…beverages at parties. Most TV shows or movies that show American college parties will have the students holding these cups, and they are genuinely used at real college parties.

Taylor says she thinks people are asking her these types of questions (the latter two, that is) because "they were just generally interested in our country, and wanted to know what was going on in our country through an actual American rather than just what they hear on the news."

Another Thought

One thing Borneman only addresses briefly is that people were certainly asking questions about him behind his back. While this is much harder to tell it is also just as revealing. My friend Gina told me that while she was visiting her brother in Ghana he told her that if anyone asked if she was married she should say that she was engaged. It turns out this was because one of the most frequent questions he was asked was if she was available for marriage!

First Impressions

Borneman writes that “In many of my encounters, Syrians were torn between a desire for me to declare an identity – married, or unmarried, gay or not, professor, father, brother, friend, or stranger – and an equally strong desire not to eliminate the ambiguity that made possible a cultural encounter in the first place, where an experience that is not predefined unfolds” (p. 220). While I hesitate to assign a desire to preserve “ambiguity,” most of my informants/friends agreed that the questions stemmed from some desire to ‘get to know them better’ or to figure out where they fit. It was an attempt to see if they fit into preconceived notions about ‘Americans’. To quote one friend, “Oh you’re from Detroit, so that’s near New York? Ummm, not really. So it’s near Los Angeles? No.” While the questions could become a bit tiring (once while out with a friend who is from California and was constantly asked if he was from ‘Laguna Beach’ he simply replied “yes”), they also are very normal, and not limited to the other. For example, ‘where are you from’ or what do you do is one of the first things we ask when we meet someone new, because by getting some information we have a better sense of where they fit into the world (whether or not that sense is correct).

There is a psychological term (which anthropologists also sometimes use) – schema – meaning one’s concept of a category. For example, I have a schema about chairs – I have an idea what a chair is, and then I can recognize other chairs, even if I’ve never seen them before or they’re kind of weird looking chairs. Similarly I also have a schema for Americans, women, teenagers, lawyers, and many other categories that you could put people in. A lot of people guessed that these preconceptions about Americans came from the media, hence all the New York/ California references. One friend, Emily, who has been in both Germany and Scotland speculated that there is less portrayal of ‘Americans’ in German media/television than in Scotland which gets almost all American movies and many American TV shows (including the ‘awful’ ones like Laguna Beach), and that might be why Germans seemed less interested in the fact that Emily actually is from California. Although she also notes, “Or it could also be that I suck at speaking German.”

Schema (is that already plural?) are more noticeable when one doesn’t fit into a schema. This is the case with Borneman, when people are asking him if he’s married or not. Since not being married is unusual, he doesn’t fit people’s schema of what it means to be an adult male. My friend’s Bob and Beth had similar experiences when they studied abroad. Bob is in Israel, and although there are plenty of American students studying in Israel, the majority of them are Jewish. Bob isn’t Jewish and he writes that this confuses people and they often want to know why he is there. Similarly, my friend Beth was in Estonia, a country rarely visited by tourists unless they’re of Estonian descent, so Beth writes that one of the questions she was most frequently asked was something along the lines of “what’s your heritage?” – as people tried to get a handle on why she would chose to come to Estonia.

Okay I think that is long enough for one post – phew!

What are you doing?

In his book Syrian Episodes, anthropologist John Borneman proposes to use an experiential method in his ethnographic fieldwork: rather than asking people specific questions or getting them to talk about particular customs, he simply goes along with the flow of things and examines the culture from these instances. Part of his method includes using the questions people ask him—especially the questions regarding his identity—and using those to understand the people and culture he is studying (which, in his case, is Syria).

We decided to take Borneman's "questions method" and see how it would work for us. We sent an email out to a number of our friends and acquaintances who we knew had either studied abroad or spent a significant amount of time outside of the United States, meaning they were not interacting with the people in that country as a tourist might; they had been given a chance to get to know the people and the country on a deeper level. In this email, we asked our friends to try to identify some of the questions they were most commonly asked and why they thought they were asked those questions. We also had them identify where they went and how long they were there for.

While many of the questions were common questions ("Where are you from?" "What are you studying?" "Do you enjoy it here?"), some of the questions were very unusual; even more than that, the ways our friends interpreted the questions were very intuitive and demonstrated an understanding of the people with whom they had lived for so many months.

There is a general consensus that many of the questions were aimed at confirming if these Americans conformed with the ideas that were held of Americans in that place and time; this can be seen in the number of times people were asked if they were from either New York or California (perceivably the only places Americans come from) as well as the questions people were asked about the upcoming US elections.

Other questions often had to do with "getting to know you" or "because they were curious". We think this is a way of people trying to organize other people into categories or schemas as a way of understanding the world. This way of classifying the people one meets through a few basic questions allows one to make assumptions about that person which can help determine the best way in interact with that person in line with one's own cultural mores. Some of the most interesting questions came from people who differed from their hosts' expectations.

We'll be posting updates as we get new emails. Please feel free to comment on the posts regarding similar experiences, or just your thoughts on the subject. If you have been abroad and had questions posed to you which you found interesting, go ahead and email either of us and we can create a new post with your story!

Alysa & Allison