Adventures in Academia

Drops

ADVENTURES IN ACADEMIA

Introduction

From the beginning to the end, this is the true story of a young woman’s attempt to succeed in the wondrous world of American academia. Coming from a distant country, used to a different lifestyle, the first encounter was a bumpy road, but she loved it all. Her family was travelling with her. For many years they had lived happily in Jakarta, Indonesia, savoring the sweet flavor of the Indonesian islands before deciding to relocate to the United States. On a tour around the globe they went from Jakarta to Rome, Italy, her motherland, and after a short visit reached their final destination: Los Angeles. They were ready for a dive into the Californian culture.

This story records the young woman’s impressions and reactions arriving in the City of Angels, her enthusiasm for the new environment, but also the difficulties in accepting and adapting to a foreign way of life. In fact, it took her a while to feel at ease and to learn enough English to enter the academic arena.

All characters described in this writing portray real people who participated in and enriched her unforgettable experience. She changed their names to respect their privacy, though it is sure that in the narration each of them may recognize their identity. From the start, even through hard and sometimes embarrassing experiences, the protagonist felt blessed by the opportunity, the space, and energy this land and its people bestowed upon her. It has been, for her, a magnificent adventure. Her name is Savina.

The City of Angels

The City of Angels appeared in her dreams as a paradise full of light and warmth, populated by the most beautiful beings on earth. She landed, however, among people who seemed to her rather barbarous, particularly in their lack of good manners, compared to the social behavior she had learned both in Europe and in Indonesia. It was difficult to accept that precisely the scarcity of politeness could be a positive and innovative quality in this new race of free spirits.

After quite a long period of adjustment, feeling a real stranger in the American paradise, her adventures in academia started in the 1990s. She had to learn the language that she had always refused to learn in school. Fortunately, the lack of English fluency was partly compensated by the perceptive ability to detect people’s character she had acquired and practiced daily at the Jakarta markets. Her Italian lenses had been radically modified by the Indonesian experience: the visceral love for America felt by a majority of Italians was tempered by the love-hate for Americans she had absorbed dealing with Indonesians.

Years before, arriving in Jakarta from Italy, it had taken her some time to be accepted in the Indonesian community and it was hard work. It paid off because her body and mind were then exposed to a fascinating new dimension, drastically opposed to European intellectualism. Living among Indonesians and learning their language placed her in a privileged position from which she could understand and appreciate the sharp psychological differences between Eastern and Western cultures. In fact, the diverse experience increased her ability to adjust to opposite sides, but also it enhanced her criticism of American culture. The Italian snobbish, individualistic mind-set, tinted by its uncritical love for all that is American, was transformed by the keen perception and sensibility of the Indonesian soul. It was indeed the best combination that served her well to understand the illusive reality of American society. Surprisingly, within the American paradise of democratic freedom, she began discovering untold ignorance, social chaos hidden under a shiny façade and a shameful waste of natural resources. Her companion could not bear it and yearned to go back to the Indonesian jungle, but she and the children were to stay.

Exhausted from the long travel, they arrived in the City of Angels and were exploring the downtown area. She had just paused with the family in a coffee shop where a bunch of seemingly males, dressed and made up like women, were having their breakfast: it was a colorful scene. She liked it, although her travel companion looked at her with a shocked expression, which at first she could not understand. To her mind, there was nothing disturbing or offensive in men wearing picturesque costumes. He had to explain it. Well, it was all so new to her and she did have an artistic bent for colorful and interesting images.

Right after, she was the one to be shocked: on a road going up the hill a creature appeared, descending toward them, its body moving heavily in a rocking motion as if walking on a boat in stormy waters. It was an enormous being with a small head cast upon some gelatinous matter on top of a round, voluminous body. It had massive arms and the legs, undistinguishable from the body’s rotundity, were moving slowly, rolling down the street. At first she did not think it could be human and she felt scared, but she was also curious. She stopped herself from running away in the opposite direction: she did not want to scare the kids with her reaction. Her friend did not seem to be impressed: it was not his first time in America, and he must have been familiar with that kind of creature. So she waited until she could detect clearly the deformed face of what could have been a female. The gender, though, was not clear; the malformation of the body parts and the uncombed, scarce grey hair made difficult to guess it. Savina was amazed. In her country she had heard of a particular phenomenon called obesity, but she could never imagine people subject to such a monstrosity. She had heard also that a person affected by obesity would find all possible reasons for it except the obvious one: excessive and disorderly eating.

