An immigrant to my own country

 

I've already written here about some of the background of moving back to Hawaii, and how the first couple of weeks went.  I really thought the groundwork preparations were mostly finished then, but another three weeks of them continued, layer after layer of setting up our family's lives.  

In a sense this post isn't about that, or about whatever culture shock I might experience, but I'll touch on both subjects more and then set them aside.  It's really about how odd it is going through a process of immigration back to my own country, not just arranging details, or dealing with culture shock, but essentially re-joining this society from the ground up, rebuilding every bit of it.

More transition details:

In an earlier post I must have covered getting an apartment here, and of course electricity, then also cell phones, wifi service access, arranging schools for my kids, passing a hurdle of two separate health checks for them.  I probably didn't mention renewing a driver's license, restoring a bank account, struggling with online bill payment functions, and helping my wife as a driving instructor.  Let's just say that last part is ongoing, that she isn't a licensed driver yet, but not for lack of trying.  

Oddly she's an amazing driver in Bangkok, and had a Hawaii driver's license in the past, but switching back over to proficiency here is taking time, changing over to driving on the other sides of the road and car.  That was hard for me there; it took months, or even a full year, to really feel comfortable driving on the other side of the road, and that only felt completely natural after years of practice.

as one would imagine the botanical gardens here are amazing

It's all normal enough.  Something like getting a library card was easy and special; we read a few books every night, as we had back in Bangkok, but now they vary daily, because they're not just what my kids already own.  I suppose it's a little odd that details keep coming, that there is always one more layer, like setting up subsidized health care for my kids, since my last coverage plan only works in Thailand.

We really are poor now, related to using a Thai income to support parts of two households, which wasn't more than enough to support only one with a lower cost of living earlier on.  Some details we just won't arrange for awhile, like sleeping on beds instead of the floor.  It's a battle to free up spending for any small luxuries, for example spending $46 on a comfortable chair for the apartment.  It's all a trade-off, spending for anything.  We've bought shave ice a couple of times; even frivolous spending seems important in some cases.

another version not far from this place used natural reduced fruit toppings, just amazing

this chair cost less than subs from Subway, but somehow it felt like an investment purchase

There is no status update about job hunting, beyond a "headhunter" helping with the process.  It's still completely up in the air.  If anyone has a friend related to IT processes and ISO systems work in Hawaii help with that would be appreciated.  There's seemingly no chance of doing work related to tea.

Our kids do well in school, socially and academically.  Both are well behind in English, to the extent that my daughter is in a special class program, and that's the only class that my son hasn't been able to catch up in yet.  Their spoken English is on-par with their peers, or probably ahead of many, but years of limited education exposure in a Thai based school is hard to overcome.  They were in online classes for over two years back in Bangkok; that definitely didn't help.

I keep asking my son and daughter how it goes, and beyond the standard "good" Keo recently mentioned that it still feels a little like being on a vacation.  It should; we live in Waikiki, the main resort area.  And it's a complete break from their prior life, how vacations go.  They seem fine, and stable, but the odd stress indicator still gives me cause for concern.  Kalani drew a cool picture of many images that included a theme of murder more than I would like, probably partly related to video games she is playing, but stress could come into play.  Keo had melt-downs frequently earlier on, about feeling displaced, and missing the cat, just all of it, but that ended.

Let's move on to cover culture shock a little and get to that root experience of being an immigrant after.

Culture shock, layers of local culture

There are a lot of social groups here, many distinct cultures, not just one.  We helped decorate a float for a local parade, a little, and that brought us in contact with a contender for the truest local culture, native local Hawaiians.  Our uncle Al--not a relative by blood--invited us to that, as part of a Hawaiian Airlines float preparation he and his wife were involved in.  I don't feel so connected to that perspective or local group; this is definitely no sort of claim about that.  But it was welcome contact, and it is great to be considered family by him and his wife.  His nephew is really nice; it felt a little like an older cousin passing on advice in talking to him with Keo.

that one connection is probably indirectly why we are here, more than any other single input

they won first place for that float, just not even partly related to our efforts

Of course Waikiki is full of tourists, and service workers, who are generally transplants, and who form the labor infrastructure.  I was a service working in a resort area, in the Vail Valley (so tied to a winter sports theme), and here too, during grad school, so all that is familiar.  That was an earlier life though, and I'm not taking that up again, at least not yet, or not related to any plans.  There isn't much to say about exposure to those two forms of culture, not that "tourist" is a culture, more an activity and mindset, a mode people from anywhere can easily relate to, even with limited exposure.

I had thought the conservative and liberal divide in the US would show up more than it has.  Yesterday--at time of first draft--we visited a Sam's Club and heard country music there, and saw people wearing camo ball caps.  The same day we also visited a local organic foods grocery store, and saw tattooed young women wearing robe-like dresses there, who surely did yoga, and guys with long hair in a bun (not so unlike my own now; kind of strange).  We were in the presence of both sides of that, just not actually involved, beyond buying in bulk (milk, butter, OJ, and a cherry pie--we had already picked up veggies and meat there recently), and also bought protein powder, vitamins, and flax seed oil at the other place.  What to add about contact with those two groups and contexts?  We're not really a part of either.  But then I have been completely integrated with both, at different times in my life, so it's a bit odd.

