First impressions in “America”

“Look!” Pema grabbed her friend’s hand as she pointed toward the entrance of Save-a-Lot. Both girls giggled, and then they looked at each other and burst out in silent laughter.

Just by the entrance where the grocery carts were lined up, two adults were kissing, lip-on-lip. It was barely dark.

These exchange juniors from Nepal had seen such scenes in western movies, but for Pema this encounter was a little too early.

“Aren’t they both females?” Pema asked, startled.

The girls did a double-take at the couple unmindful of the people going in and coming out of the store. As they approached the entrance, their dying giggle died abruptly. Now their eyes watched their own steps – left right left right. They were like those firm steps of uniformed men marching in a ceremony. Quietly, they walked on the dark carpet. From the left corner of their eyes they saw the entrance door sliding open and from the right corner they saw four white feet. One wore sandal with strings the other had flip-flops.

Pema, 22, had been in “America” for just three weeks, and she was not impressed at all. She thought it was the country of tall buildings with “wide wide” roads. At least that’s what she thought she saw from the plane as it passed through the shimmering Chicago sky. Here in Kent, the tallest building she has seen is the university’s library, a mere 12- stories high. She regretted not being in a city that would have meant living in real America.

“Kent is not even like Kathmandu!”

Did those Hollywood movies lie? Where are those skyscrapers and the rush in the street? The yellow cabs, busy traffic, glass-caged mannequin wearing Lacoste or Nike – where are those images?

“Of course, I am not in New York, but people think we live in really tall buildings and eat only burgers.”

Her dad was not carried away by such American myths; he simply did not want Pema to go abroad as she already had good education in Nepal. But her mom knew education in a foreign land would do a lot better. Even when Pema’s elder sister went to the UK for her MBA, she wouldn’t want to go.

In fact, Pema had rarely gone out of Kathmandu, except while visiting some nearby cities like a tourist with a hotshot camera.

With three daughters in the family, Pema played the “boy” in the house. Now she has grown into that role and wants her parents to stay with her when two others go to their husband’s home after marriage.

“I came here only because the program is for less than two years.”

In the first week of her class she emailed her best friend --

“I hardly understand the teachers... I miss home.”

As she talks with her family and friends through free internet calls, she mentions what food she cooked or which new place she visited. With few close friends, that’s the only pastime she has for now.

“American students don’t develop friendship easily. They only smile for a second. You only have few friends here and not enough places to hang around.”

The formal atmosphere defies the instant possibility of building casual relationship among her peers. The only thing that impressed her instantly was how her mails arrived on time, how the garbage cans are cleaned daily, and how neatly people formed a line in the rush cafeteria.

“I also want Kathmandu to have some of the good things found here. But it will take 20-30 years to change. Nepal is only influenced by bad western culture.” Perhaps the openness in the street and in human body is what she refers to as “bad.”

In the segment of the city where she grew up, Buddhist monks in red robes would casually walk with strings of beads in their hand silently chanting Om mane peme houm. Elders would be called by the name of the relationship and not by their first name. Everyone who is not a friend is either an uncle or aunt or brother or sister or some in-law. Even plunging blouses are rarely seen, not even in Thamel, a tourist district in the capital city that flourished during the 1960s as western tourists bought cheap marijuana and introduced high culture.

When Pema saw those “uncomfortable” Hollywood scenes in Nepali theater, all taboos were demystified for a while. But she knows she will also change.

“I don’t know how I will be influenced. Maybe it will start with the clothes.” And she chuckles.


[Pema is not her real name.]