At the time she thought it should be forbidden for obese people to enter restaurants, supermarkets, theaters, deli shops, all the places where they could find food, and also places where they would take too much space to the disadvantage of others. She did not think, however, that her drastic solution would be acceptable, because she was aware that in the States there is much concern about human rights and individual freedom of expression. Savina guessed anyone is free to be obese, after all: the fact that obesity is a health hazard is moot compared to the right of choice that all individuals must enjoy. She kept ruminating on it for some time, not being convinced that the whole idea of human rights could really apply to all human endeavors. Something needed to be done to counteract the spreading of what appeared to be a serious illness. Obesity was clearly a product of the American economy: too much wealth, too much food, unhealthy eating. In a country like Indonesia, obesity was unthinkable: there was often barely enough food to put on the table for many families. In Italy, traditionally the food was treated with great respect, utilized in all its parts, and never thrown in the garbage, as often it happens in United States. At the time she was growing up in Rome, she never saw any obese person, and never thought obesity could exist: the same in Jakarta, where she spent most of her young years.

The Great American Food

That morning of their arrival was not a good beginning: it was a first encounter with a hard reality. The existence of obesity had made its mark in Savina’s consciousness. In any case, that day it was afternoon, and she was hungry. They had not eaten the whole day since landing. She was eager to taste the greatest American food, the hamburger. Her companion showed her the best place selling the best hamburger, so he said. Perhaps because of an empty stomach combined with the exhaustion from the long travel, and the shock at the first sight of the obese creature, just looking at the hamburger on the paper plate she felt a mounting anger. The fact is she did not know how to approach that thing lying in front of her without making a huge mess. The round bread was too big for her mouth, although fork and knife were out of the question. The two half-breads were filled with a variety of edible stuff such as green salad, cheese, meat in several layers so that any attempt of squeezing the bread biting it would have resulted in the projection of the content off the bread. Same in case she tried using fork and knife. The squeezing either with the mouth or with a knife would have caused a disgusting mess of cheesy matter falling on the paper plate. By the way, she hated paper plates.

So it happened that she was so angry for the insanity of it all that she began yelling at the top of her lungs like never before. She was known for her quiet and composed behavior but now she was in the Wild West, where people do all kinds of illogical things. Yet they pretend to be highly civilized and use big words to define themselves as the civilized society par excellence.

That was her reaction, but she should not have been so angry. Why was she so incapable of seeing the progress of making common and inexpensive food for all people to fight hunger and distress everywhere? The hamburger was the most democratic food, and she should have appreciated it. Unfortunately, at that time, the great American hamburger was too much for her; culture shock ran deeply and was unforgiving. She never tasted another hamburger.

Some of her American friends knew of the tragic scene at the hamburger place and took pity on her. They invited them all to dinner. It was at a beautiful home with a beautiful family full of life. She was finally relaxed and happy to have company when she realized that the company included a multitude of minuscule insects jumping everywhere, on her as well, making her itchy all over. After a careful inquiry she came to know that those little insects were fleas. She had never seen a flea. She jumped on her chair for the sudden surprise, while the other guests were quietly chatting, smoking and drinking coffee, unconcerned by her discovery.

She had a similar surprise in Indonesia, when she experienced the first head lice, whose appearance on her daughter’s head left her horrified. She noticed that the young family maid was picking something from her daughter’s hair, so she asked what she was doing. The girl answered simply, with an innocent smile, just as if picking lice was the most normal thing to do. Well, it appeared that it was a typical local activity. In Savina’s native country, people do not give permission to either fleas or head lice to keep them company. In the United States she had the first experience with fleas. In Indonesia she had her first encounter with head lice; but not the last one, because once the kids were in school in the United States periodically there were head lice emergencies, which implied a complex sanitizing operation. It has not been any better through time. In fact, now her grandchildren are infested with lice, just as her daughters were. However, Americans proudly exercise their successful money-making businesses that for a few hundred dollars can kill the little obnoxious beasts on everybody’s hair, at least for a couple of weeks. The constant recurrence of head lice in schools everywhere is by now a common happening contributing to a flourishing local economy. American ingenuity knows no boundaries. What a relief.

After just a few weeks in this great country, Savina had to do a lot of thinking. At her Italian home, cleaning and washing were essential daily chores: no chances for either head lice or fleas to find a suitable environment. Also, among other things, dogs, or other animal species, could not share every activity with humans: most of all they were forbidden to lick the plates at the table, as she saw a huge dog do at her American friends’ dinner. The first essential thing that came to her mind was the absence of domestic help. Either in Europe or in Indonesia, a household even with modest income has often at least one person, who does the cleaning, cooks, or takes care of children. It is part of the lifestyle. In Italy, a house worker arrived early morning at her home and helped with various chores until evening. In Indonesia, three young girls shared all the necessary work: to have more hands at a woman’s disposal was a blessing. Arriving in the States, the democratic country where supposedly there are no servants—except illegal men and women—it was clear that a woman was on her own and with tons of work, unless she had a good willing companion ready to cooperate. In her opinion, the lack of help and the presence of young children needing constant attention accounted for the repellent mess she saw for the first time at her American friends’ home. She noticed that men were kind, contrary to the usual arrogance displayed by Italian males, but they did not have enough experience for all the necessary work. Among other things, both men and women did not make any effort to keep the dogs off the table and to fight the infestation of fleas or other parasites she never thought to find in an advanced country like America.

There was also no discipline concerning the children, who were mostly free to follow