A third very short outing brought up limited contact with a third group, which I experienced as a mild culture shock.  I ran around Diamond Head a couple days ago (which I'm still feeling), and saw a sport enthusiast group there, that I'm also not really a part of, but I do some of the same things.  We rented a car for that driver's license test and later visited the beaches there, catching a look at local surfing spots, and surfers.  Of course those people look amazing, like those old "Point Break" characters come to life, but much more impressive.  A Hollywood actor can pack on 20 pounds of muscle and strip off body fat in 6 months of prep but it takes a long lifestyle to look like those people, just lean and ripped, sun darkened and agile.  Even a half dozen years into being a "snowboard bum" I probably wasn't that fit, but I could accomplish impossible athletic feats back then, with ease, so it was really just how different sports activity training changes outward appearance.

Kalani's school; I never take pictures of the classmates, since parents might not be ok with it

It's odd how recognizing they are a different group felt different than related to the others, or walking through my old UH Manoa campus seeing almost every female student wearing yoga pants (which we "didn't have" back then).  I don't know who those surfer people are; maybe that's the difference.  I've been a version of all those other groups, and it's a stretch to say that being a snow-sports enthusiast shared common ground.  I suppose that it did, but the local culture would've been quite different.  It makes me think back to picking up some "dude speak" back then, with people using brau instead of bro or dude marking how they saw the role.

I was briefly in a higher tier social status club here once for a short meeting, and caught a look at another group, the more successful locals.  It's odd that I've never been a part of that circle either.  Earlier academic progress and short starts toward a successful career made that seem within reach, but it never really came together.  The wealthy class was familiar from that ski resort time, serving them.  The different social / economic levels in the US associate mostly within their own range, which is fine, but depending on the form of contact with other levels that can be uncomfortable.

That leads on to discussing my current immigrant status.  I've mixed with other immigrants here, or local versions of them, parents of my kids' classmates, or visiting Chinatown.  For now those are as much "my people" as any other, outsiders who might only get so far in joining other groups.

Immigrating back to the US

At least I've got the paperwork, right, a passport and working rights?  It was easy to get a new Social Security card, one of many, many errand steps.  All the same re-integrating feels like the layers add up to building a new life, and it feels like my status as outsider is something to bridge over.  It's not mostly about culture shock, shifting perspective, or not really truly matching how others see things.  It's how it all adds together, spending time feeling out of place, even in relation to living in a foreign country, although that was worse for the first half dozen years or so.

Another aside will fill in some context.  My daughter has two best friends, and lots of others, one from Japan (a wonderful girl, just as special as my own, which is kind of amazing).  The other, who is surely also wonderful in her own way, I don't know so well.  She is the daughter of two Americans, a military family, with a mixed genetic background but still from that culture.  There's a language divide in talking to the first girl's mother, but the feeling of being a little out of place seems like as much common ground as I have with anyone.  I share most of the other details about local culture and experiences, and US culture, the past decade of history, I share with the other family, but only to a limited extent.  I experienced most of all that last decade's worth of US culture changes through online contact.  

It's interesting thinking back to when I last lived in the US mainland; I was here from 2005 to 2007, so even then Facebook and smart phones didn't exist yet.  A lot changed since.

Parts of cultural background run deeper, not related to changes, like growing up with Christmas as a theme, knowing and loving the American music tradition, or American food preferences, and I only lived out selected parts of that in my Thai life.  My kids have never carved a jack-o-lantern, for example, and have never been trick-or-treating.  I just bought them a bag of candy corn, and they tried it for the first time (so-so for them, but my daughter likes it better than Keo).  I won't be here at the end of October to support them through that, although we probably will carve that pumpkin earlier on, to get that part in.  And we should buy a costume of some kind for my daughter, but we're not good with those kinds of details.

No need to mince words:  to repeat, we are poor now.  I could write a 1000 word post just about that, but these ideas aren't mostly about that, as I see them.  At this point we need to do what we have to do to build up a life, to eat whatever we need to eat, to walk instead of drive when it's time to do some things, to see busing as a luxury we can't always rely on (although with better planning related to monthly passes that would've went better).  I don't feel bad about exposing my kids to that experience; I think they can learn a lot from it.  I keep telling them the best way to get through it, to endure it to the other side, if there is one, is to delete most of the automatic "I want" response from their thinking and vocabulary.  Of course that's not possible, but they will become conscious of what they consume in a different way from this, and of what they've taken for granted in the past.  We were middle class in Bangkok; we lived in a nice house, had a car (of course), went out to eat all the time, enrolled them in lots of extra sports activities, traveled quite a bit, and so on.

outdoor experiences replaced mall outings, but I never take a phone to the beach to capture that

In some senses it is sad, and goes a bit far.  We just took my daughter to "picture day" at her school and her wardrobe here doesn't support dressing up beyond what other kids would tend to regard as "play clothes," the more disposable garments they own.  Her school theme relates to members being middle class and below, with immigration and poverty being running themes, but in terms of her clothing she is at the lowest end of that range.  That's a bit much; we could work on that part.  Oddly Keo won't stop wearing polo shirts to school, when no one at his school does; their two sets of clothing ended up differing so much related mostly to how they packed, which we should've checked better.  I guess it's also that she had lots of clothes for a slightly smaller body size, then grew, and we never re-upped it all.  The main input seemed to be that only a bit of both of their wardrobes made the trip in a single suitcase worth of space, and apparently we didn't review that.

Kalani is quite confident, and makes it work anyway.  She doesn't miss keeping up with such appearances, instead it's the random things she wants that we can't provide, a popular toy, whatever beach gear she wants.  She does own two snorkel sets, a body board, plenty of swimsuits, and a second swim ring (the last one just broke, and we replaced it from a thrift store), so it's not about owning nothing, just missing this or that.  We just bought her some Legos yesterday, with that swim ring, but there is no way to replace everything that is Bangkok, or provide a normal amount of things, or a housing setting that matches her friends', yet.

I guess that a true immigrant wouldn't be building on all the connections that I've already mentioned.  I've been an overlapping member of most of these social groups; that's why I can sort of relate to them, and am not really a true outsider.  My wife and I married here in grad school, and lived in this same building for a year, 15 years ago.  I'm working remotely online now, so the financial struggle is not quite as desperate as it would be if this was a running tab working off debt.  My mother-in-law is supporting that end too, really more than we are, so the financial stress is more an abstract theme than a pressing daily concern.

That one point keep keeps coming to mind, about how all the people here are in different social groups too, with a mix of varying interests and types of connections.  It feels normal to them because it built up organically, and there are other friends and family who see the range as a normal set, so they can too.

There's a standard idea that the service industry types that transplant here tend to leave later because they tire of struggling to make ends meet, related to the high cost of living.  It's that "living in paradise" eventually doesn't seem like a fair exchange for putting in extra hours and doing without, whatever they end up doing without.  I've seen that cycle in a ski resort more, and also here.  Maybe it's not so much about doing without, and costs, as it is the connections seeming unbalanced after awhile.  

There was an idea that ski-bums would "come for the winter, and stay for the summers," that the feel and environment having two dimensions of appeal made people stay.  It was probably that people could connect to more than just 4 to 5 months of a couple of sports.  By "stay" that often meant spending a half dozen years instead of the shorter form of 2 or 3.  To really stay an employment theme needed to click, for example venturing into real estate sales, or at least restaurant management instead of just serving.   There's a pretty broad middle level of resort service work management here to access too.

It could click well for me here since I never will have a completely single-culture perspective again, and that all mixes here.  As one expat once put it eventually you just feel equally out of place everywhere.  I'm still a long, long way from seeming like a local insider to people in an IT industry though, or any industry I might work in, maybe unless service work can work out, which I don't foresee.  I'm not local, and to some extent can never be, just as was the case in Bangkok.  Half of everyone here lives like that though, so maybe it's still common ground, of a unique sort.

It's interesting asking my kids how they experience that, if there is any tension about being mixed race, or foreign.  In a word, no.  Kalani was accepted quickly and completely, and her classmates look like the cast of some sort of diversity oriented commercial.  Two favorites are black, one is Thai, and I'm not sure any of them are completely white.  Keo said that people asked where he was from, and upon hearing "Thailand" they only paused and then responded "good for you."  His accent is from the mainland, but a conventional "haole"--a local racial slur meaning white--isn't mixed race and Asian.  

It reminds me of my wife joking in Chinatown restaurants how I was the only haole there, many years back.  It was funny because she was better accepted than me, in my own country, but not in my native culture.  You have to go to local Hawaiian places to actually experience that racism, so it was just a joke there, but the Hawaiians I've met have been wonderful people, with absolutely no hate in their hearts, at least as far as I could tell.  That "aloha" theme is a real thing.  I suspect that they have deep reservations about the negative sides of development, or issues like increasing homelessness, but faced with actual transplants they can relate to them positively.  Maybe I should leave off there, and get back to that in another post, about how you can't miss a range of amazingly positive sides here.  

true local culture is about connections between people, not stereotype images, not only here

That's if you get out of Waikiki; turning a beach theme into an immersive outdoor shopping mall, restaurant, hotel, convenience store, and bar environment is nasty.  It's like the Vegas strip, but with an ocean beside it.  It's fine if people are on that page, but to me it's the opposite of what Hawaii is really about, the appealing and magical sides of it.  But I'll get back to all that.  

For now, aloha.

cheerful enough on a break, but the driving instructor role has been really stressful

from the latest hike, a ridgeline version

view of Honolulu from up there